Did the benefits of World War I outweigh the drawbacks?

It is, in all honesty, difficult to think of any direct benefits of World War I, and certainly not any that would outweigh its horrific consequences. Over 17 million people died in World War I, including nine million soldiers. Countless more, indeed entire generations of young men, were severely wounded. The war ushered in technology, including poison gas, the airplane, and rapid-fire machine guns, that were put to devastating effect. It directly contributed to the advent of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. It created a postwar order that was an ideal environment for the rise of dictatorships, including Mussolini and Hitler. In short,  it paved the way for World War II, which was even more horrific. One might argue on rather tenuous grounds that it helped to destabilize empires, thus paving the way for decolonization after World War II, and perhaps even that it laid the framework for international organizations with the League of Nations. One might also point to its role in creating an atmosphere in which women were granted the right to vote in Great Britain and the United States. But it is difficult to say that even this last momentous and welcome development in any way balanced out the horrors of the First World War.