4 ms·

yes. why even bother to argue your point? while a lot of government spending might not benefit you directly, the odds are that someone out there is getting som

by craigyk 13y ago

yes. why even bother to argue your point? while a lot of government spending might not benefit you directly, the odds are that someone out there is getting some kind of service from it. Also, a sizable fraction of government money is going to salaries of middle-class workers. They, in turn, are likely to spend that money on things you might consider useful or neat, thereby helping the overall economy. The process might be inefficient (or less efficient than a perfectly executed and fictitious counterpart) but that doesn't make it a parasite.

rdl 13y ago
The military part is negative-sum for the world. A competent engineer designing weapons, even if he makes $150k to spend on food/cars/etc. and support those people, is still depriving humanity of the $100k to near-infinity of positive contribution ("consumer surplus") he could be making, some of which he'd capture as additional expected income, if he worked on something genuinely useful to humanity. The only reason we have a military is to protect from other militaries; therefore, militarism is a parasite.
- jfoutz 13y ago
  What has DARPA done for me lately? Money seems to be an excellent motivator, but when death is on the line people seem to embrace a little more out of the box thinking. Rent seeking and collusion to avoid innovation seem to be problems with both the money and violence types of power.
  - robotresearcher 13y ago
    "What has DARPA done for me lately?" How about the internet? If that's too last-century for you, you can look forward to the benefits of DARPA funding the development of the basic tech and Open Source software that's driving the rapid development of robots right now.
    - jfoutz 13y ago
      Easy tiger. The point was not all military spending is a waste.
      - rdl 13y ago
        Useful side effects for sure, but even if you took away the direct non-financial costs of the military (non-zero chance of nuclear armageddon...), I think there are things we as a species could work on which would produce the same kind of competitive, focused effort. The "space race" accomplished a lot, and consumer IT tech (say, mobile phones) has progressed even faster than military tech (outside maybe an existential war like WW2).
        arg01 13y ago
        I don't disagree with your wider point that their are other useful motivators out there but it's worth noting that the space race was militarily motivated. Sputnik flying overhead effectively showed the soviets had/would have the ability to drop bombs anywhere in the world. Even the space shuttle was influenced in design by militaristic influence.
      - robotresearcher 13y ago
        OK, sorry. My sarcasm detector failed me.
- waps 13y ago
  And what would we not have if it wasn't for militaries ... and even war. Where to begin ? the Internet - hacker news, and of course your own comment Rockets - and of course space travel Nuclear power GPS Night vision Duct tape Jet engines - international aviation Radar Microwaves Walkie talkies (and the follow ups to this technology, including cell phones) Medical advances by Soviets and Nazis I would argue that the military is negative sum only in theory.
  - ergoproxy 13y ago
    It's debatable how much of this we can honestly attribute to the military-- Leó Szilárd and Enrico Fermi patented the idea of a nuclear reactor in 1933. The military didn't invent it. Christian Hülsmeyer was a German inventor and entrepreneur. He was the first to use radio waves to detect "the presence of distant metallic objects"; he got a patent for his "Telemobiloscope" in 1904. The military didn't invent it. The first patent for using a gas turbine to power an aircraft was filed in 1921 by Frenchman Maxime Guillaume. This predates the RAF's patent by 11 years. Richard Drew invented Scotch tape and masking tape in the 1920s. In 1927, J&J invented cloth tape for medical uses. So far no military involvement. Then in 1943, Vesta Stoudt, an ordnance factory worker, thought to add waterproof plastic to J&J's cloth tape, making the first duct tape, and that's the extent of the military involvement. Duct tape was later improved in 1960 by an HVAC engineer by making it flame resistant. Seems that the military role in developing duct tape was rather minimal, and would have been made eventually by the free market. There are serious issues trying to pin down who invented the first gunpowder rockets and for what purpose. Seems likely gunpowder was invented by Taoist alchemists seeking an elixir for immortality, and that the very first application of gunpowder rockets was fireworks for entertainment. Writing for the WSJ in July 2012, Gordon Crovitz questioned "Who Really Invented the Internet?" at http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444464304577539063008406518 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000087239639044446430...
    - waps 13y ago
      Without funding these projects would not have happened, and the inventions would have died. Or at the very least would only have happened much, much slower. An example of this is that however one designs a working fusion reactior, one thing you can be near sure of : the design is in the US patent database (and publicly accessible). Yes, really. Of course, most of them are not getting built (the US is the only country that's even considering anything but a tokamak approach at all). Would humanity never ever have invented these technologies without war ? Probably we'd have found them eventually. Would we have them today ? No way in hell.
MBlume 13y ago
You lost me at the broken-window fallacy. If you want to give people handouts, call them handouts. Don't give them a bunch of bullshit to do and pretend it's constructive.

