6 ms·

I mean, we’d probably be living like the Jetsons if the US routed 20% of the defense spend to STEM.

okdood64 2y ago
We’d probably be living like the Jetsons if the Middle East was stable, China wasn't so aggressive in the South China Sea, and Russia didn't have some illusion of being able to restore the Soviet Union.
- DrNosferatu 2y ago
  We’d probably be living like the Jetsons if we would make a serious attempt to curb (effective) tax evasion and profit offshoring to reduce inequality. (ie: make returns on labor converge to - or at least track - returns on capital)
  - airstrike 2y ago
    > curb (effective) tax evasion and profit offshoring to reduce inequality. that assumes cooperation on a global scale between competing tax jurisdictions, which in my book is infinitely harder to achieve than net power via fusion
    - DrNosferatu 2y ago
      Either the US or the EU could do it: which global company can afford to not do business in any of these economic blocks? But the way the EU handled the COVID vaccine procurement, I think we’re still a long way.
    - DrNosferatu 2y ago
      Nevertheless, this was a good first step: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/07/03/global-minimum-tax-american-businesses/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/07/03/global-mi... Maybe next time they actually make it work?
  - southernplaces7 2y ago
    This is laughable, an ideological trope with little bearing on reality. Governments spend and also waste far more money than is not only hidden from tax obligations but also more money than is also collected through tax receipts of all kinds (all that sweet, sweet deficit spending at work). And they do indeed waste vast amounts of it, on military plans, boondoggles that go nowhere, bullshit drug wars, bloated bureaucracies that perpetuate themselves to never solve the problems behind their original purpose and so forth, but the blame for no Jetsons future is really with people hiding a fraction outside what's already taxed and keeping it from more of that same public spending waste? If governments wanted to spend on long-term tech and energy investments, they most definitely could find the funds to do so from among their existing budgets. These budgets are in many cases at record levels anyhow. However they don't because, well, see wasteful spending causes listed above, none of which go away since they benefit so many entrenched institutional interests... Money hidden by tax evasion is in any case not dead capital. It gets moved around, invested, reinvested, and through different means, channeled to the kinds of things that legitimate investments funds and VCs also spend their money on (presumably as a good thing, since you're not also blaming them for no Jetsons future).
    - imtringued 2y ago
      Money hidden by tax evasion is the deadest of all money. It literally doesn't get moved around, invested or reinvested, because that would trigger taxable events and get the IRS after your ass.
      - southernplaces7 2y ago
        You're flatly wrong and should read more about how tax evasion works. I assure you that if someone manages to skim an extra X millions of dollars away from the tax man, they certainly won't let it sit dead and being eaten by inflation after that effort and expense. They might as well have simply paid taxes on it otherwise. Through an assortment of vehicles and mechanisms, that money does indeed get shifted, moved and invested in all sorts of sophisticated and fully diverse ways, just like assets that were legitimately declared. I mean, what do you think they keep it in? Giant vaults as stacks of cash, like Scrooge McDuck? Absurd, the kinds of childish ideas about tax evasion that appear here.
dylan604 2y ago
This premise means that the extra dollars would be spent in a way that would justify your comment. Schools in Texas, Florida, et al would probably just replace those liberal texts with much more censored versions. They'd probably find a way to build bigger football stadiums or those other sportsball programs. New uniforms and things too. Then it'd probably pay for perks for principles and sporting directors, but sadly, there wouldn't be enough to increase the base pay of actual teachers. I'm sure there's other ways to spend that money and not a bit of it improves our advance towards the Jetsons' world.
bluGill 2y ago
A significant portion of the defense spend is STEM. It takes a lot of engineering to build a bomb. It takes a lot of math to create/break encryption....
- Retric 2y ago
  That just makes things worse. Imagine if most people working on nuclear reactors in the navy instead spent the time building and maintaining civilian equipment. The kind of people designing and building the F-22 etc where capable of more long term useful activities etc. The US could be safe spending 1% of its GDP on defense and largely importing foreign weapon system designs for local manufacturing. There’s clearly a lower limit, but half of current spending is perfectly reasonable starting point before decisions get tricky.
  - kolinko 2y ago
    Which foreign systems? If US would’ve withdrew from cold war, half of Europe would be learning cyrylic now, and there would be few countries to import tech from. Not to mention engineers from the eastern block working for the opposite side.
    - Retric 2y ago
      The USSR broke up 32 years ago and was impotent well before then. So any argument from the Cold War is really outdated.
      - rbanffy 2y ago
        OTOH, if the Soviets had won the Cold War, Americans would have free universal healthcare.
  - kortex 2y ago
    > largely importing foreign weapon system designs for local manufacturing. I'm pretty sure they legally can't "largely import foreign weapon designs". The Berry and Kissel amendments, not to mention ITAR and a few other regulations, put a strong incentive on in-sourcing when at all possible. The only exceptions are for things that are really hard to get domestically.
zeristor 2y ago
Probably not, this assumes that that 20% is efficiently spent.
colonCapitalDee 2y ago
We spend about 3.5% of GDP on defense [1], and coincidentally about 3.5% on R&D [2]. People tend to wildly overestimate how large the modern US defense budget is. It's only around 13% of federal spending [3]! [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=US https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat... [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS?locations=US https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS?locat... [3] https://federalbudgetinpictures.com/where-does-all-the-money-go/ https://federalbudgetinpictures.com/where-does-all-the-money...
- itishappy 2y ago
  National Defense: 13.9% R&D: ??? https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function Defense: $813 billion https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2023/FY2023_Budget_Request.pdf https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudg... R&D: $205 billion https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ap_18_research_fy2023.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ap_18_... I'm clearly missing something. I assume some of that Defense budget is R&D?
yieldcrv 2y ago
I live in penthouse in LA Abe shuttle to other rooftops, one glance down at the sidewalk level and it kind of feels like the jetsons at least the retcon sketches where they showed what the ground level was like
rcpt 2y ago
Not in my backyard you wouldn't. Those Jetson towers block my view.

