For people don't think we need the military or space programs

How many people actually realize how many of the modern "things" we have were derived from technologies originally created by either the military research or the space research programs.

If not for the R&D from these sources, we would be so far behind where we are, that we wouldn't recognize where we would be at otherwise.

While there are some negatives, the sheer financial aspects necessitate continued spending on these programs, or the Germans, Japanese, and especially the Chinese, will simply pass us by in 20 or 30 years.

I would gladly give up my high tech life if that would mean those war mongering foolishness never had, did or will happen.

In a heart beat.

reply to post by Truth1000


you don't really have a space program anymore. The space program died in the 80s.
A military program is ok, but some people do sell the old weapons to people that actually use them. WWII brought many innovations (except for the nuke, that was stupid), so did the cold war. But these days military programs have to make a profit, so old technologies are sold to people that actually use them.

The latest US wars were used to get rid of old bombs etc, that should have been disposed of in by other, more expensive means.

the problem is that military programs have a side effect, it's called war.

You need to separate the words "WANT" and "NEED" in your vocabulary.

We do not "NEED" the military.

Do mice need a military ? Does a bird need a military? No...

Therefore what you mean is that you "WANT" one.

There is no survival reasoning to have a military other than "someone else has one we need to defend from". That is the only reason, a Self-perpetuating reason!

No we do not "Need" a military, we simply WANT one.

Space programs are a different matter altogether IMO, because there ARE survival reasons for going to space and exploring the final frontier.

In the end game, humans NEED a space program. Not just humans, but all life on Earth.

If we are to outlive our Star's inevitable super-nova event, we must escape the solar system.

All animals on Earth are counting on us to accomplish this task, as we are the caretakers of Earth (suppose to be).

All life on Earth "needs" a "space program" to get us out of here when our sun goes nova.

We don't "need" a military though.

reply to post by muzzleflash

Originally posted by muzzleflash

We do not "NEED" the military.

There is no survival reasoning to have a military other than "someone else has one we need to defend from". That is the only reason, a Self-perpetuating reason!

By your own words, this is why we "need" a military.

In the end game, humans NEED a space program. Not just humans, but all life on Earth.

Agreed.

All animals on Earth are counting on us to accomplish this task, as we are the caretakers of Earth (suppose to be).

Ah, dude, Do you really believe animals are aware of the suns eventual demise? Do you think that they are counting on us?

All life on Earth "needs" a "space program" to get us out of here when our sun goes nova.

The sun will not go nova. It's not big enough. It will however turn into a red giant and engulf the solar system in a few billion years.

We don't "need" a military though.

We "need" a military to defend ourselves from those who would actively seek to destroy us.


[edit on 28-6-2010 by MY2Commoncentsworth]

reply to post by MY2Commoncentsworth


Hello again ...

you really don't get it. Nobody (except for a handful of stupid terrorists)cares about the US, you're just like Australia, somewhat useless. We only need Apple, Microsoft, Intel and a few other companies that's all. I can guarantee that more than 50% of the people working there weren't actually born in the US.

A simple example, Iceland, have you heard of it ? People earn more on average that in the US, life is cheap, life is great, but nobody attacked them because there was no reason to.


sorry if I offended the people from the US or Australia, didn't mean to, the people are great, what I mean to say is that we don't need your land, or whatever you think the terrorists are trying to steal from you. The fact that I can't find a thing I would attack the US for, points out that you don't have anything worth taking.

[edit on 28-6-2010 by randel]

I knew this post was going to be about "the military helps promote technology"

Absolute HOGWASH.. If the human race did'nt have the incessant need to fight and kill itself thereby creating "programs of destruction" that magically create technologies.. well then that would leave us in a state of peace..

In a state of peace we would still have issues like famine.. in peace we would develop different tech to combat it to eradicate

Disease: no military to support so diseases would be tackled by a peace loving species..

The list goes on.

Sure.. we're going to have war and the military but saying we need it is saying the same thing as WE NEED CANCER TO BE ABLE TO FIGHT CANCER.. utter crap way of thinking.

If we were peaceful and loving to one another from the beginning, the tech we need to advance and get off this planet if we wanted would have been developed a long time ago..

b

reply to post by Bspiracy

Originally posted by Bspiracy

Sure.. we're going to have war and the military but saying we need it is saying the same thing as WE NEED CANCER TO BE ABLE TO FIGHT CANCER.. utter crap way of thinking.

