--- title: Why the Third World War Will Be About Water description: Why the next world war will be about water, privatizing playtime, rethinking nepotism and more. canonical: https://time.com/4329237/third-world-war-water/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-05-13T16:01:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:00:00.240Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why the Third World War Will Be About Water og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4329237/third-world-war-water/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why the Third World War Will Be About Water twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Why the Third World War Will Be About Water by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute May 13, 2016 4:01 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute May 13, 2016 4:01 PM UTC **1\.** [**“The third world war will be about water.”**](http://www.policyinnovations.org/ideas/innovations/data/00308) By Amrita Gupta in Policy Innovations from the Carnegie Council **2\.** [**We are privatizing children’s playtime.**](https://psmag.com/the-privatization-of-childhood-play-956b02c154d3#.ystv4b98x) By Malcolm Harris in Pacific Standard **3\.** [**Is there an upside to nepotism?**](http://www.ozy.com/immodest-proposal/nepotism-good-for-business/39273) By Sean Braswell in Ozy **4\.** [**This app opens the doors to air traffic control — for drones.**](http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/05/by-mapping-the-skies-airmap-app-paves-the-way-to-a-drone-filled-future/) By Sean Gallagher at Ars Technica **5\.** [**Yes, it’s possible to forget a bad memory.**](http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/05/how-to-make-yourself-forget-a-bad-memory.html) By Cari Romm in the Science of Us  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4329237/third-world-war-water/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4329237/third-world-war-water/"},"headline":"Why the Third World War Will Be About Water","datePublished":"2016-05-13T16:01:28.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:00:00.240Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4329237/third-world-war-water/","keywords":["Innovation","Work","Water","Drones","memory","Play"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4329237/third-world-war-water/","name":"Why the Third World War Will Be About Water"}}]}] ```