?
I suppose it would depend on the conditions of "world peace" . Do all the war-mongering extremists implode? Do all the warring factions in the middle east suddenly have an epiphany and start practicing some acceptance towards each other? Are all our demands for resources suddenly null and void? Does one superpower or another dominate all opposition and conquer all other countries?
The hunger/thirst proposition seems less complicated: for some reason, everyone has food and water enough to satiate them. The only "monkey's paw" I see here is maybe the way that happens is killing a good portion of the world population, so an abundance is left, and no remaining people starve or go hungry. If we assume a pleasant "wish granting" scenario, I think I'll take world peace. If war was not around to distract humanity, then I think resources could naturally be diverted to reducing human suffering. Maybe that's idealistic thinking, but if the U.S. isn't spending billions on keeping up our military, surely even the most conservatively thinking of politicians could justify helping out the homeless a bit more. Then again, building weapons pumps money into SOME economy somewhere, so maybe there wouldn't just be piles of wealth lying around. I still think if we didn't have wars to think about, social issues would at least become more talked about.