If we were peaceful and loving to one another from the beginning, the tech we need to advance and get off this planet if we wanted would have been developed a long time ago..

Now I think I understand. All you guys who are thinking along these lines are young people. I was the same way when I was your age. And I will not say anything that will shatter your idealism. But when you get older, you will see things differently.

The problem is that there will always be enough people who who are not peaceful and loving to each other. You will never find heaven on earth. But don't stop trying, because if you do, things will only get worse.

We must continu to research spaceflight and other things related to it,

And here is why. In about 3 billiion years we will collide with the andromedia galaxy that is mutch bigger then ours and therefor ours will be destroyd.

Here a site explaining it www.galaxydynamics.org...

So we must Hurry and get out of here.

[edit on 28-6-2010 by Spacedman13]

reply to post by randel

Originally posted by randel
reply to post by MY2Commoncentsworth

 

A simple example, Iceland, have you heard of it ? People earn more on average that in the US, life is cheap, life is great, but nobody attacked them because there was no reason to.

And life is cold!


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d1b078c43ad5.gif[/atsimg]

Oh wait... isn't that a skating rink on 33rd street? No. My bad. It's a resturant for elves. Oh.....those little people are at it again.

P.S. Cold does terrible things to the mind. I see elves every time I get brain freeze from eating ice cream.



[edit on 29-6-2010 by MY2Commoncentsworth]

reply to post by Bspiracy


I'm not sure your analogy is entirely accurate, comparing the military to a cancerous tumor is definitely an apples and oranges situation. Although there are negative repercussions that come from having an active and advanced military there are many positives that come from this as well. For example, the space program that we so love and see as being the future of mankind was founded by (in America) the U.S. Army, many of whom retired to start NASA in the civilian sector to move beyond shallow space flight. This alone shows that by having a military we have developed new technologies that the citizens of a nation thought should be pursued and then did so without the military's help.

Its not hard to realize at this point that without the military first deciding it was a possibility the civilian sector would not have had the idea to begin a space program for some time after.

Also, although they are not currently active in NASA all branches of the U.S. military save for the Marines have an active space program, even the Navy; the Air Force alone launches more unmanned missions in a month than NASA launches in a year.

On another note it is also interesting to study military history and its effects on civilization over the past 2000 years or so, I've spoken at lengths with my history professors about the subject and although its not something I like saying the truth is that a strong case can be made that the human race enjoys its fastest technological developments due to military reasons, be it attack or fear of attack.

A contraposition for this theory would be the Tibetan monks who are one of the worlds oldest and most peaceful cultures have not advanced technologically since around the year 650 when Buddhism was introduced to the country. In most recent times(the past 150 years or so) more modern cities have sprung up in Tibet but these are more of the result of westerners traveling to Tibet and no real new technological developments are really found there.

look at the nations and tribes in Africa. They don't have advanced technologies, but they still have war, even among their own tribes. The development of war is not based on the technology, because it happened even when there were just rocks and sticks. However, the technology of war developed because mankind was DEPENDENT upon war for survival and exploration, and to create civilization itself.

Idealists dream of a world without war. It is a dream, and nothing more. As long as humans are humans, THERE WILL BE WAR!

reply to post by Truth1000


True that some tribes in Africa have not advanced technologically but there again many have. Many of the oldest and most advanced African settlements were war driven Egypt is a prime example, as are the Nok, the Mali, and the Great Zimbabwe empire is also believed to have achieved its stature of an empire by conquering neighboring tribes.

Also I think you misunderstood that I did not mean that the only factor involved in a civilizations technological achievements was war, there are many other factors at play, but war is key to adapting and innovating. For example, gun powder began as a toy for the elite of the Chinese Empire(who's modern borders were mostly founded by the Yuan dynasty who were Mongolian conquerors who slaughtered the entire upper class of China) was eventually adapted as a weapon in form of simple bamboo cannons in China, but after being traded around the world many empires who were constantly warring adapted it to be used with other technologies to create more powerful weapons. The Ottoman empire was the first empire to use gun powder extensively in their military campaigns and were also among the bloodiest empires in history, they adapted the technology to help them in their war campaigns which also caused more problems such as cannons blowing up in their faces, this then in turn causes a need for R & D to solve the problem as to why, advancing technology, which was done for them by way of developing advanced metal working technology that slowly spread.

