5 ms·

I never understand why America spends an obscene amount of money to make technology to kill other people. Education is suffering, public transportation and heal

by nojvek 10y ago

I never understand why America spends an obscene amount of money to make technology to kill other people. Education is suffering, public transportation and healthcare is ridiculously behind western nations but military still gets an insane budget. I would like Google and Apple to really up their game on security.

visarga 10y ago
It's a consequence of the puritanical roots of US. It's a fetish for punishment.
- sdoering 10y ago
  This does seem to me to be a little bit of a to easy explanation. Is it really so that this can be tied back to the founding roots of the country, when the setup of the population nowadays can be tied back to so many different influences from different parts of the world? I never understood the "fetish" of Hollywood for the lone ranger and bullet slinging revenge guy. Or the idea that guns are a valid protection. Non the less - there are other parts of the world that maybe have the same (or even higher) amounts of guns in private possession without the military and police fetish. I am even not sure, that this is a valid correlation. Private gun ownership and police/military spending/fetish.
  - ciaranm 10y ago
    From an outsider's perspective, nowhere comes close to the US for gun (and by extension, miltary/police) fetish. Wikipedia seems to back up my first thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...
wwweston 10y ago
It might be part and parcel with the American Dream. Believing that society is a meritocracy -- that your success or failure is primarily a function of the effort you put in (plus whatever sui generis "merit" you personally have) is another version of a just world. And if you have a just world, well, surely if you've commanded the attention of the police or ire of the military, you've done something to deserve it, right?
- tr1ck5t3r 10y ago
  You forget the espionage aspect or extortion aspects. All technology is dual use. You can make your own fake cell towers for under £100 with a raspberrypi and a USB Software Defined Radio (SDR) adaptor that's got a range of 40metres. However its not just fake cell towers you can make, you can listen into calls made with wireless handsets that plug into landlines, obviously crack wifi, but you can also intercept and mess around with peoples air conditioning, lighting systems and central heating if these use radio frequency. The infrared remote controls need line of sight to interfere with devices, so someone appearing at your lounge window to switch TV channels is a bit obvious. Some instructions you may be interested in. This link even played Stevie Wonder's "I just called" to hacked mobiles, but you can download everyones messages, and other files from their smart phones now a days or infect their smart phone, again dual use! https://julianoliver.com/output/stealth-cell-tower https://julianoliver.com/output/stealth-cell-tower http://hackaday.com/2013/10/22/cracking-gsm-with-rtl-sdr-for-thirty-dollars/ http://hackaday.com/2013/10/22/cracking-gsm-with-rtl-sdr-for... Even back in 2008 its been going on, well actually I was first alerted to it in the 90's, when mobiles were just coming into existence, that person who alerted me is now the highest risk Cat A prison in the UK. http://hackaday.com/2008/02/15/shmoocon-2008-intercepting-gsm-traffic/ http://hackaday.com/2008/02/15/shmoocon-2008-intercepting-gs...
dogma1138 10y ago
Check the list of largest arm exporters and manufacturers the enlightened EU says hi.
- fao_ 10y ago
  total budget of the EU on Military: $226.73 billion total nominal GDP: $16.97 trillion total budget of the US on Military: $3.97 trillion total nominal GDP: $18.56 trillion
  - dogma1138 10y ago
    Let the US pullout of NATO and see how the EU long the EU will remain with 226 bln. Most NATO members defense budgets and contribution are below NATO requirements. And again this has nothing to do with spending, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands combined export more arms than the US while having approximately the same population. Overall the EU as a whole exports more arms per capita than the US, you might not like buying guns but you sure love selling them.
    - privateprofile 10y ago
      According to [1], the volume of arms exports in 2015 (at least) was lower for the countries you mentioned (a sum of USD 7755M for France + Germany + UK + Spain + Italy + Sweden + Netherlands) when compared to USD 10484M in the US. Another perspective would be to check the nationality of the largest weapons manufacturers, 6 US companies in the Top 10, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companies_by_arms_sales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companies_by_arms_sales [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_largest_arms_exporters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_larges...
  - randcraw 10y ago
    Source? Annual US military budget for 2016: 521.7 billion $ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... Annual EU military budget for 2015: 203.143 billion Euros http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Brief_10_Defence_spending.pdf http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Brief_10_Defence_spen...
chillingeffect 10y ago
It's been the world hegemony since World War II. US protects the oil supply, particular factions of Islam, and Europe and sells outdated versions of our weapons to foreign countries. A peek at American military base locations will give a clue.

