5 ms·

I didn't downvote you but I disagree with the general idea of your comment for two reasons. One is that the big machine for war is what allows you to feel and

by nolok 8y ago

I didn't downvote you but I disagree with the general idea of your comment for two reasons. One is that the big machine for war is what allows you to feel and be safe, by making sure you don't get attacked, and making sure no country can deprive you of the necessities you need, thus allowing you to invest yourself in things that aren't related to your safety, like this kind of research. And the second one is that we owe a giant lot to research done for the purpose of war. That we're having this conversation currently, on computers, through the internet, which I use by wifi, in a french home powered by a nuclear reactor ... War research is one of 3 big misappreciated sources of research advance along with fundamental research and space research, amongst the ones that many people often calls out as "doesn't bring anything / we could do without". Like it or not, we're competitive organism and we're at our best on that front when threatened or when trying to steal others's resources. With that said it is all a matter of measures and balance, and assuming you're american I agree that the US went completly overboard on that military spending front. Having the know-how to make carriers ? Yes. Having enough carriers to ensure you're safe, that nobody can push you around and that you can push someone else around if need be ? Yes. Reaching that point and then still building some more ... Well no.

Frondo 8y ago
The big war machine isn't what keeps us safe; that is a fetishization of the military that has always been around as a justification for outsized military budgets. Saying that we've gotten research via military funding also disregards how much more research we could get if it weren't redirected through the war bureaucracy. Funding research through the military is about as inefficient as you could get--better than doing so via the lottery, I guess, or by throwing bundles off cash off a bridge, but not by much.
- nolok 8y ago
  > The big war machine isn't what keeps us safe; that is a fetishization of the military that has always been around as a justification for outsized military budgets. It absolutely is, please understand that I'm not american, and I believe the US Mil. budget is way, way, WAY over the top. But the opposite, not having any of it, would be even stupider. You have the entirety of history to verify the claim, and giving exemples of countries who don't have it but are covered and defended by those who do does not really dispute it. > Saying that we've gotten research via military funding also disregards how much more research we could get if it weren't redirected through the war bureaucracy. Sure, if you're willing to forget the nature of what we are. The possibilities are not "war and war research" or "no war, no war research, all in scientific research". The human nature of what makes armed conflict happen has been there since before there even was a notion of anything close to "research budgets".
  - aylmao 8y ago
    > budget is way, way, WAY over the top. But the opposite, not having any of it, would be even stupider. Who said anything about not having any of it? Also, I don't quite grasp what you mean by your second claim. You mean to say that not spending money in military research doesn't mean we would spend it in other research? I think a lot of what we have today would've been invented regardless of military conflict. Perhaps in a slower fashion, which would've perhaps also been better and more sustainable. Inventing to "save our lives" I think is a given, and assuming we didn't fear each other as much, perhaps we could focus more on our fear of disease, or climate catastrophe.
  - CamperBob2 8y ago
    It absolutely is, please understand that I'm not american, and I believe the US Mil. budget is way, way, WAY over the top. But the opposite, not having any of it, All we need to feel safe and be safe is a few nuclear weapons and a couple of oceans, both of which we already have. Everything else is either not a threat, not our problem, or not a military problem.
    - matte_black 8y ago
      How can you feel safe knowing your country’s only response for an attack is a nuclear bomb?
      - CamperBob2 8y ago
