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LONGREAD: Can humanity mentally survive another world war?

World War II (WWII) was so far the deadliest conflict ever. It is estimated that a total of sixty to eighty million people died, which was about three percent of the total world population. About two-thirds to three-quarters were civilians, mainly due to genocides such as the Holocaust, widespread famine, and diseases. This war began in 1939 and ended in 1945. Years earlier, from 1914 to 1918, an estimated fifteen to twenty-two million people died during World War I (WWI), including more than seven million combat deaths. The estimated world population during WWI was 1.7 billion people, and around 1939 there were two billion people. Few families remained unaffected during WWII due to direct involvement in the war or by its widespread economic and societal impacts. Imagine that at least three percent of the current total world population were to die within a period of six years, as happened during WWII. This would mean that at least 280 million people would die. However, the population density during WWII was much lower, fewer people lived in urban areas that were completely dependent on stores for their basic needs such as food, and (military) technology was not as advanced as it is today. Based on this, more casualties than during WWII are conceivable in a new world war, not to mention all the people who would be displaced worldwide. Is this a burden that humanity could bear again? In a century in which conflicts seemingly become more cruel and more inhumane than ever, is this not a question we should ask ourselves?

How you are turned into a national security threat

At the start of April 2026 there were 5.79 billion social media user identities with an annual growth of 5.4 percent. This indicates that more than two in three people around the world use social media each month. It is estimated that that is 94.7 percent of all internet users. Internet users’ primary reason for using the internet in 2022 was to find information. Secondly, users wanted to stay in touch with family and friends. The third reason was that they want to stay up to date with news and events. Other common reasons for using the Internet are: watching videos, television shows or movies; researching how to do things; finding new ideas or inspiration; accessing and listening to music; researching products and brands; filling leisure time and general browsing; educational and study-related purposes; researching places, holidays, and travel; researching health issues and healthcare products; managing finances and savings; gaming; and for business-related research. The vast majority of the data has been created in the past few years. This data explosion is caused, among other things, by the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), the increase in the number of smart devices (Internet of Things (IoT)) that are connected to cloud servers and share and store data in real-time, streaming and increasingly high-resolution content on platforms such as Netflix and YouTube, and everything we do on the internet nowadays, for private or professional reasons, that is automatically synced into the cloud. Since 1986, the amount of available data storage has grown from 2.6 to 5,800 Exabytes in 2020. It is expected that by 2035 the data volume will surpass the most ambitious forecasts due to quantum computing, the next generation of IoT and AI applications. This raises the question of how secure your personal data is that you leave on the internet and in the cloud.

About the world of today

The world we knew in the 20^th century no longer exists. Much has changed since the end of the Second World War. Appliances such as front-loading washing machines and automatic dishwashers were just being introduced then. While the first electronic black-and-white televisions were already introduced in Europe in the United Kingdom and Germany in the 1930s, it took at least another twenty years before they became commonplace, as more and more countries began broadcasting their first television programmes. In 1969, the Advance Research Projects Agency Network (APRANET) was built by the United States Department of Defense. It was a network no larger than four computers. The network expanded and became international in 1973. In 1982, interconnected networks were born, called ‘internet’. In 1989, the World Wide Web was invented by Tim Berners-Lee. After the first browser was brought to market by Marc Andreessen in 1993, Berners-Lee founded the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). In 2003, LinkedIn became the first social media platform. Many platforms followed. Rapid rises in stock valuations in the technology and internet sector led to overenthusiasm among investors, causing the dot-com bubble recession in 2001.