4 ms·

Rockets (or any research) > bombs any day of the week. Yes, my tax dollars going towards research (even indirectly) is better than the way most of my money is

Rockets (or any research) > bombs any day of the week. Yes, my tax dollars going towards research (even indirectly) is better than the way most of my money is spent

maxerickson 10y ago
Historically rocket research has been funded to develop the capability to deliver bombs.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Which seems to imply that military spending is pretty beneficial for humanity as long as it's spent on researching new cool ways of killing each other, and not on actually using them.
  - lucaspiller 10y ago
    Military spending in WWII led to the invention or development of (to name a few) penicillin, radio navigation, synthetic oil and rubber, jet engines, nuclear power and computers. However some of these were pretty close to being invented even before the war, so it's hard to say how much the war progressed technology.
    - kbenson 10y ago
      > However some of these were pretty close to being invented even before the war Penicillin, for one, was discovered over a decade prior to WWII. A method of mass production was developed in 1940, but have no idea how much that had to do with the war.
  - justin66 10y ago
    > Which seems to imply that military spending is pretty beneficial for humanity as long as it's spent on researching new cool ways of killing each other, and not on actually using them. The sixties-era DARPA method: throw a bunch of defense money at a bunch of really smart people without getting too specific about how much of the research should proceed.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      Exactly what I had in mind.
gozur88 10y ago
The military is something like 20% of the budget. That's not where most of your money is going.
- bdamm 10y ago
  You're including social security and medicare/aid, which is not entirely money that can be easily diverted. Especially social security. Without those, defense is the lion's share of the budget, and with Trump's new proposal, even more so.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    Sure... if you wall off most of the budget and then look at the rest, defense is the lion's share. But that makes no sense.

Rockets (or any research) > bombs any day of the week. Yes, my tax dollars going towards research (even indirectly) is better than the way most of my money is spent

maxerickson 10y ago

Historically rocket research has been funded to develop the capability to deliver bombs.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
Which seems to imply that military spending is pretty beneficial for humanity as long as it's spent on researching new cool ways of killing each other, and not on actually using them.
- lucaspiller 10y ago
  Military spending in WWII led to the invention or development of (to name a few) penicillin, radio navigation, synthetic oil and rubber, jet engines, nuclear power and computers. However some of these were pretty close to being invented even before the war, so it's hard to say how much the war progressed technology.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    > However some of these were pretty close to being invented even before the war Penicillin, for one, was discovered over a decade prior to WWII. A method of mass production was developed in 1940, but have no idea how much that had to do with the war.
- justin66 10y ago
  > Which seems to imply that military spending is pretty beneficial for humanity as long as it's spent on researching new cool ways of killing each other, and not on actually using them. The sixties-era DARPA method: throw a bunch of defense money at a bunch of really smart people without getting too specific about how much of the research should proceed.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Exactly what I had in mind.

gozur88 10y ago

The military is something like 20% of the budget. That's not where most of your money is going.

bdamm 10y ago
You're including social security and medicare/aid, which is not entirely money that can be easily diverted. Especially social security. Without those, defense is the lion's share of the budget, and with Trump's new proposal, even more so.
- gozur88 10y ago
  Sure... if you wall off most of the budget and then look at the rest, defense is the lion's share. But that makes no sense.