7 ms·

Many humans are quite aggressive. Pacifists are easily defeated by force. How can you have progress without security?

Ericson2314 5y ago
That's a straw man. The problem is tons of research and development won't happen without the state, but the main avenue the state funds development (as opposed to research) is the military. There are many possible futures, and the world is highly non-ergodic, so there is a real cost here to biasing the development of technology in this matter. "Opportunity cost" doesn't do the concept justice. We don't have to stop military research, but we should bring up the Arpa-E and other such things to bring balance to the situation.
- eganist 5y ago
  > That's a straw man. The problem is tons of research and development won't happen without the state, but the main avenue the state funds development (as opposed to research) is the military. The reason the op's comment is not actually a straw man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man) is because the first governments were developed out of a necessity to ensure a unity of peoples, the functioning of essential systems, and the protection of said peoples and systems. It's also why (for instance) the very first sentence of the US constitution has multiple touch points with national security: > We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, *establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty* to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. To summarize: defense is how so much of our monetarily non-viable societal advances take place because defense is primarily why governments exist at all. Even arpa-e (thanks for your edit—it's a good topic to bring up) exists to minimize our reliance on foreign energy, which is directly motivated by national security.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    Come on, nobody knows how the first governments were developed. No written records exist.
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      Yeah, and as far as we can tell those first states massively sucked for almost everyone, too.
    - bobthechef 5y ago
      We know what government is per se, regardless of the motives of the earliest state governments. But here we miss an important point which is that government is natural to human societies. The mistake is to think that government is some artificial construct at odds with human nature. Tribes are governed. Families, the smallest society, are governed. What we call "government" is just a modification of the most basic form of government of the family (kings, for example, were analogically fathers of the kingdom). The authority of the state is derived from the authority of parents through the principle of subsidiary.
      - Ericson2314 5y ago
        I agree with the spirit, but I prefer to reject the natural/artificial distinction. Societal and biological evolution can be a very "arbitrary" processes. Sometimes something just happens, and is good enough, and sticks around. It's ultimately pretty subjective which things are "over-determined" and what wasn't (photosynthesis? agriculture? Something like eukaryotes from endo-symbiosis?), without being able to run a bunch of difficult experiments. Government and money are two institutions who's origins are much debated, but I would be find replacing them with something else, "self-perpetuation" replaces "natural" for me. I also so think this is dovetails with the best argument for reproducible bootstraps (as the follow up to reproducible builds). Without that, and like with our socials institutions, we have a a "historical bootstrap" we are constrained by. But by making an artificial bootstrap, we gain some freedom to tinker rather than being completely constrained by historical happenstance. With software it is clear what this looks like. With something like governance and money it is less clear. Certainly it's hard to imagine the John Locke style arguments bootstrapping from "primitive man" working out, as children must be raised in a culture before they get the privileges of democracy, and are thus biased. But perhaps there are other more feasible ways.
- echelon 5y ago
  America is preventing Russia from antagonizing Europe, all the while we foot the bill for maintaining a capable military. China is a looming threat. If you don't see that, I don't know what I can say. Take away America's military and see what happens. Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Spratleys, 9-dash, water rights, Belt+Road indebtedness, Crimea, Ukraine... The US has to be strong out of necessity, and we get treated like shit for it. America is far from perfect, but it's Democratic and celebrates individualism and free speech. And I'm not persecuted for being LGBT. I'd hate to be in Russia or China where I'm told I can't think my own thoughts or have my own preferences. If we didn't have to pay so much for our military capabilities, maybe we'd all get to enjoy the same free health care and social programs that Europe, Canada, and other nations enjoy. Europe needs to carry some of this weight.
  - throwaway210222 5y ago
    > America is preventing Russia from antagonizing Europe? Er, Ukraine is in Europe. Out of 10, how would you rate the USA's efforts at stopping Russia there so far?
    - nradov 5y ago
      "Europe" is probably the wrong term here. The USA's efforts to stop Russia from antagonizing NATO members probably rates 8/10. Part of Russia is also in Europe.
