For the cost of a single Hellfire, many Afghanistan villages could've been given power, for the first time, to charge their phones, making it possible for them to communicate, to educate themselves. But instead: BOOM! There goes some kids leg.

What a pity that the desire to create such technology is not, instead, being directed by the government towards truly peaceful technologies..

And what happens when people who accept those plants, schools and education are killed by people who don't want them to accept those gifts from us? Back in the Vietnam era I made the same argument you do (for awhile). But the VC learned to kill villagers who accepted aid. The same thing goes on today in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc.

In a better world, one without war, I would agree with you. But that is not the world we live in. Sometimes you have to think things through to second-order and higher effects.

Drop books not bombs!

Dropping books on villages when the security situation hasn't been established is akin to dropping landmines - anyone who picks one up and takes it home risks being killed.

There is a very good reason the Afghan campaign was about providing security in an area first then building schools, providing power, healthcare etc.

The problem is that Helmand province (especially) is so close the Pakistani border, and thus limitless reinforcements, providing the security there to do anything else is nigh on impossible.

Provide the security so that people won't be killed for being educated, and education is best. Educating without security just leads to dead kids.

It was once very, very difficult to drop a bomb on a childs head from afar - you used to have to do a lot more. Now its 'easy', relatively speaking. Imagine if that same scale of efficacy were applied, instead, to educating - to healing - to helping instead of killing.

What would the "B1 Bomber" of education systems look like? Lets develop it, and deliver.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Cups_of_Tea

I've yet to meet an American who thinks the Trillion dollar military-industrial debt that they owe has been worth it.

At all.

Your statement is simply a complaint that really has no relevance. Are you in favor of giving more in foreign aid, to help build schools, etc?

Of course, if not for the US, some other bully would be there, I perfectly understand that. Thus, no need of answering anything along those lines.

cf Boko Haram - the Nigerian group whose name is literally "Western education is sinful".

As alwasy, the military leads the way in science with their limitless budget, funded by fear.

Peaceful spinoff project is where the benefits for everybody will come from.

A nice thought, but anyone who has spent time in rural AFG/PAK or Yemen/Somalia (where most of this is happening) will tell you that that is not what would happen. More typical, the power would be diverted to or ripped out by the local warlords to maintain their own power over the population - and most of the "regular" citizens go along with it because it meets cultural demands of the religiosity and tribalism that has been baked in for.

Liberalism (classic) can't be forced on a region or a group of people.

If you are like me, you are easily able to divorce the appalling human costs to obtain the raw data of cause and effect. I have had to force myself to temper my observation, given that most people do not want you pointing out unique anatomical facets whilst a person lays bifurcated. Pay them no mind, fellow freak. It was our lot that were the first barber-surgeons and grave robbers, and it is through our collective twisted perspective that we will continue to stick our little babby fingers in the wall socket of the unknown.

There's a whole world of applications for AI and machinery that we could be pooling our resources into, but instead we're funding a continuing war on "terror" abroad. There's no reason why the war is necessary, no reason why technological progress would be made faster in the art of killing vs anything else.

Perhaps you believe that perpetual war is unavoidable and necessary. We could argue that.

But the way I see it, war isn't necessary, and the technological progress we make by funding war is a slim silver lining at best on a double edged sword with no handle. So you see, I find this thread ridiculous. I think you guys are psychopaths. And you're outnumbered by the rest of us.

War may not be necessary from an emotional standpoint, but from a technological standpoint it is the only game in town. The recent developments in peaceful IT are unique in human history, and they themselves are predicated on war technology and research. In fact, i challenge you to name one area of technology that is not based on war research and military development. I don't think you can name a single device that is not built off of something war related. I have a special place in my heart for the myth of pure science and research. I also believe it could become a reality. I posted ITT about how it might be possible to counter the militarization of our air. I think a few successive generations of scientists who are not affiliated with war making could bring about peaceful advancement, but as it stands now, technology absolutely requires mistrustful nations, reckless generals, and politely amoral science and tech workers.

All of that AI and "machinery" has a military background. They control the purse, so they dictate the purpose.

Surely you are canny enough to know that petty appeals to my "intelligence" only serve to make you seem desperate to be right. All 3 of those things, hell all things, are neither good nor bad. They are merely titles given based on context. Context is everything. A civilian sees a RPV as a killing machine. A EOD tech sees a drone as an insurance policy. A president sees a Predator as a solution. I see a way for normal people to enhance their effect in shaping their world. All of us see the same toy, but we all have a different use for it. Surely you are intelligent enough to understand that context can bring new light to any topic or situation...

Or do you count that as 'medicine'? In that case you can reduce everything all the way down to cave men battling over fire.

I don't disagree that war time has pushed science for the vast majority of history... But there are fields that were not created initially with offensive or defensive purposes in mind.

