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I sure hope the next president and those in power have a chance to read articles like this. It might not be incontrovertible truth, but I do think that our curr
by johntabet 18y ago
I sure hope the next president and those in power have a chance to read articles like this. It might not be incontrovertible truth, but I do think that our current military industrial complex is mostly irrational and detrimental. How much progress would $2 trillion dollars have bought if we had spent it on creating and researching, instead of decimating and killing?
- gaius 18y agoFighting wars directly destroys an enormous amount of economic value, but it's not true that military spending is bad for progress. Jet engines, satellite communications, radar, etc - any one of those alone has probably repaid the defence budget many times over.
- ojbyrne 18y agoYou are assuming those things would not have been invented without the military (and with all that money freed up). That's a pretty shaky assumption.
- gaius 18y agoNo, I'm just saying that that's what did happen. You can always say "if someone didn't invent something someone else would have eventually".
- ojbyrne 18y agodestroys an enormous amount of economic value, but it's not true that military spending is bad for progress. I don't see how you can say the first part, and still agree with the second part. The logical conclusion is, not only that someone would have invented everything that was invented, but in fact they would have invented more.
- scott_s 18y agoI don't think it is. The needs of the military may drive different innovation than the general needs of society.