by craigyk 13y ago

rdl 13y ago

The military part is negative-sum for the world. A competent engineer designing weapons, even if he makes $150k to spend on food/cars/etc. and support those people, is still depriving humanity of the $100k to near-infinity of positive contribution ("consumer surplus") he could be making, some of which he'd capture as additional expected income, if he worked on something genuinely useful to humanity. The only reason we have a military is to protect from other militaries; therefore, militarism is a parasite.

jfoutz 13y ago
What has DARPA done for me lately? Money seems to be an excellent motivator, but when death is on the line people seem to embrace a little more out of the box thinking. Rent seeking and collusion to avoid innovation seem to be problems with both the money and violence types of power.
- robotresearcher 13y ago
  "What has DARPA done for me lately?" How about the internet? If that's too last-century for you, you can look forward to the benefits of DARPA funding the development of the basic tech and Open Source software that's driving the rapid development of robots right now.
  - jfoutz 13y ago
    Easy tiger. The point was not all military spending is a waste.
    - rdl 13y ago
      Useful side effects for sure, but even if you took away the direct non-financial costs of the military (non-zero chance of nuclear armageddon...), I think there are things we as a species could work on which would produce the same kind of competitive, focused effort. The "space race" accomplished a lot, and consumer IT tech (say, mobile phones) has progressed even faster than military tech (outside maybe an existential war like WW2).
      - arg01 13y ago
        I don't disagree with your wider point that their are other useful motivators out there but it's worth noting that the space race was militarily motivated. Sputnik flying overhead effectively showed the soviets had/would have the ability to drop bombs anywhere in the world. Even the space shuttle was influenced in design by militaristic influence.
    - robotresearcher 13y ago
      OK, sorry. My sarcasm detector failed me.
waps 13y ago
And what would we not have if it wasn't for militaries ... and even war. Where to begin ? the Internet - hacker news, and of course your own comment Rockets - and of course space travel Nuclear power GPS Night vision Duct tape Jet engines - international aviation Radar Microwaves Walkie talkies (and the follow ups to this technology, including cell phones) Medical advances by Soviets and Nazis I would argue that the military is negative sum only in theory.
- ergoproxy 13y ago
  It's debatable how much of this we can honestly attribute to the military-- Leó Szilárd and Enrico Fermi patented the idea of a nuclear reactor in 1933. The military didn't invent it. Christian Hülsmeyer was a German inventor and entrepreneur. He was the first to use radio waves to detect "the presence of distant metallic objects"; he got a patent for his "Telemobiloscope" in 1904. The military didn't invent it. The first patent for using a gas turbine to power an aircraft was filed in 1921 by Frenchman Maxime Guillaume. This predates the RAF's patent by 11 years. Richard Drew invented Scotch tape and masking tape in the 1920s. In 1927, J&J invented cloth tape for medical uses. So far no military involvement. Then in 1943, Vesta Stoudt, an ordnance factory worker, thought to add waterproof plastic to J&J's cloth tape, making the first duct tape, and that's the extent of the military involvement. Duct tape was later improved in 1960 by an HVAC engineer by making it flame resistant. Seems that the military role in developing duct tape was rather minimal, and would have been made eventually by the free market. There are serious issues trying to pin down who invented the first gunpowder rockets and for what purpose. Seems likely gunpowder was invented by Taoist alchemists seeking an elixir for immortality, and that the very first application of gunpowder rockets was fireworks for entertainment. Writing for the WSJ in July 2012, Gordon Crovitz questioned "Who Really Invented the Internet?" at http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10000872396390444464304577539063008406518 http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000087239639044446430...
  - waps 13y ago
    Without funding these projects would not have happened, and the inventions would have died. Or at the very least would only have happened much, much slower. An example of this is that however one designs a working fusion reactior, one thing you can be near sure of : the design is in the US patent database (and publicly accessible). Yes, really. Of course, most of them are not getting built (the US is the only country that's even considering anything but a tokamak approach at all). Would humanity never ever have invented these technologies without war ? Probably we'd have found them eventually. Would we have them today ? No way in hell.

MBlume 13y ago

You lost me at the broken-window fallacy. If you want to give people handouts, call them handouts. Don't give them a bunch of bullshit to do and pretend it's constructive.