Edit: Added devices to example

The bulk of all modern medicine (western at least) owes its regimen and SOP to military medicine. Just as i have seen ligatures (tourniquet) go from a no-no to standard practice in the last 10 years, each generation has watched medical science be advanced by martial situations. Epidemiology, rehabilitation, prostheses, surgery; they all are where they are now because of war and the responses to war. Modern sensing equipment is a grandchild of the tech build up of the cold war. Fracking super glue was a Vietnam War Era advancement.

I do not like it, as i think human on human war is an obsolete expression of very small groups of wealthy folk colluding to expand (ditto for racism), but i think it is a bit naive to assume we can just carry on with the march to the stars on the assumption that peaceful means of technological advancement are superior/ will be adequate. Humanity requires a challenge to be its best self. I grow tired of the challenge being an artifice of business (which is the predicate for all wars. all.), and if Global Climate Shift is in any way alterable, i sincerely hope that humanity's response will be the next "war", or concerted conflict if you will.

War is not the key ingredient, but it is by far the best catalyst known to people thus far.

I still don't think you can come up with a logical example of Genetics being a war tool (yet) though. Yes Medicine has benefited from war time progress in many ways. But Medicine is not Genetics. While Genetics may be part of medicine (squares are rectangles but rectangles are not squares). All of the things you mentioned (surgery, rehab, prosthesis, etc) were practical medical applications for the battlefield, while Genetics was not created for or applicable to such things (although it has seen more recent attempts to apply it in that fashion).

Also business machines can easily be tied to war. IBM + Nazi Germany.

Finally challenge need not come exclusively from war. For instance using my example of Genetics, the challenge of explaining how traits are passed (or any sufficiently broad challenge), and being the first one to come up with it (scooping people and stealing their work to do so: Rosalyn Franklin) can drive people as well.

I don't disagree that war pushes innovation in any way. To say such a thing would be naive and ignorant of history. But it is not the only game in town.

Edit: Clarification of sentence structure.

To all your points about genetics: Edward Wirths, and all the accompanying links in the wikuhpuhDIEuh. I know they may not have known the were the early innovators, nor does their misguided research have a huge part in the modern attempt to begin refining our genetic structure in response to senescence and error. But their techniques are alive and well. If you don't treat the subjects like shit and you keep your mortality rates subdivided so they are not counted together, you can perform a buttton of research.

I know it does not need to come from war to be innovative. I personally believe that all inspiration comes from either fear or love. I think we as humans are exceptionally good at fear. I know i am shit at love.

I love your handle. I would love to talk further with you about some of those "other games".

You think that your psychopathy puts you in some elite category of non-labouring factory commander. It doesn't, it just makes you aberration to be tolerated until you all kill each other. Your failure to ground your value system into your nature -- a fellow human -- makes you an evolution inconsistency waiting to resolve itself. That is why you are outnumbered.

If not, you'll find that the future holds unexpected surprises for you as your pet machine comes to crush your frail body, only after realizing through trial and failure that you weren't able to transcend your physical nature.

> Nor can you name a single device that is not built off of something non-war related.

The Gloobenstien. This is a device powered off farts. It is used to detect and avoid /b/ronies. You lose.

>You think that your psychopathy puts you in some elite category of non-labouring factory commander.

I think my Borderline Personality Disorder has put me in my parents basement with no job and a huge list of ex-friends and lovers.

>it just makes you {an} aberration to be tolerated until you all kill each other.

What do you mean, "you people", you racist melon farmer? Seriously though, thank you for the new script idea. A serial killer that kills killers via giant, killer death arena called the KILLER DEATH ARENA. It is perfect, because people are fascinated by death, and it is totally unbelievable [Harry Potter, Saving Private Ryan, Deathbed: the Bed the Kills People]. "We" tend to kill you guys. Tigers do not often hunt tigers, though they do attack them if their territories overlap.

>Your failure to ground your value system into your nature -- a fellow human -- makes you an evolution{ary} inconsistency waiting to resolve itself. That is why you are outnumbered.

Evolution is not an intelligent process, you cretin. "We" are outnumbered because "we" cannot hide from our own stupid, unlike some of my human cousins.

>If not,{sic} you'll find that the future holds unexpected surprises for you as your pet machine comes to crush your frail body, only after realizing through trial and failure that you weren't able to transcend your physical nature.

It is like you were watching I,Robot and you accidentally appended your comment with a point in a phantasmagorical argument you had with the cute, bony doctor type. I will not get to transcend my physical nature. I do not want to. I will help build a tomorrow where our future cousins do not have to see each other as adversaries or competitors to make some fuckhead proud of all that he has "gained".

I think you got all feel, and wrote without thinking. I do that so much that i have to take sabbaticals from my commentry. If you actually read this, i would love to have a full on discussion about what you perceive as "us" and where "our" place is in the world.

You parsed my sentence wrong or something. I challenged you to find a device that isn't built off of something non-war related. Mind the double negative. You do see the point I'm trying to make, no?

