6 ms·

1st thought: wow, cool stuff! 2nd thought: too bad it's gonna be military use first. I've often heard the argument being made that military applications (and e

1st thought: wow, cool stuff! 2nd thought: too bad it's gonna be military use first. I've often heard the argument being made that military applications (and even war itself) somehow drive innovation. While that may be true to an extent, it always rang hollow to me as an argument. Why should civil life always just get the "crumbs" of science and engineering? Why not turn it around, spend most of the research money and brain time on things that benefit everyone (in the US, and worldwide) and then see which of those technologies can be repurposed for the military, not the other way around? DARPA alone has a bigger budget than NASA, and I just googled "us military research budget" and the numbers for all the arms of the US military are quite staggering, really.

cabalamat 8y ago
> Why not turn it around, spend most of the research money and brain time on things that benefit everyone (in the US, and worldwide) http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ is why not
- specialist 8y ago
  Thank you. Mostly for the fish farming thought experiment.
- phs318u 8y ago
  Wow! Thank you so much for that link.
- smaddox 8y ago
  Interesting read so far. The fish farming story is a nice example. For further analysis around the same topic, https://equilibriabook.com https://equilibriabook.com is a great read.
- swebs 8y ago
  >8. Arms races. Large countries can spend anywhere from 5% to 30% of their budget on defense. In the absence of war – a condition which has mostly held for the past fifty years – all this does is sap money away from infrastructure, health, education, or economic growth. But any country that fails to spend enough money on defense risks being invaded by a neighboring country that did. Therefore, almost all countries try to spend some money on defense. >From a god’s-eye-view, the best solution is world peace and no country having an army at all. From within the system, no country can unilaterally enforce that, so their best option is to keep on throwing their money into missiles that lie in silos unused. Funnily enough, we can come full circle and say that many developed nations can survive these days with very little military spending just because America's massive military is enough of a deterrent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana
z3phyr 8y ago
We have been warring before the dawn of civilization. I think it used to play a role in territorial resource usage/rights, evolutionary selection, population control and asserting your own set of morals. I wish we all get over war, but realistically, as long as we differentiate between "good" and "bad", there will always be some source of enmity to start wars..
- mannykannot 8y ago
  In almost all wars, the "bad" is that one group wants to take something away from another group. Sometimes that thing is their freedom, but even in those cases, there is usually an underlying material issue.
  - madisfun 8y ago
    In almost all wars, the "bad" is the group that lost the war. And when it cannot be decided or doesn't matter anymore, those who control the discourse decide who is/was "good". Taking something away is not good or bad per se. Sometimes both sides see the other part "taking something away" from them (see any rebellion vs central power conflict).
    - mannykannot 8y ago
      1) For some self-serving definitions of "bad" 2) Then doubly so.
- pineaux 8y ago
  Actually, that's not really the case: warring started at the dawn of civilization. There aren't many clear cases of large scale destruction of human life in prehistoric times. The proliferation of war only happened as sedentism gained popularity. Sedentism is the start of civilization. It also creates economic stratification, which is probably the number one reason for war across nations and inside nations.
  - JackFr 8y ago
m12k 8y ago
> Why not turn it around, spend most of the research money and brain time on things that benefit everyone (in the US, and worldwide) I think this is a quirk of the US political system where military spending is the only public spending that is acceptable to both parties in the duopoly. Hence the only stable source of public funding for research is probably in the military sector.
- justaman 8y ago
  Disagree. I think it is the incentive that drives this innovation. The consumer market does not face large scale death if it does not innovate.
  - justin66 8y ago
    ARPA was more innovative than DARPA was, not less.
  - black_puppydog 8y ago
    I'd argue opportunity cost from lack of innovation in medecine and e.g. car safety/car replacements kills more than US military involvements... Car deaths alone are >37K in 2016 in the US alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
    - hobls 8y ago
      Exactly. Military deaths are far exceeded by civilian ones, if only due to scale.
      - ryanx435 8y ago
        military deaths are historically low because of how much better the american military is than our opponents. the american military is better because of the technology we have. The technology we have is because of DARPA spending over the last 80 years. do you see the flaw in your logic?
lucio 8y ago
si vis pacem, para bellum
cheez 8y ago
Because then 90% of the calls for $ spent will be "for the children" and other social justice stuff that won't move the needle.
- germinalphrase 8y ago
  We (US gov) spends several times more on the old vs. the young. We should be actively increasing funding towards programs that benefit youth. https://www.brookings.edu/research/spending-on-children-and-the-elderly/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/spending-on-children-and-...
clarkmoody 8y ago
I try to think in terms of that which is not seen. What are the technologies that would be developed by the same minds, were they not directed toward military projects? The same is true of the finance sector. How many brilliant minds are toiling away to generate alpha for the investors, when they could be unleashed in other more productive sectors of society? It's invalid to claim that "X beneficial technology wouldn't have been invented if not for Y war or Z program." Rather, military spending might shift when a technology was demanded by the market. And again, it diverts brilliant minds to one thing, when they could have done something else (that which is not seen) for society. The other angle is yes, this is awesome tech! But it could not compete in the market, since it is entirely impractical. It only exists because it serves the demands of a program manager at $AGENCY with tax money to spend.
melling 8y ago
"too bad it's gonna be military use first" Wow, I can't believe your comment is what we're discussing. I've seen some version of this on the Internet for 30 years now. I must have answered it a dozen times. Can we turn this into an Internet FAQ? Basically, it wastes everyone's time. If everyone here agreed with you, would it change anything? If you think the military spends a lot on research, you should see what they spend on non-research. https://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs-of-war-20b-in-air-conditioning https://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs-of-... If we could turn all of our military spending into non-military R&D, the future would get here so fast! But alas, ...
- black_puppydog 8y ago
  Yeah, that most probably reflects my bias. Being in academia myself, I have a hard time thinking of good reasons to work for the military vs virtually any civil application. Also, I don't have 30 years of internet experience, so maybe it'll just take some more time for me to get tired of discussing this :)
  - melling 8y ago
    Hey, I've got an answer from 6 years ago on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3808787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3808787 Notice my observation: "Consider that the US economy is $15 trillion. The US handbag market is bigger than DARPA's budget."
- claydavisss 8y ago
  Its because no one feels they can just log in to say "omg that is so amazing and the people who built it are smarter than me". Instead HN rewards comments that qualify every achievement with an IF, AND or BUT, or even worse: PFFFT. Dear HN, you have permission to not be the smartest person in the room. Its actually liberating. To the people at DARPA who built this - amazing! You are much smarter than me.
someone454 8y ago
Because the will to survive is stronger than the will to have nicer stuff.
ThomPete 8y ago
Innovation doesn't work like that. I normally think about it like this: Government research: Money spent here is the most abstract as it doesn't define a problem before it tries to solve it but rather looks for things we don't understand yet. Military research: The point of this research is maintaining power which means researching whatever might give you the upper hand. This is why AI is added to the research now. Whoever is furthest have the upper hand. Because getting the upper hand with regards to physical power can be a lot of things, whoever wants to be in power have to invest in a broad spectrum of areas. Product/market research: Solving problems perceptually or real, defined by the market itself or creating new markets but often using knowledge from what was created by governments and millitary (or ex. space travel). These are often accidental and byproducts. Now here is the problem. Just because you can define a market or a problem doesn't mean you can find a market for it. You have to find the customers who benefit from and who can pay. If you took the money away from the millitary and gave it to solve "humanities problems" you would run the risk of loosing the monopoly of power because the problems of the humanity is not the same as those of the individual nation states.

