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The return we gave gotten out of the military industrial complex is enormous. Without it there would have been no Silicon Valley, no Fairchild, no Intel, etc.
by rpiguy 6y ago
The return we gave gotten out of the military industrial complex is enormous. Without it there would have been no Silicon Valley, no Fairchild, no Intel, etc.
It has been money well spent, but I agree with you and President Trump that we should be bringing the troops home not wasting money and lives on endless wars overseas.
- fwip 6y agoThe return is big, but what is it compared to the investment? Many of the key advancements were made with military funding, but: A) the fact that the military did it first doesn't mean that somebody else wouldn't have done it a year or ten later. B) how much did we waste on our main goal of murdering people, compared to the amount of funding necessary for helpful scientific advancements? If we threw $700 billion a year at anything, we'd see major scientific advancements happening almost by accident. We could have invested it in agriculture, or infrastructure, health, or ending poverty. All of those would produce major first order benefits in addition to the advancement of science and technologies.
- noir_lord 6y agoSpace, Imagine double peak apollo spending (8% of GDP so still less than the military (if you add the historical share of GDP for the military to nasa's peak share) for the last 50 years. The technologies we got out of the space program are vast and while there was always a military aspect (there couldn't really not be given that the technology to put a satellite is basically an ICBM) a lot of the technology had civilian applications.
- fwip 6y agoSure yeah, fund the space program if you think that's important. Much better than throwing the money at the military, whose purpose is to destroy.
- leephillips 6y agoI’m not so sure. Money does not create innovation (but the need for money can). Nothing quite concentrates the mind like a struggle for you and your society’s very survival.
- fwip 6y agoYou personally may not be motivated by preventing the starvation of your homeless neighbors, but I think you speak too broadly. Especially if you think current military funding is a more important struggle. (Is China the bad guy now we need to defeat? Or are we still focused on the Middle East, I can never keep up).
- akiselev 6y agoMilitary R&D is very different from civilian R&D. The life and death implications (for an entire state, not just its soldiers) adds a sense of urgency that cuts through certain types of red tape and allows funding to flow with fewer restrictions. The need to compete with other militaries creates projects that push the limits of multidisciplinary technology in a way that is far rarer in academia and industry.
- mbroncano 6y agoThe cost of the MIC is not only measured in dollars, but also in lives
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoSo is the return on investment.