> I think my Borderline Personality Disorder has put me in my parents basement with no job and a huge list of ex-friends and lovers.

That's beside the point but, well, that sucks. Wait, things are starting to make sense.

> What do you mean, "you people", you racist melon farmer? Seriously though, thank you for the new script idea. A serial killer that kills killers via giant, killer death arena called the KILLER DEATH ARENA. It is perfect, because people are fascinated by death, and it is totally unbelievable [Harry Potter, Saving Private Ryan, Deathbed: the Bed the Kills People]. "We" tend to kill you guys. Tigers do not often hunt tigers, though they do attack them if their territories overlap.

You're absolutely right. I actually have no evidence to suggest that non-psychopaths are better or worst off than psychopaths. I was just hoping you'd disappear but I guess that didn't work.

> I will help build a tomorrow where our future cousins do not have to see each other as adversaries or competitors to make some fuckhead proud of all that he has "gained".

OK so you're clearly not a psychopath, so there's nothing more discuss about psychopathy per se. But I believe you are confused about something. There is, to this date, perhaps nothing quite as important as nation-state war and defense in determining the outcome of technological progress. But with the invention of the internet I hypothesize that we won't be seeing the kind of wars we have been seeing in the past -- it's much harder to convince enlightened people to kill another man.

So the battlefield is shifting away from the field to the infrastructure of computation, cryptocurrencies, and social media networks. Popular opinion is what will defeat the drones, not another drone army. And popular demand is what will drive technological innovation in the future, not national "defense" budgets. We've already lost, the world is constantly on the verge of a nuclear meltdown. What good is another killer weapon?

I know i am not a psychopath, but i am not so different from them. You are a mental midget. I assume it is because you are, or esteemed by a small peer group as, inordinately good at some "valuable" skill. Despite this, you are probably not very notable in very many categories. You probably wish you were a 'path or some other distinct brand of different. But you aren't. You are just a person that is good at something, maybe. Why this has developed into a childish fear/loathing of the differently endowed is interesting from a diagnostic standpoint. If you ever get the chance to see a battlefield, or a battle for that matter, you may be unpleasantly surprised at how little has changed in the nature of death. True, the way we deliver the rock has changed, but we still just through rocks and try to make peoples' insides their outsides. It is the attempt to kill, and the counter-attempt to stop the killer, that drives offensive/defensive innovation. The clan aspect of scientific research guarantees that even highly specialized approaches to war making will spin off unintended devices and methodologies.

I believe that the internets of the future as well as a growing understanding and incorporation of "aberrant" personalities will lead to a Pax Humanitae, but only if narrow, hidebound idiots like you are relegated to the peanut gallery.

I sense that what you wrote above represents a dominant line of thinking, where you look down upon others & their abilities, while putting violent destruction on the pedestal above and beyond what it actually merits. This leads me to think that you were abused physically and mentally at one point in your life, and it still affects your mindset today.

If so, I hope you can find a way to heal yourself. Perhaps adopt a pet if you don't have one. You'll be amazed what a dog can teach you.

Stop investing in start-ups and a couple of people will be a little less wealthy. Stop investing in the military and we and/or our way of live dies within a decade.

I grew up in the DCon capital of the world, friend. I have heard every iteration of the jingoist "spend or die" speech. I am fed, clothed, and housed by tax dollars spent on "expanding capability" and "maintaining status quo". It is not about security and freedom, it is about securing profits and freeing untapped investment. Do you think that DCon is somehow different than SV? Small groups of whip smart young people using the lost ideas of an older generation to carve out a slice of an expanding market. Information Technology and War Technology are two facets of the same gem.

Your original premise may be accurate, but i do not believe it is correct. The path you take effects the place you go in many ways, and not all of them are obvious or even observable at the moment of choosing.

Methinks you just like killing people. That's pretty psychopathic. Don't you have any friends?

Violence is not the key difference.

Dying when a plance crashes into your home or dying from a rocket fired from a malfunctioning drone are just as violent and just as "meaningless" to the next of kin. However, in both cases we learn something and we progress.

I'm sorry, but the world does not work in the way that Disney has made you believe.

I'm not exactly looking forwards to it.

Among other things, human history is the combined evolution of sociological and technological progress.

Societal progress has peaked a while ago.

Technology has been riding the curiosity and mental ability of the most brilliant among us, and is currently busy building its next vehicle.

The tragedy of the commons means that it will be very, very difficult to impede that trend, assuming it is possible at all.

DNA for long term storage, cell to cell communication culminating in multicellular organisms, nervous systems and memory, symbolic communication and information transmission through conversations. Writing, printing, telegraphs; computers, networked.

Technology is a self-amplifying meme, and, now that there are technological means to transmit, persist and process complex information outside of human brains, we are no longer necessary to perpetuate it.