        In case you haven't noticed, no hostile military forces will attack you if you have nukes. It only takes one to ruin the invader's whole day. You will still have to deal with the occasional 9/11-style harassment, of course, but it's not as if having the world's most powerful military will prevent that.
  - wiz21c 8y ago
    >>> Sure, if you're willing to forget the nature of what we are. There's a difference between seeing our nature as "a fact" or seeing our nature as an "evolving one". History is full of wars, that's for sure. But remember things that makes us "better" like : laws, political structures, structural investment in research, etc. Now that I'm thinking about it, is there a minimum of military means that is necessary for our "nature" to evolve... (and are we at that minimum right now ?). I don't count nuclear stuff 'cos it doesn't make anybody safer (contrary to warplanes, ships, soldiers, etc.)
- crowbahr 8y ago
  I'm curious as to your thoughts on how big war machines do not provide safety, and why the thought that they do is only fetishism of the military?
  - mikepurvis 8y ago
    Can't speak for big war machines in general, but aircraft carriers specifically are a relic of the cold war and have only maintained relevance in recent decades because the US has only ever been involved in massively asymmetrical conflicts. In a modern open battle between evenly matched opponents, the carriers would all be on the bottom of the ocean by the end of the second day. EDIT to add— found the article I was looking for, about the economics and battle realities of carriers: "Soviet Adm. Sergei Gorchakov reportedly held the view that the U.S. had made a strategic miscalculation by relying on large and increasingly vulnerable aircraft carriers. The influential U.S. Adm. Hyman Rickover shared this view. In a 1982 congressional hearing, legislators asked him how long American carriers would survive in an actual war. Rickover’s response? “Forty-eight hours,” he said." Source: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-navys-big-mistake-building-tons-of-supercarriers-571c8dad2f29 https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-navys-big-mistake-b...
    - cglace 8y ago
      If a country were to take out all of our carriers I'm pretty sure nukes would be flying. At that point does it matter?
      - Someone 8y ago
        I think it’s more likely that an enemy will take out one carrier, after which the other ones will be kept out of the danger zone, thus becoming useless. That’s what happened with the Tirpitz after the Bismarck was sunk. I think that situation is analogous because Bismarck’s demise was due to an attack with relatively cheap weapons (torpedo bombers) with a longer range than Bismarck’s guns, just as people predict modern air carriers don’t stand a chance against relatively cheap rockets because those rockets have a longer range than the airplanes on the carriers.
baq 8y ago
There's a quote I particularly like in this area. SENATOR PASTORE. Is there anything connected in the hopes of this accelerator that in any way involves the security of the country? DR. WILSON. No, sir; I do not believe so. SENATOR PASTORE. Nothing at all? DR. WILSON. Nothing at all. SENATOR PASTORE. It has no value in that respect? DR. WILSON. It only has to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. It has to do with those things. It has nothing to do with the military. I am sorry. SENATOR PASTORE. Don't be sorry for it. DR. WILSON. I am not, but I cannot in honesty say it has any such application. SENATOR PASTORE. Is there anything here that projects us in a position of being competitive with the Russians, with regard to this race? DR. WILSON. Only from a long-range point of view, of a developing technology. Otherwise, it has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things that we really venerate and honor in our country and are patriotic about. In that sense, this new knowledge has all to do with honor and country but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending. https://history.fnal.gov/testimony.html https://history.fnal.gov/testimony.html
- Create 8y ago
  In Fermilab’s building phase Wilson’s attitude was famous: he would fire anybody not busy working. At one time such a victim responded: you cannot fire me. Wilson asked why not, to which the man answered that he actually did not work for Fermilab. -- Facts and mysteries in elementary particle physics Some down voters here seem to be at odds with the facts.
