War is good (interesting discussion)

[wildfirepower]

I found this interesting discussion in other forum which shows that war is good for people who survive. Here it is-:

Look at what the Germans learned in world war 2

How to make Rockets, different technologies , medicines

All Country's learn a great deal from WAR'

You can look at all the bad things that come from War

How about the good things?

With just that Rocket technology we got from the Germans
we The Great USA was able to go to the Moon!

Look at all the men who had no jobs before world war 2
the War came and they now had jobs then after the War
they had the G.I bill and went to College then got even
a better Job...

There are many good things that come from War
to make the human race even better..

War is Good!

Like it or not!

Technology during World War II played a crucial role in determining the outcome of the greatest war of all. Much of it had begun development during the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s, some was developed in response to lessons learned during the war, and yet more was only beginning to be developed as the war ended. The massive research and development demands of the war had a great impact on the scientific community. Given the scope of the war and the rapid technological escalation which happened during the war, a vast array of technology was employed, as different nations and different units found themselves equipped with different levels of technology. Military technology developments spanned across all areas of industry. After the war ended, these developments led to new sciences like cybernetics

Almost all types of technology were utilized, although main areas of technology which saw major developments were:

Weaponry; including ships, vehicles, aircraft, artillery, rocketry, small arms, and biological, chemical and atomic weapons.

Logistical support; including vehicles necessary for transporting soldiers and supplies, such as trains, trucks, and aircraft.

Communications and intelligence; including devices used for navigation, communication, remote sensing and espionage.

Medicine; including surgical innovations, chemical medicines, and techniques

Industry; including the technologies employed at factories and production/distribution centers.

Thanks to War many people now enjoy a better life
and live longer then before..

[TonySutton]

Imagine all of the things we could have invented if we were not wasting resources on war.

The argument is totally false.

[Elwar]

All of those things created in order to destroy much more.

Military research goes on even when there is no war. It'd be much more cost affective to spend the money you would have spent on the war and put it all into military research if that is your end goal.

[Sentient Void]

Look up: broken window fallacy

[MelissaWV]

War creates urgency, and that urgency speeds up inventions that were already in the works sometimes. It gives organizations a "valid" reason to request funding increases and hire more people. It also causes other things to be put on the back burner, sometimes indefinitely.

We've gotten some great things from some incredibly bad sources, but that doesn't make the sources any better in hindsight. We're still awash with companies who benefit from research done on innocent people. People who kvetch about religion are doing so via computers, which require them to be literate, which is a trait (for commoners) that finds its roots in the mass-production of religious documents. Most of us are sitting upon land that has changed hands over and over and over again, and over which much blood has been spilled. All of us are products of civilizations that delegated tasks to slave labor or indentured servants, which allowed for the masters to dedicate themselves to other things. Are we really going to start arguing that all of those things were, on the balance, good?

War has some "good" aspects, but it is not "good" on the balance. It is not a net gain, even for the survivors who may now partake in whatever resources are left intact.

[Adrian.Bisson]

You're forgetting to account for the unknown and unknowable benefits that would have come from all those whose lives are wasted in war.

Some poor guy who got drafted into a needless foreign war might well have developed the cure for cancer, fusion power, artificial intelligence, etc, if he hadn't gotten blown to bits. Why don't we have those flying cars we were expecting? Odds are that the fledgling scientific or business genius who could have pulled it off and changed the world took a bullet for his country.

If not him, think of the children and grandchildren that never came to be. Any of those potential minds could have been the new Prometheus of our age, but we'll never know.

War is only good for the destroyers, the leeches, and the luddites. We can never know the true potential and quality of life that otherwise might have been.

[Nate]

Look up: broken window fallacy

^this
The vast majority of that technology was based on ideas stolen from the private sector through the state's patenting process & the capital used to fund its development was expropriated from the private sector through taxation. The false assumption is that technological advancement won't take place without war. In fact war consumes & destroys capital, it creates a poorer economy & slows the growth of entrepreneurial innovation. Plus the wars of the 20th century were waged by states whose technological foundation was based on the MUCH greater advancement which took place in the 18th & 19th centuries due to the forces of free market capitalism. The sad thing is who knows how far that technological advancement could have gone if people never became enthralled with the statism that dominated the 20th century? It's the seen vs unseen. We see the advancements due to war but what is unseen is the advancements that would have been made without war.

[Nate]

you're forgetting to account for the unknown and unknowable benefits that would have come from all those whose lives are wasted in war.