      - throwaway210222 5y ago
        No, no. Ukraine paid the 'entry price' that was asked of them to be protected by USA, (and France, UK, Russia, China) by surrendering their nuclear weapons. This was a level of vulnerability and trust in third parties the good citizens of USA (and the others above) would never for a second countenance. The USA (and the others) willingly signed up to the deal [1]. And then failed to do any deterring when it was time to walk the talk. [1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
- qaq 5y ago
  Well could you point to the downside of this? From teflon to internet and countless other things you use every day that came out of DARPA and other def. research, what would have changed if it was funded via different model?
  - BenAufero 5y ago
    I think the complaint is not that the government funds research for defense, it's that it could be funding energy, medical, etc research. I honestly don't know if I fully agree with his complaint, because I'm fairly sure the government does fund a lot of other research that isn't defense focused (see a lot of universities).
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      It funds many sorts of research but much less development. Research ideas do not develop themselves and so the story of modern academia is zillions of abandoned ideas.
  - jack_riminton 5y ago
    History shows that conflict has actually been rather useful for our development
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      That's circular — it's important precisely because nothing else created the political will for that much state-run development. We should at least try to do non-military development, even if military dev will continue to have an edge.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  - AQuantized 5y ago
    The problem is privileging technologies that have defence capabilities. There are likely countless ideas that could have similar success to DARPA projects if they had similar access to capital and state support. However, unless it can show off some military capability its funding can't be justified using the current model, leaving a gigantic subsections of technologies that could have similar innovative impact underserved by this level of support.
- Atlantium 5y ago
  Straw Man noun 1. an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument. My comment speaks directly to to above post as follows: "It really sucks that there's a 'D' for 'Defense' at the front of the acronym. Their website says they're "creating breakthrough technologies and capabilities for national security". Horrible that national security is the reason for this, when it should be human progress." As for the world being difficult to predict, or to use your phrasing "non-ergodic", it is in fact easy to predict that security will be necessary. It is difficult to predict exactly what the threat to security will be. This uncertainty alone justifies development. Also, DARPA tech is well known for spreading outside of it originally intended remit. Ie the research itself can be of use in other areas.

That's a straw man. The problem is tons of research and development won't happen without the state, but the main avenue the state funds development (as opposed to research) is the military. There are many possible futures, and the world is highly non-ergodic, so there is a real cost here to biasing the development of technology in this matter. "Opportunity cost" doesn't do the concept justice. We don't have to stop military research, but we should bring up the Arpa-E and other such things to bring balance to the situation.

eganist 5y ago
> That's a straw man. The problem is tons of research and development won't happen without the state, but the main avenue the state funds development (as opposed to research) is the military. The reason the op's comment is not actually a straw man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man) is because the first governments were developed out of a necessity to ensure a unity of peoples, the functioning of essential systems, and the protection of said peoples and systems. It's also why (for instance) the very first sentence of the US constitution has multiple touch points with national security: > We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, *establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty* to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. To summarize: defense is how so much of our monetarily non-viable societal advances take place because defense is primarily why governments exist at all. Even arpa-e (thanks for your edit—it's a good topic to bring up) exists to minimize our reliance on foreign energy, which is directly motivated by national security.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  Come on, nobody knows how the first governments were developed. No written records exist.
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    Yeah, and as far as we can tell those first states massively sucked for almost everyone, too.
  - bobthechef 5y ago
    We know what government is per se, regardless of the motives of the earliest state governments. But here we miss an important point which is that government is natural to human societies. The mistake is to think that government is some artificial construct at odds with human nature. Tribes are governed. Families, the smallest society, are governed. What we call "government" is just a modification of the most basic form of government of the family (kings, for example, were analogically fathers of the kingdom). The authority of the state is derived from the authority of parents through the principle of subsidiary.