We’d probably be living like the Jetsons if the Middle East was stable, China wasn't so aggressive in the South China Sea, and Russia didn't have some illusion of being able to restore the Soviet Union.

DrNosferatu 2y ago
We’d probably be living like the Jetsons if we would make a serious attempt to curb (effective) tax evasion and profit offshoring to reduce inequality. (ie: make returns on labor converge to - or at least track - returns on capital)
- airstrike 2y ago
  > curb (effective) tax evasion and profit offshoring to reduce inequality. that assumes cooperation on a global scale between competing tax jurisdictions, which in my book is infinitely harder to achieve than net power via fusion
  - DrNosferatu 2y ago
    Either the US or the EU could do it: which global company can afford to not do business in any of these economic blocks? But the way the EU handled the COVID vaccine procurement, I think we’re still a long way.
  - DrNosferatu 2y ago
    Nevertheless, this was a good first step: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/07/03/global-minimum-tax-american-businesses/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/07/03/global-mi... Maybe next time they actually make it work?
- southernplaces7 2y ago
  This is laughable, an ideological trope with little bearing on reality. Governments spend and also waste far more money than is not only hidden from tax obligations but also more money than is also collected through tax receipts of all kinds (all that sweet, sweet deficit spending at work). And they do indeed waste vast amounts of it, on military plans, boondoggles that go nowhere, bullshit drug wars, bloated bureaucracies that perpetuate themselves to never solve the problems behind their original purpose and so forth, but the blame for no Jetsons future is really with people hiding a fraction outside what's already taxed and keeping it from more of that same public spending waste? If governments wanted to spend on long-term tech and energy investments, they most definitely could find the funds to do so from among their existing budgets. These budgets are in many cases at record levels anyhow. However they don't because, well, see wasteful spending causes listed above, none of which go away since they benefit so many entrenched institutional interests... Money hidden by tax evasion is in any case not dead capital. It gets moved around, invested, reinvested, and through different means, channeled to the kinds of things that legitimate investments funds and VCs also spend their money on (presumably as a good thing, since you're not also blaming them for no Jetsons future).
  - imtringued 2y ago
    Money hidden by tax evasion is the deadest of all money. It literally doesn't get moved around, invested or reinvested, because that would trigger taxable events and get the IRS after your ass.
    - southernplaces7 2y ago
      You're flatly wrong and should read more about how tax evasion works. I assure you that if someone manages to skim an extra X millions of dollars away from the tax man, they certainly won't let it sit dead and being eaten by inflation after that effort and expense. They might as well have simply paid taxes on it otherwise. Through an assortment of vehicles and mechanisms, that money does indeed get shifted, moved and invested in all sorts of sophisticated and fully diverse ways, just like assets that were legitimately declared. I mean, what do you think they keep it in? Giant vaults as stacks of cash, like Scrooge McDuck? Absurd, the kinds of childish ideas about tax evasion that appear here.