Some poor guy who got drafted into a needless foreign war might well have developed the cure for cancer, fusion power, artificial intelligence, etc, if he hadn't gotten blown to bits. Why don't we have those flying cars we were expecting? Odds are that the fledgling scientific or business genius who could have pulled it off and changed the world took a bullet for his country.

If not him, think of the children and grandchildren that never came to be. Any of those potential minds could have been the new prometheus of our age, but we'll never know.

War is only good for the destroyers, the leeches, and the luddites. We can never know the true potential and quality of life that otherwise might have been.

+1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111 1

[james1844]

Technology aside, what about the hugely devastating effects that wars have on civilian populations?

World war II cost Europe over 50,000,000 casualties. Most of the housing stock was destroyed, as was a huge chunk of Europes the industrial base, thousands of women were raped, huge populations were forced into slavery, many hundreds of thousands were tortured, millions of acres of private property were lost, destroyed or seized, entire libraries were burned, thousands of works of art were lost, etc etc etc.

Anyone who makes that kind of argument hasn't seen the impact of war up close.

Without a doubt, its morally revolting.

[Elwar]

Compare the amount of technology advances in the years before 9/11 compared to after.

Sure, we have some cool military stuff from the war (UAVs, satellite technology, etc)...but the advances before the war were helpful to us in every day life (cell phones, Internet, faster computers, etc).

Imagine where we'd be right now if the technology boom of the early 2000s was still going.

[00_Pete]

War is the most wasteful activity ever. The logic displayed here is scary...

And it most be said that German economic recovery and most of the German industry and military industry was a product of Wall Street, bankers and transfers of technology and industrial machines/processes from american corporations. Same thing with the USSR...

And while Von Braun is one of my heroes, Goddard was THE MAN behind rocket science.

[Uncle Emanuel Watkins]

I found this interesting discussion in other forum which shows that war is good for people who survive. Here it is-:

Look at what the Germans learned in world war 2

How to make Rockets, different technologies , medicines

All Country's learn a great deal from WAR'

You can look at all the bad things that come from War

How about the good things?

With just that Rocket technology we got from the Germans
we The Great USA was able to go to the Moon!

Look at all the men who had no jobs before world war 2
the War came and they now had jobs then after the War
they had the G.I bill and went to College then got even
a better Job...

There are many good things that come from War
to make the human race even better..

War is Good!

Like it or not!

Technology during World War II played a crucial role in determining the outcome of the greatest war of all. Much of it had begun development during the interwar years of the 1920s and 1930s, some was developed in response to lessons learned during the war, and yet more was only beginning to be developed as the war ended. The massive research and development demands of the war had a great impact on the scientific community. Given the scope of the war and the rapid technological escalation which happened during the war, a vast array of technology was employed, as different nations and different units found themselves equipped with different levels of technology. Military technology developments spanned across all areas of industry. After the war ended, these developments led to new sciences like cybernetics

Almost all types of technology were utilized, although main areas of technology which saw major developments were:

Weaponry; including ships, vehicles, aircraft, artillery, rocketry, small arms, and biological, chemical and atomic weapons.

Logistical support; including vehicles necessary for transporting soldiers and supplies, such as trains, trucks, and aircraft.

Communications and intelligence; including devices used for navigation, communication, remote sensing and espionage.

Medicine; including surgical innovations, chemical medicines, and techniques

Industry; including the technologies employed at factories and production/distribution centers.

Thanks to War many people now enjoy a better life
and live longer then before..

This view is a fallacy based on the supposed advancement of man.
We only truly benefit when our perspective is correct. First off, we should believe in the fall of man. As our Founding Fathers were superior to us, we are now superior to what they were because of what we inherited from them, the love they imparted to us.
My dad was far better than me, but I have become better than he ever was because of the lessor person I was born along with the love he added to me.
Not "desperate times call for desperate measures, but "great benefits are derived from the most precious of alterations."

[wildfirepower]

Just as forest fire is necessary for the better growth of the forest. Similarly war leads to better life for people who survive."

[Rancher]

Just as forest fire is necessary for the better growth of the forest. Similarly war leads to better life for people who survive."

This is truly twisted thinking. :(

[Pericles]

"If you want to make a lot of money, invent something that will help the Europeans kill each other more efficiently." Hiram Maxim

War and the threat of war leads to the investment into R&D that otherwise would not happen. Why? Because of the consequences of being on the losing side of a war create that imperative to have the best equipment possible to use in the fight. Thanks to DARPA and ARPANET, I am able to communicate this thought to you.