cabalamat 8y ago

> Why not turn it around, spend most of the research money and brain time on things that benefit everyone (in the US, and worldwide) http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ is why not

specialist 8y ago
Thank you. Mostly for the fish farming thought experiment.
phs318u 8y ago
Wow! Thank you so much for that link.
smaddox 8y ago
Interesting read so far. The fish farming story is a nice example. For further analysis around the same topic, https://equilibriabook.com https://equilibriabook.com is a great read.
swebs 8y ago
>8. Arms races. Large countries can spend anywhere from 5% to 30% of their budget on defense. In the absence of war – a condition which has mostly held for the past fifty years – all this does is sap money away from infrastructure, health, education, or economic growth. But any country that fails to spend enough money on defense risks being invaded by a neighboring country that did. Therefore, almost all countries try to spend some money on defense. >From a god’s-eye-view, the best solution is world peace and no country having an army at all. From within the system, no country can unilaterally enforce that, so their best option is to keep on throwing their money into missiles that lie in silos unused. Funnily enough, we can come full circle and say that many developed nations can survive these days with very little military spending just because America's massive military is enough of a deterrent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana

z3phyr 8y ago

We have been warring before the dawn of civilization. I think it used to play a role in territorial resource usage/rights, evolutionary selection, population control and asserting your own set of morals. I wish we all get over war, but realistically, as long as we differentiate between "good" and "bad", there will always be some source of enmity to start wars..

