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As a counter argument, consider DARPA. They do important R&D that no one else do. (As far as we know; it is a relatively open process). You could make quite a
by berntb 15y ago
As a counter argument, consider DARPA. They do important R&D that no one else do. (As far as we know; it is a relatively open process).
You could make quite a good argument that military, academic and industrial research are partly orthogonal; they complement each others.
But I can agree that to waste money and really build the military equipment is mostly a waste of money. :-)
- lispm 15y agoThe D in DARPA is for 'Defense'. For some time it was just ARPA. They added the D so that nobody makes the mistake to misunderstand the nature of their research: advanced research for military. Automated warfare, weapons of the future, soldier of the future, robot drones, ... The other stuff like material, sensors, etc. is just basic research needed for weapons. I would propose to shift the research money to projects like cleaning up nuclear weapon production sites, energy efficiency, cleaning the old coal power plants and more. Probably more people are endangered by the emissions of the aging coal power plants than from enemies in foreign countries...
- berntb 15y agoMy point was, the research money for DARPA are well spent -- and probably increase human science and technology in better ways than most any other use of that money. Including e.g. emergency health care. If you have that much trouble with weapon research I'm sorry, but don't throw out the advanced prosthetics with the water. (Sorry for coming in late.)