If you look at warfare for thousands of years at first very few people were killed in wars. It was mostly men counting coup on each others. So, it was mostly tribes maintaining the borders of their territory with very few people being killed.
However, as the population slowly grew in times of famine in some areas where rainfall was low caused these people out of desperation to steal from others in areas where there was still food and this caused many deaths on both sides.
But then the Industrial revolution began and we had world war I with Machine guns that wiped out a whole regiment of horse soldiers the first time they were used. Horses stopped being used for battle pretty much after this.
Then because planes were invented they became the decisive end to World War II from Americans not having their country bombed and using this time to outbuild bombers over Germany and Japan. Millions died in Europe and Japan from B-17s and B-25 and other fighters and bombers. Both Europe and Japan were firebombed and millions of people were burned alive. More was made of the atomic bombs at the time but in actual loss of life nothing compared to firebombing whole cities of civilians with a few soldiers present. This is what actually won the war in the end.
As you have noticed the more distant people can be from those they kill the more they can kill without serious problems for the young men especially when young men are directed to kill at greater and greater distances.
Now, we have things done at ever greater distances than before. Drones are flown often to assassinate people on the other side of the world and flown often from the U.S. through satellites or when contact is broken for one reason or another those drones fly autonomously and can kill without any human contact at all.
The more distance there is between a person and the death of another person through battle the easier it is to kill others the more likely a lot of people are going to die.
For example, imagine one day another third world country that is not democractic has access to thousands of autonomous drones. One day they are set by a programmer to kill people dressed in a certain way (either kill all women or kill all men or kill all people including children dressed in a certain way or with a certain hair or skin color. So, one day say during the night and into the early morning the programming of these drones goes off and they all take off at once and extinct one demographic in that country before everyone understands what is happening because there isn't time for it to reach the news because it was suppressed in that country because it is a third world nation governed by War Lords.
So, in that country on that day there is basic extinction of whatever group of people that was.
This is one of the long term problems of autonomous Drones flying above us. I don't expect it to happen here in the U.S. yet. But I do expect this scenario to happen sometime in the next 50 years somewhere on earth like Somalia, or Syria, or Afghanistan or Pakistan or somewhere else on earth.
And the problem with this is once it happens other countries will follow suit.
This likely will be one of the ways human population will be extremely reduced on earth. But, the consequences of doing it like this will make the lives of all on earth a horror.
Another problem is that weather is going to kill millions of people in this century alone. If drones are also killing millions of people life on earth won't be worth living for anyone.
So, a way forward needs to be found that people can live with and still want to be alive worldwide.
Note: And then you have movies like Ender's Game which demonstrate what happens when older children are used in battles when they think they are only playing video games. So, when people are told they are only training or playing games and actually are wiping out whole countries, the human race has a really big problem.
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