- morsch 8y ago
  The whole transcript is worth reading. If someone had told me I was reading a play I wouldn't have batted an eye. What the hell happened to us.
  - avastmick 8y ago
    Wow, just wow. I'm so glad this popped up today. When I first read the transcript I thought it _was_ a play it sounds so articulate, subtle and informed. The military line shouldn't be taken out of context - Wilson was saying sorry as I assume including applicability would have made Pastore's job easier when taking it to the House. Doing things because you can and because you have the imagination to see a positive outcome. The Chairman's comments are gold. Thanks so much for sharing this!
aylmao 8y ago
Not American, and I disagree on a few regards to your comment (for example, I do believe we would've eventually invented a lot of the same things regardless of the military), but I do agree that the US has gone overboard. They seem to have 13 carriers-- that's more than the rest of the world combined! And have ordered 7 more. They should build a collider instead of their next one-- they could theoretically make it twice as big and still have budget to spare. After all, I don't think at this point they need them to remain competitive in their defense.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > They seem to have 13 carriers 20, I think; 11 large deck carriers (the regular fleet carriers) and 9 medium deck (the “gator navy” LHA/LHDs carrying Marine aviation.) There's two more fleet carriers (and another LHD) under construction, plus more ordered. The rest of the world has something like 3 maybe/kinda large deck carriers (all smaller than the US ones), and handful of medium deck ones, and enough small deck ones that the total number of carriers is about the same as the US, maybe a few more, but nowhere near the capacity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in_service https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in... provides a starting point, but has some problems and inconsistencies.
gigatexal 8y ago
Are people really defending the military industrial complex? I have mixed feelings about it. The money the US spends on the military is bonkers but it does I guess work to dissuade people from attacking the mainland (domestic terror, the first and second attack’s on the World Trade Center and the pentagon not included) and all the spending has kept the dollar the most saught currency worldwide (not a fact just something I think might be true) and the big military allows the USA to keep it’s spot as the worlds reserve currency because it’s so secure and the government is relatively stable, etc., etc. But we could spend 5% less and still spend more on the entire world combined and have tons of money for the sciences, social programs, etc. I will admit many advances have been made in times of war but I would like to think that a stable country with decent spending in scientific research can keep that innovation going without having to have a race to see who can build the most accurate delivery machanisms for nuclear weapons or a faux space race to measure dicks and place the idea that one nation could put a giant nation ending laser in space.
- semi-extrinsic 8y ago
  > But we could spend 5% less and still spend more on the entire world combined and have tons of money for the sciences, social programs, etc. Fun fact: in the recent audit of the Pentagon, it was discovered among other things that of the funding they received last year, they had been unable to spend $28 billion of it. That's more than the entire budget of NASA in unused budget allocations.
  - gigatexal 8y ago
    Wow. Where does that unused budget go? Surely it doesn’t come back as a tax refund. Likely gets rolled over into next year’s budget so they can buy 600 dollar toilets: https://www.thenation.com/article/only-the-pentagon-could-spend-640-on-a-toilet-seat/ https://www.thenation.com/article/only-the-pentagon-could-sp...
    - semi-extrinsic 8y ago
      No, AFAICT it doesn't get rolled over. More likely it doesn't get added to the deficit, so the money just literally disappears. The system works pretty strangely when you have the power to lend yourself unlimited money...

