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I'm certainly not defending their war atrocities by any means. I just think that our military spending is responsible for a majority of our technological improv

• yareally 14y ago
  True, I agree that many innovations come out of research done by (or for) the military (microwaves, jet engines, computers, etc). It would be interesting to see the outcome of lifting the restrictions sooner and Japan's Economy, but it would have probably stirred up much in the way of negativity and distrust from other countries as well. It could have easily hurt trade, foreign relations and backfired as well. On the other hand, neither Germany or Japan in WWII had to suffer through the terms and conditions placed on Germany after The Great War (WWI). That was if anything, the worse possible way to help a country recover.
• berntb 14y ago
  Well, I'm all for military research. But it seems like a criminal waste of resources to build the developed stuff -- and train lots of people. This decision have no good reason (North Korea? Hardly), it is forced because China haven't democratized so it needs external enemies to generate jingoism and hinder criticism of the Party. (But sure, maybe China's main motivation is to get natural resources in sea areas that have belonged to other countries for centuries. That is hardly better.) Edit: Clarity.
• kiba 14y ago
  You may want to look into broken window fallacy. Technological improvement that happens because of military spending could have happened anyway under civilian spending, although the side effects resulting from research may well be different.
  • batgaijin 14y ago
    And a pdp11 and an i7 give you the same results given enough time.