    - Ericson2314 5y ago
      I agree with the spirit, but I prefer to reject the natural/artificial distinction. Societal and biological evolution can be a very "arbitrary" processes. Sometimes something just happens, and is good enough, and sticks around. It's ultimately pretty subjective which things are "over-determined" and what wasn't (photosynthesis? agriculture? Something like eukaryotes from endo-symbiosis?), without being able to run a bunch of difficult experiments. Government and money are two institutions who's origins are much debated, but I would be find replacing them with something else, "self-perpetuation" replaces "natural" for me. I also so think this is dovetails with the best argument for reproducible bootstraps (as the follow up to reproducible builds). Without that, and like with our socials institutions, we have a a "historical bootstrap" we are constrained by. But by making an artificial bootstrap, we gain some freedom to tinker rather than being completely constrained by historical happenstance. With software it is clear what this looks like. With something like governance and money it is less clear. Certainly it's hard to imagine the John Locke style arguments bootstrapping from "primitive man" working out, as children must be raised in a culture before they get the privileges of democracy, and are thus biased. But perhaps there are other more feasible ways.
echelon 5y ago
America is preventing Russia from antagonizing Europe, all the while we foot the bill for maintaining a capable military. China is a looming threat. If you don't see that, I don't know what I can say. Take away America's military and see what happens. Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Spratleys, 9-dash, water rights, Belt+Road indebtedness, Crimea, Ukraine... The US has to be strong out of necessity, and we get treated like shit for it. America is far from perfect, but it's Democratic and celebrates individualism and free speech. And I'm not persecuted for being LGBT. I'd hate to be in Russia or China where I'm told I can't think my own thoughts or have my own preferences. If we didn't have to pay so much for our military capabilities, maybe we'd all get to enjoy the same free health care and social programs that Europe, Canada, and other nations enjoy. Europe needs to carry some of this weight.
- throwaway210222 5y ago
  > America is preventing Russia from antagonizing Europe? Er, Ukraine is in Europe. Out of 10, how would you rate the USA's efforts at stopping Russia there so far?
  - nradov 5y ago
    "Europe" is probably the wrong term here. The USA's efforts to stop Russia from antagonizing NATO members probably rates 8/10. Part of Russia is also in Europe.
    - throwaway210222 5y ago
      No, no. Ukraine paid the 'entry price' that was asked of them to be protected by USA, (and France, UK, Russia, China) by surrendering their nuclear weapons. This was a level of vulnerability and trust in third parties the good citizens of USA (and the others above) would never for a second countenance. The USA (and the others) willingly signed up to the deal [1]. And then failed to do any deterring when it was time to walk the talk. [1] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Security_Assurances https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...
qaq 5y ago
Well could you point to the downside of this? From teflon to internet and countless other things you use every day that came out of DARPA and other def. research, what would have changed if it was funded via different model?
- BenAufero 5y ago
  I think the complaint is not that the government funds research for defense, it's that it could be funding energy, medical, etc research. I honestly don't know if I fully agree with his complaint, because I'm fairly sure the government does fund a lot of other research that isn't defense focused (see a lot of universities).
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    It funds many sorts of research but much less development. Research ideas do not develop themselves and so the story of modern academia is zillions of abandoned ideas.
- jack_riminton 5y ago
  History shows that conflict has actually been rather useful for our development
  - Ericson2314 5y ago
    That's circular — it's important precisely because nothing else created the political will for that much state-run development. We should at least try to do non-military development, even if military dev will continue to have an edge.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- AQuantized 5y ago
  The problem is privileging technologies that have defence capabilities. There are likely countless ideas that could have similar success to DARPA projects if they had similar access to capital and state support. However, unless it can show off some military capability its funding can't be justified using the current model, leaving a gigantic subsections of technologies that could have similar innovative impact underserved by this level of support.
Atlantium 5y ago
Straw Man noun 1. an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument. My comment speaks directly to to above post as follows: "It really sucks that there's a 'D' for 'Defense' at the front of the acronym. Their website says they're "creating breakthrough technologies and capabilities for national security". Horrible that national security is the reason for this, when it should be human progress." As for the world being difficult to predict, or to use your phrasing "non-ergodic", it is in fact easy to predict that security will be necessary. It is difficult to predict exactly what the threat to security will be. This uncertainty alone justifies development. Also, DARPA tech is well known for spreading outside of it originally intended remit. Ie the research itself can be of use in other areas.