by nojvek 10y ago

visarga 10y ago

It's a consequence of the puritanical roots of US. It's a fetish for punishment.

sdoering 10y ago
This does seem to me to be a little bit of a to easy explanation. Is it really so that this can be tied back to the founding roots of the country, when the setup of the population nowadays can be tied back to so many different influences from different parts of the world? I never understood the "fetish" of Hollywood for the lone ranger and bullet slinging revenge guy. Or the idea that guns are a valid protection. Non the less - there are other parts of the world that maybe have the same (or even higher) amounts of guns in private possession without the military and police fetish. I am even not sure, that this is a valid correlation. Private gun ownership and police/military spending/fetish.
- ciaranm 10y ago
  From an outsider's perspective, nowhere comes close to the US for gun (and by extension, miltary/police) fetish. Wikipedia seems to back up my first thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_guns_per_c...

wwweston 10y ago

It might be part and parcel with the American Dream. Believing that society is a meritocracy -- that your success or failure is primarily a function of the effort you put in (plus whatever sui generis "merit" you personally have) is another version of a just world. And if you have a just world, well, surely if you've commanded the attention of the police or ire of the military, you've done something to deserve it, right?

tr1ck5t3r 10y ago
You forget the espionage aspect or extortion aspects. All technology is dual use. You can make your own fake cell towers for under £100 with a raspberrypi and a USB Software Defined Radio (SDR) adaptor that's got a range of 40metres. However its not just fake cell towers you can make, you can listen into calls made with wireless handsets that plug into landlines, obviously crack wifi, but you can also intercept and mess around with peoples air conditioning, lighting systems and central heating if these use radio frequency. The infrared remote controls need line of sight to interfere with devices, so someone appearing at your lounge window to switch TV channels is a bit obvious. Some instructions you may be interested in. This link even played Stevie Wonder's "I just called" to hacked mobiles, but you can download everyones messages, and other files from their smart phones now a days or infect their smart phone, again dual use! https://julianoliver.com/output/stealth-cell-tower https://julianoliver.com/output/stealth-cell-tower http://hackaday.com/2013/10/22/cracking-gsm-with-rtl-sdr-for-thirty-dollars/ http://hackaday.com/2013/10/22/cracking-gsm-with-rtl-sdr-for... Even back in 2008 its been going on, well actually I was first alerted to it in the 90's, when mobiles were just coming into existence, that person who alerted me is now the highest risk Cat A prison in the UK. http://hackaday.com/2008/02/15/shmoocon-2008-intercepting-gsm-traffic/ http://hackaday.com/2008/02/15/shmoocon-2008-intercepting-gs...

dogma1138 10y ago

Check the list of largest arm exporters and manufacturers the enlightened EU says hi.

fao_ 10y ago
total budget of the EU on Military: $226.73 billion total nominal GDP: $16.97 trillion total budget of the US on Military: $3.97 trillion total nominal GDP: $18.56 trillion
- dogma1138 10y ago
  Let the US pullout of NATO and see how the EU long the EU will remain with 226 bln. Most NATO members defense budgets and contribution are below NATO requirements. And again this has nothing to do with spending, France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy, Sweden and the Netherlands combined export more arms than the US while having approximately the same population. Overall the EU as a whole exports more arms per capita than the US, you might not like buying guns but you sure love selling them.
  - privateprofile 10y ago
    According to [1], the volume of arms exports in 2015 (at least) was lower for the countries you mentioned (a sum of USD 7755M for France + Germany + UK + Spain + Italy + Sweden + Netherlands) when compared to USD 10484M in the US. Another perspective would be to check the nationality of the largest weapons manufacturers, 6 US companies in the Top 10, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companies_by_arms_sales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companies_by_arms_sales [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_largest_arms_exporters https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arms_industry#World.27s_larges...
- randcraw 10y ago
  Source? Annual US military budget for 2016: 521.7 billion $ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_... Annual EU military budget for 2015: 203.143 billion Euros http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Brief_10_Defence_spending.pdf http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/Brief_10_Defence_spen...

chillingeffect 10y ago

It's been the world hegemony since World War II. US protects the oil supply, particular factions of Islam, and Europe and sells outdated versions of our weapons to foreign countries. A peek at American military base locations will give a clue.