[Rancher]

War and the threat of war leads to the investment into R&D that otherwise would not happen. Why? Because of the consequences of being on the losing side of a war create that imperative to have the best equipment possible to use in the fight. Thanks to DARPA and ARPANET, I am able to communicate this thought to you.


BS. Without wars societies would be much more advanced than we are now. The Industrial Revolutions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution) advanced people by leaps and bounds during times of peace in spite of wars.

War is for profits, not for advancement of technology. "War is a Racket" - General Smedley Butler

[Anti Federalist]

None of those advances in material gains are worth the price.

That price is the general acceptance of the notion that the state owns your ass, can put a rifle in your hand and force you to go off and kill some other people somewhere.

"There are only two legitimate reasons to go to war. One is to defend your home, the other is to defend the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is a racket." - Uncle Smedley

[John Taylor]

None of those advances in material gains are worth the price.

That price is the general acceptance of the notion that the state owns your ass, can put a rifle in your hand and force you to go off and kill some other people somewhere.

"There are only two legitimate reasons to go to war. One is to defend your home, the other is to defend the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is a racket." - Uncle Smedley

Indeed. Moreover, the author of the thread forgets Bastiat's Broken Window fallacy.

[Anti Federalist]

Indeed. Moreover, the author of the thread forgets Bastiat's Broken Window fallacy.

You'd think people would learn...:(

More than a couple of people in this thread mentioned the broken window fallacy, hopefully it will find it's way back to the OP, wherever they may be.

[John Taylor]

You'd think people would learn...:(

More than a couple of people in this thread mentioned the broken window fallacy, hopefully it will find it's way back to the OP, wherever they may be.

My bad, only read the opening post of the thread an jumped to the second page of comments.

[Anti Federalist]

My bad, only read the opening post of the thread an jumped to the second page of comments.

Hell, nothing bad about it.

Needs to be mentioned every other comment.

[ibaghdadi]

Look at what the Germans learned in world war 2
How to make Rockets, different technologies , medicines
All Country's learn a great deal from WAR'


Threads like these make my brain hurt. Especially seeing how no one bothers to fact-check the central premise. Everyone is taking it uncritically that "war makes technologies develop faster".

To start, rocketry wasn't invented in the second world war. It was invented in the 1920s by Goddard, in the United States. German rocket technology wasn't developed during the war. It was developed during the 1920s as well.

In all probability, the US would have reached the moon earlier if it wasn't for the war (actually, if it wasn't for the depression).

As for medicine: both the Germans and the Japanese performed horrible human-subject experiments during the war - and did any valid research come out of it?

Besides, I'm one who believes that real human progress doesn't come from technological or economic development. A society that watches idly as human beings are slaughtered, raped, and blown to bits is barbaric and retarded - no matter how rich and technologically advanced it may be.

[MelissaWV]

Threads like these make my brain hurt. Especially seeing how no one bothers to fact-check the central premise. Everyone is taking it uncritically that "war makes technologies develop faster".

To start, rocketry wasn't invented in the second world war. It was invented in the 1920s by Goddard, in the United States. German rocket technology wasn't developed during the war. It was developed during the 1920s as well.

In all probability, the US would have reached the moon earlier if it wasn't for the war (actually, if it wasn't for the depression).

As for medicine: both the Germans and the Japanese performed horrible human-subject experiments during the war - and did any valid research come out of it?

Besides, I'm one who believes that real human progress doesn't come from technological or economic development. A society that watches idly as human beings are slaughtered, raped, and blown to bits is barbaric and retarded - no matter how rich and technologically advanced it may be.

I don't know which thread you're reading. Most people have taken issue with the central premise that wars "advanced technology" faster than peacetime. I did mention the human-subject experiments, but we do have companies that participated that are still around today. Some of the research sneaked its way in and is still part of our daily lives. Bayer, anyone?

Wars make technology SEEM to spring up because of the way technology is managed. They also represent an almost debutant ball environment for things. Perhaps the technology was around for years or decades, but now it's "famous." Some companies develop things for war efforts that later become quite popular outside of the military, but that doesn't mean it never would have happened. M&Ms would have come about regardless of whether or not they were part of the average mess kit.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

It sure does make it a lot easier to compete when competing factories are destroyed and you kidnap a talented R&D department.

[heavenlyboy34]

Imagine all of the things we could have invented if we were not wasting resources on war.

The argument is totally false.

+a zillion

It's the broken window fallacy in action. :p