by nolok 8y ago

Frondo 8y ago

The big war machine isn't what keeps us safe; that is a fetishization of the military that has always been around as a justification for outsized military budgets. Saying that we've gotten research via military funding also disregards how much more research we could get if it weren't redirected through the war bureaucracy. Funding research through the military is about as inefficient as you could get--better than doing so via the lottery, I guess, or by throwing bundles off cash off a bridge, but not by much.

nolok 8y ago
> The big war machine isn't what keeps us safe; that is a fetishization of the military that has always been around as a justification for outsized military budgets. It absolutely is, please understand that I'm not american, and I believe the US Mil. budget is way, way, WAY over the top. But the opposite, not having any of it, would be even stupider. You have the entirety of history to verify the claim, and giving exemples of countries who don't have it but are covered and defended by those who do does not really dispute it. > Saying that we've gotten research via military funding also disregards how much more research we could get if it weren't redirected through the war bureaucracy. Sure, if you're willing to forget the nature of what we are. The possibilities are not "war and war research" or "no war, no war research, all in scientific research". The human nature of what makes armed conflict happen has been there since before there even was a notion of anything close to "research budgets".
- aylmao 8y ago
  > budget is way, way, WAY over the top. But the opposite, not having any of it, would be even stupider. Who said anything about not having any of it? Also, I don't quite grasp what you mean by your second claim. You mean to say that not spending money in military research doesn't mean we would spend it in other research? I think a lot of what we have today would've been invented regardless of military conflict. Perhaps in a slower fashion, which would've perhaps also been better and more sustainable. Inventing to "save our lives" I think is a given, and assuming we didn't fear each other as much, perhaps we could focus more on our fear of disease, or climate catastrophe.
- CamperBob2 8y ago
  It absolutely is, please understand that I'm not american, and I believe the US Mil. budget is way, way, WAY over the top. But the opposite, not having any of it, All we need to feel safe and be safe is a few nuclear weapons and a couple of oceans, both of which we already have. Everything else is either not a threat, not our problem, or not a military problem.
  - matte_black 8y ago
    How can you feel safe knowing your country’s only response for an attack is a nuclear bomb?
    - CamperBob2 8y ago
      In case you haven't noticed, no hostile military forces will attack you if you have nukes. It only takes one to ruin the invader's whole day. You will still have to deal with the occasional 9/11-style harassment, of course, but it's not as if having the world's most powerful military will prevent that.
- wiz21c 8y ago
  >>> Sure, if you're willing to forget the nature of what we are. There's a difference between seeing our nature as "a fact" or seeing our nature as an "evolving one". History is full of wars, that's for sure. But remember things that makes us "better" like : laws, political structures, structural investment in research, etc. Now that I'm thinking about it, is there a minimum of military means that is necessary for our "nature" to evolve... (and are we at that minimum right now ?). I don't count nuclear stuff 'cos it doesn't make anybody safer (contrary to warplanes, ships, soldiers, etc.)
crowbahr 8y ago
I'm curious as to your thoughts on how big war machines do not provide safety, and why the thought that they do is only fetishism of the military?
- mikepurvis 8y ago
  Can't speak for big war machines in general, but aircraft carriers specifically are a relic of the cold war and have only maintained relevance in recent decades because the US has only ever been involved in massively asymmetrical conflicts. In a modern open battle between evenly matched opponents, the carriers would all be on the bottom of the ocean by the end of the second day. EDIT to add— found the article I was looking for, about the economics and battle realities of carriers: "Soviet Adm. Sergei Gorchakov reportedly held the view that the U.S. had made a strategic miscalculation by relying on large and increasingly vulnerable aircraft carriers. The influential U.S. Adm. Hyman Rickover shared this view. In a 1982 congressional hearing, legislators asked him how long American carriers would survive in an actual war. Rickover’s response? “Forty-eight hours,” he said." Source: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-navys-big-mistake-building-tons-of-supercarriers-571c8dad2f29 https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-navys-big-mistake-b...
  - cglace 8y ago
    If a country were to take out all of our carriers I'm pretty sure nukes would be flying. At that point does it matter?
    - Someone 8y ago
      I think it’s more likely that an enemy will take out one carrier, after which the other ones will be kept out of the danger zone, thus becoming useless. That’s what happened with the Tirpitz after the Bismarck was sunk. I think that situation is analogous because Bismarck’s demise was due to an attack with relatively cheap weapons (torpedo bombers) with a longer range than Bismarck’s guns, just as people predict modern air carriers don’t stand a chance against relatively cheap rockets because those rockets have a longer range than the airplanes on the carriers.

baq 8y ago

There's a quote I particularly like in this area. SENATOR PASTORE. Is there anything connected in the hopes of this accelerator that in any way involves the security of the country? DR. WILSON. No, sir; I do not believe so. SENATOR PASTORE. Nothing at all? DR. WILSON. Nothing at all. SENATOR PASTORE. It has no value in that respect? DR. WILSON. It only has to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. It has to do with those things. It has nothing to do with the military. I am sorry. SENATOR PASTORE. Don't be sorry for it. DR. WILSON. I am not, but I cannot in honesty say it has any such application. SENATOR PASTORE. Is there anything here that projects us in a position of being competitive with the Russians, with regard to this race? DR. WILSON. Only from a long-range point of view, of a developing technology. Otherwise, it has to do with: Are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things that we really venerate and honor in our country and are patriotic about. In that sense, this new knowledge has all to do with honor and country but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to help make it worth defending. https://history.fnal.gov/testimony.html https://history.fnal.gov/testimony.html