mannykannot 8y ago
In almost all wars, the "bad" is that one group wants to take something away from another group. Sometimes that thing is their freedom, but even in those cases, there is usually an underlying material issue.
- madisfun 8y ago
  In almost all wars, the "bad" is the group that lost the war. And when it cannot be decided or doesn't matter anymore, those who control the discourse decide who is/was "good". Taking something away is not good or bad per se. Sometimes both sides see the other part "taking something away" from them (see any rebellion vs central power conflict).
  - mannykannot 8y ago
    1) For some self-serving definitions of "bad" 2) Then doubly so.
pineaux 8y ago
Actually, that's not really the case: warring started at the dawn of civilization. There aren't many clear cases of large scale destruction of human life in prehistoric times. The proliferation of war only happened as sedentism gained popularity. Sedentism is the start of civilization. It also creates economic stratification, which is probably the number one reason for war across nations and inside nations.
- JackFr 8y ago

m12k 8y ago

> Why not turn it around, spend most of the research money and brain time on things that benefit everyone (in the US, and worldwide) I think this is a quirk of the US political system where military spending is the only public spending that is acceptable to both parties in the duopoly. Hence the only stable source of public funding for research is probably in the military sector.

justaman 8y ago
Disagree. I think it is the incentive that drives this innovation. The consumer market does not face large scale death if it does not innovate.
- justin66 8y ago
  ARPA was more innovative than DARPA was, not less.
- black_puppydog 8y ago
  I'd argue opportunity cost from lack of innovation in medecine and e.g. car safety/car replacements kills more than US military involvements... Car deaths alone are >37K in 2016 in the US alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
  - hobls 8y ago
    Exactly. Military deaths are far exceeded by civilian ones, if only due to scale.
    - ryanx435 8y ago
      military deaths are historically low because of how much better the american military is than our opponents. the american military is better because of the technology we have. The technology we have is because of DARPA spending over the last 80 years. do you see the flaw in your logic?

lucio 8y ago

si vis pacem, para bellum

cheez 8y ago

Because then 90% of the calls for $ spent will be "for the children" and other social justice stuff that won't move the needle.

germinalphrase 8y ago
We (US gov) spends several times more on the old vs. the young. We should be actively increasing funding towards programs that benefit youth. https://www.brookings.edu/research/spending-on-children-and-the-elderly/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/spending-on-children-and-...

clarkmoody 8y ago

I try to think in terms of that which is not seen. What are the technologies that would be developed by the same minds, were they not directed toward military projects? The same is true of the finance sector. How many brilliant minds are toiling away to generate alpha for the investors, when they could be unleashed in other more productive sectors of society? It's invalid to claim that "X beneficial technology wouldn't have been invented if not for Y war or Z program." Rather, military spending might shift when a technology was demanded by the market. And again, it diverts brilliant minds to one thing, when they could have done something else (that which is not seen) for society. The other angle is yes, this is awesome tech! But it could not compete in the market, since it is entirely impractical. It only exists because it serves the demands of a program manager at $AGENCY with tax money to spend.

melling 8y ago

"too bad it's gonna be military use first" Wow, I can't believe your comment is what we're discussing. I've seen some version of this on the Internet for 30 years now. I must have answered it a dozen times. Can we turn this into an Internet FAQ? Basically, it wastes everyone's time. If everyone here agreed with you, would it change anything? If you think the military spends a lot on research, you should see what they spend on non-research. https://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs-of-war-20b-in-air-conditioning https://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs-of-... If we could turn all of our military spending into non-military R&D, the future would get here so fast! But alas, ...

black_puppydog 8y ago
Yeah, that most probably reflects my bias. Being in academia myself, I have a hard time thinking of good reasons to work for the military vs virtually any civil application. Also, I don't have 30 years of internet experience, so maybe it'll just take some more time for me to get tired of discussing this :)
- melling 8y ago
  Hey, I've got an answer from 6 years ago on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3808787 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3808787 Notice my observation: "Consider that the US economy is $15 trillion. The US handbag market is bigger than DARPA's budget."
claydavisss 8y ago
Its because no one feels they can just log in to say "omg that is so amazing and the people who built it are smarter than me". Instead HN rewards comments that qualify every achievement with an IF, AND or BUT, or even worse: PFFFT. Dear HN, you have permission to not be the smartest person in the room. Its actually liberating. To the people at DARPA who built this - amazing! You are much smarter than me.

someone454 8y ago

Because the will to survive is stronger than the will to have nicer stuff.

ThomPete 8y ago

Innovation doesn't work like that. I normally think about it like this: Government research: Money spent here is the most abstract as it doesn't define a problem before it tries to solve it but rather looks for things we don't understand yet. Military research: The point of this research is maintaining power which means researching whatever might give you the upper hand. This is why AI is added to the research now. Whoever is furthest have the upper hand. Because getting the upper hand with regards to physical power can be a lot of things, whoever wants to be in power have to invest in a broad spectrum of areas. Product/market research: Solving problems perceptually or real, defined by the market itself or creating new markets but often using knowledge from what was created by governments and millitary (or ex. space travel). These are often accidental and byproducts. Now here is the problem. Just because you can define a market or a problem doesn't mean you can find a market for it. You have to find the customers who benefit from and who can pay. If you took the money away from the millitary and gave it to solve "humanities problems" you would run the risk of loosing the monopoly of power because the problems of the humanity is not the same as those of the individual nation states.