4 ms·
Another good one is the number of people that die in car accidents in the US every year, largely due to human error - 32,367 people in 2011. If the government
by w1ntermute 14y ago
Another good one is the number of people that die in car accidents in the US every year, largely due to human error - 32,367 people in 2011.
If the government took one tenth of the money it spends on defense every year (which was $1.030–$1.415 trillion for 2012), or approximately $100 billion dollars, and invested it in driverless car research and the infrastructure changes necessary for it, a much bigger benefit could be wrought. But that won't happen, because it's the lobbying of the military-industrial complex that determines where money is spent.
- mikeash 14y agoI use that one a lot. Roughly one 9/11 every month, continually, and nobody really cares.
- jwoah12 14y agoIt isn't that nobody cares. It's that people see (however irrationally) car accidents as an unpreventable occurrence, while they see terrorism as something that can be stopped if we go and kill the bad guys that are doing it.
- pjbrunet 14y agoIf you want to play that game, nothing beats abortion deaths. http://www.numberofabortions.com/ http://www.numberofabortions.com/
- monochromatic 14y agomilitary-industrial complex Most of what you said is true enough, but this nonsense loses you credibility. It's like saying "it's the corporations, man."
- mikeash 14y agoYeah, that guy who planned the Normandy invasion was a complete nutball.
- urza 14y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_com...
- ScottBurson 14y agoIn the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. - Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
- stdgy 14y agoThere's nothing nonsensical about it. It's a well established political reality, and has been widely discussed for more than fifty years.
- neumann_alfred 14y agoHow is this nonsense? How does personal credibility enter into it, anyway? Argue with the statement, but spare the ironical projecting (saying "mentioning this or that phrase makes anything you say suspect" IS actually like intellectually lazy slogans you pretend to be against) The business of buying weapons that takes place in the Pentagon is a corrupt business - ethically and morally corrupt from top to bottom. The process is dominated by advocacy, with few, if any, checks and balances. Most people in power like this system of doing business and do not want it changed. -- Colonel James G. Burton A rose is a rose is a rose, and so is a turd; what labels you accept or don't is your personal thing, but otherwise irrelevant.
- 14y ago