World War Not
In early March 2019, a Facebook page titled “WorldWarBot 2020” was launched. The premise was simple: An active geographic simulation and timeline of an every-nation-for-itself war beginning in 2020. Every hour corresponds to one month, during which one conquest occurs. Each conquest is determined by the random selection of one territory, which is defined by its average center of area, or centroid, and that territory conquers the nearest foreign centroid. So, as one nation conquers more territories, it has a greater chance of making the next conquest. Besides that domino effect, the simulation is of course completely implausible.
WorldWarBot is now followed by nearly 300,000 users. After one month of the original simulation, the “Imperio Mundial del Paraguay” overtook the final Antarctica-held territory, drawing World War 2020 to an end. In celebration of victory, Paraguayan flag merchandise items are available on an online store. Due to heavy Facebook page traffic on version one, the independent domain worldwarbot.com has launched and completed a second and third simulation, won by Spain and Malaysia respectively.
The programmer acknowledged early on that the first script was wholly unrealistic and riddled with bugs, and promised that future versions would account for actual geopolitical factors. However, a user poll decided that the original be seen through to its absurd end. The large following and level of interaction suggest that this page could be influential somehow. Concern that followers might believe that WorldWarBot indicates real world power dynamics could be warranted. Facebook has been known as a major gallery of disinformation.
However, the programmer regularly emphasized that the page is billed as an entertainment website and should be taken as such. Moreover, a closer look into the page shows that each hourly post has hundreds to thousands of reactions and comments. Those comments often came from followers of the newly conquered or conquering nation, jeering proud or agonized like sports fans. But, they also developed into international conversations and team alliances as the simulation progressed. Antarctica’s success in particular sparked a long discussion on penguins. In the end, many users posted extensive notes toasting the programmer and fellow followers. One user in Russia, whose post garnered over 6,000 positive reactions, said “Lesotho (the third largest peak empire) and Paraguay were places we couldn’t point to on a map, and now we know more about geography and penguins than ever before.”
Although social media platforms like Facebook remain as breeding grounds for manipulated information and privacy transgressions, there may still be hope for their purported purpose as engines of global goodwill and connectivity. Where else could hundreds of thousands of people from nearly every nation collectively defuse international antagonism with a bit of humor? That is no immediate solution to real-world conflict, but it is not a bad place to start.