Create 8y ago
In Fermilab’s building phase Wilson’s attitude was famous: he would fire anybody not busy working. At one time such a victim responded: you cannot fire me. Wilson asked why not, to which the man answered that he actually did not work for Fermilab. -- Facts and mysteries in elementary particle physics Some down voters here seem to be at odds with the facts.
morsch 8y ago
The whole transcript is worth reading. If someone had told me I was reading a play I wouldn't have batted an eye. What the hell happened to us.
- avastmick 8y ago
  Wow, just wow. I'm so glad this popped up today. When I first read the transcript I thought it _was_ a play it sounds so articulate, subtle and informed. The military line shouldn't be taken out of context - Wilson was saying sorry as I assume including applicability would have made Pastore's job easier when taking it to the House. Doing things because you can and because you have the imagination to see a positive outcome. The Chairman's comments are gold. Thanks so much for sharing this!

aylmao 8y ago

Not American, and I disagree on a few regards to your comment (for example, I do believe we would've eventually invented a lot of the same things regardless of the military), but I do agree that the US has gone overboard. They seem to have 13 carriers-- that's more than the rest of the world combined! And have ordered 7 more. They should build a collider instead of their next one-- they could theoretically make it twice as big and still have budget to spare. After all, I don't think at this point they need them to remain competitive in their defense.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> They seem to have 13 carriers 20, I think; 11 large deck carriers (the regular fleet carriers) and 9 medium deck (the “gator navy” LHA/LHDs carrying Marine aviation.) There's two more fleet carriers (and another LHD) under construction, plus more ordered. The rest of the world has something like 3 maybe/kinda large deck carriers (all smaller than the US ones), and handful of medium deck ones, and enough small deck ones that the total number of carriers is about the same as the US, maybe a few more, but nowhere near the capacity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in_service https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_in... provides a starting point, but has some problems and inconsistencies.

gigatexal 8y ago

Are people really defending the military industrial complex? I have mixed feelings about it. The money the US spends on the military is bonkers but it does I guess work to dissuade people from attacking the mainland (domestic terror, the first and second attack’s on the World Trade Center and the pentagon not included) and all the spending has kept the dollar the most saught currency worldwide (not a fact just something I think might be true) and the big military allows the USA to keep it’s spot as the worlds reserve currency because it’s so secure and the government is relatively stable, etc., etc. But we could spend 5% less and still spend more on the entire world combined and have tons of money for the sciences, social programs, etc. I will admit many advances have been made in times of war but I would like to think that a stable country with decent spending in scientific research can keep that innovation going without having to have a race to see who can build the most accurate delivery machanisms for nuclear weapons or a faux space race to measure dicks and place the idea that one nation could put a giant nation ending laser in space.

semi-extrinsic 8y ago
> But we could spend 5% less and still spend more on the entire world combined and have tons of money for the sciences, social programs, etc. Fun fact: in the recent audit of the Pentagon, it was discovered among other things that of the funding they received last year, they had been unable to spend $28 billion of it. That's more than the entire budget of NASA in unused budget allocations.
- gigatexal 8y ago
  Wow. Where does that unused budget go? Surely it doesn’t come back as a tax refund. Likely gets rolled over into next year’s budget so they can buy 600 dollar toilets: https://www.thenation.com/article/only-the-pentagon-could-spend-640-on-a-toilet-seat/ https://www.thenation.com/article/only-the-pentagon-could-sp...
  - semi-extrinsic 8y ago
    No, AFAICT it doesn't get rolled over. More likely it doesn't get added to the deficit, so the money just literally disappears. The system works pretty strangely when you have the power to lend yourself unlimited money...