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The arms race was the main driver of progress in the 20th century, with countless civilian applications, including the Internet. We could use a good old fashion
by m0zg 7y ago
The arms race was the main driver of progress in the 20th century, with countless civilian applications, including the Internet. We could use a good old fashioned arms race nowadays. It creates demand for top notch science and engineering like nothing else.
And you could argue this benefits humanity, too, even besides the technology transfer. There hasn't been a world war since 1945, and the only real reason for that is that it would end really badly for everyone involved.
- fistfucker3000 7y agoOr we could spend a lot of money on technology which is actually serving the public good
- m0zg 7y agoTo what end, fistfucker3000? How do you convince people to spend unlimited amounts of money other than by convincing them that their very survival depends on it? And the threat needs to be acute, too: this is what they're trying to do with climate change now, but nobody really gives a shit about something that may or may not happen 50 years from now.
- Djemanac 7y agoAsk Elon Musk he seems to be good at that
- monadic2 7y agoImagine how much we could have progressed if we just focused on progress rather than acquiring power through intimidation in some artificial zero sum game.
- m0zg 7y agoYeah, I'm trying to imagine that, but then I remember that we live in the real world here, with finite resources, and thousands of years of history, not in some utopia where everyone sings kumbaya and dances merrily around a campfire.
- monadic2 7y agoYes, this is true: If you denuclearize you too will end up with a bayonet up your ass in the street.
- hanniabu 7y agoAh yes, all that military innovation that's been improving the education system over the years....
- pandaman 7y agoIn Russia, after seeing the nuclear weapon the Party realized that the Marxism-Leninism alone is not going to produce such a weapon and had allowed and forced real sciences to be taught in schools. Likewise, the "Sputnik moment" in the US resulted in massive education improvements, e.g. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/10/how-sputnik-changed-u-s-education/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2007/10/how-sputnik-c...
- Djemanac 7y agoDid someone measure that claim? There was a lot of progress in 20th century. Calling arms race a main driver is a pretty wild claim but seems to be repeated all the time by geopolitics and army experts. That doesn't make it true though. Development of internet was by no means a single source event. That is case for most of technology also and main driving force for progress of internet was definitely market incentive.