dylan604 2y ago

This premise means that the extra dollars would be spent in a way that would justify your comment. Schools in Texas, Florida, et al would probably just replace those liberal texts with much more censored versions. They'd probably find a way to build bigger football stadiums or those other sportsball programs. New uniforms and things too. Then it'd probably pay for perks for principles and sporting directors, but sadly, there wouldn't be enough to increase the base pay of actual teachers. I'm sure there's other ways to spend that money and not a bit of it improves our advance towards the Jetsons' world.

bluGill 2y ago

A significant portion of the defense spend is STEM. It takes a lot of engineering to build a bomb. It takes a lot of math to create/break encryption....

Retric 2y ago
That just makes things worse. Imagine if most people working on nuclear reactors in the navy instead spent the time building and maintaining civilian equipment. The kind of people designing and building the F-22 etc where capable of more long term useful activities etc. The US could be safe spending 1% of its GDP on defense and largely importing foreign weapon system designs for local manufacturing. There’s clearly a lower limit, but half of current spending is perfectly reasonable starting point before decisions get tricky.
- kolinko 2y ago
  Which foreign systems? If US would’ve withdrew from cold war, half of Europe would be learning cyrylic now, and there would be few countries to import tech from. Not to mention engineers from the eastern block working for the opposite side.
  - Retric 2y ago
    The USSR broke up 32 years ago and was impotent well before then. So any argument from the Cold War is really outdated.
    - rbanffy 2y ago
      OTOH, if the Soviets had won the Cold War, Americans would have free universal healthcare.
- kortex 2y ago
  > largely importing foreign weapon system designs for local manufacturing. I'm pretty sure they legally can't "largely import foreign weapon designs". The Berry and Kissel amendments, not to mention ITAR and a few other regulations, put a strong incentive on in-sourcing when at all possible. The only exceptions are for things that are really hard to get domestically.

zeristor 2y ago

Probably not, this assumes that that 20% is efficiently spent.

colonCapitalDee 2y ago

We spend about 3.5% of GDP on defense [1], and coincidentally about 3.5% on R&D [2]. People tend to wildly overestimate how large the modern US defense budget is. It's only around 13% of federal spending [3]! [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locations=US https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat... [2] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS?locations=US https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS?locat... [3] https://federalbudgetinpictures.com/where-does-all-the-money-go/ https://federalbudgetinpictures.com/where-does-all-the-money...

itishappy 2y ago
National Defense: 13.9% R&D: ??? https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function Defense: $813 billion https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudget/FY2023/FY2023_Budget_Request.pdf https://comptroller.defense.gov/Portals/45/Documents/defbudg... R&D: $205 billion https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ap_18_research_fy2023.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ap_18_... I'm clearly missing something. I assume some of that Defense budget is R&D?

yieldcrv 2y ago

I live in penthouse in LA Abe shuttle to other rooftops, one glance down at the sidewalk level and it kind of feels like the jetsons at least the retcon sketches where they showed what the ground level was like

rcpt 2y ago

Not in my backyard you wouldn't. Those Jetson towers block my view.