But all that aside I agree with your final statement, the idea of live and let live doesn't work in a human world, at least not one ruled by humans from this era. Even if every country on earth gave up their military all it would take is one paranoid ruler to decide he/she should build a small army for protection and start the cycle of military buildup all over again.

My point exactly, 653!

Warm fuzzy feelings between all human beings sound nice, but you might as well wish for no hurricanes, tornadoes, or earthquakes, because they have the same likelihood.

In the real world, only technology leads the way to the future.

I think there will always be a need for space exploration. But the reason why all these huge inventions came from left field was because we had never been there before. Now that we've been there and done that I'm not so sure that we'll have any major break through in tech like we have had in the 50s-60s

reply to post by Sm0kinGuns

Originally posted by Sm0kinGuns
I think there will always be a need for space exploration. But the reason why all these huge inventions came from left field was because we had never been there before. Now that we've been there and done that I'm not so sure that we'll have any major break through in tech like we have had in the 50s-60s

I have to strongly disagree. As the time that it takes for the sum of all human knowledge to double keeps getting shorter, major breakthroughs will accelerate rapidly.

Your statement reminds me of one that someone who worked in the US Patent Office in the late 1800's once made. He was quoted as saying that all discovery's have already been made.

Information literacy
In September 2003, the International Conference on Information Literacy took place in Prague, with experts representing 23 countries from seven major continents participating. This group proposed six basic "Information Literacy Principles." The first states that "The creation of an Information Society is key to social, cultural and economic development of nations and communities, institutions and individuals in the 21st century and beyond." Other sources have indicated that information literacy is becoming an increasingly more important part of K-12 education and a vital part of university-level education. In our "information age" world, students must develop skills early on so they are prepared for post-secondary opportunities, whether in the workplace or in pursuit of higher education. In her book, "Student Learning in the Information Age" (1998), Patricia Senn Breivik reports that the sum of all human knowledge will double every 73 days by 2020.

www.maintenanceworld.com...


[edit on 29-6-2010 by MY2Commoncentsworth]

reply to post by Sm0kinGuns


I'd respectfully disagree because the nature of technology is ever changing. We are now exploring more facets of technology than were ever before possible and in many ways that were not possible in the mid-20th century. For example the field of Artificial Intelligence was restricted to only the theorists who had years to ponder ideas that were beyond testing on current computers, now most computer science programs in colleges offer AI courses that test these early theories. It is in fields like this that we are making advances in leaps and bounds currently as opposed to the engineering aspect that was advancing so quickly back then.

This is not to say that we aren't making great progress with hardware as well, I personally am really excited to see photonic and quantum computers finally coming to fruition.

For anyone interested in learning some of the really cool stuff that's going on in computing you should check out the Association for Computing Machinery and their tech news section.

To put technology advances into perspective, I would simply point back to a 1967 Chevrolet Impala commercial. Their "theme" that year in their advertising campaign was "The 1967 Chevrolet Impala - everything new that could happen to an automobile DID!"

i would suggest that, however proud of that vehicle they were, it was incorrect to think that no new advances could be made. That vehicle was very advanced, for its day, but even the cheapie cars of today have technology that is far better than that 1967 Impala.

Not only do we still need technology, but our technology is changing more in two years than what it changed from 1945 to 1965 - two decades. More scientists are alive and working now, today, than if you added up all of the scientists of history from the first modern man to 1940.

Science and technology are advancing far faster than any time in history.

For me personally, it reminds me of the Bible's description of the days before the flood, when God commented that if mankind were not changed, nothing could be withheld that they could imagine!

Originally posted by Truth1000

While there are some negatives, the sheer financial aspects necessitate continued spending on these programs, or the Germans, Japanese, and especially the Chinese, will simply pass us by in 20 or 30 years.

Do you live in a fantasy world? You know the technology is on par with USA all over the world. Some are better at something, others are better at other things.

The americans are good at spending money on useless war related things. Developing technology for military&space purposes is not nearly as good as spending the same amount of money directly developing civilian technology.

[edit on 7/1/2010 by above]

Having dealt with other nations, I recognize that they are much better at long-term planning than the U.S. is. When I was living in Germany, I saw how they were planning for 20-30-50 years in the future while we in the U.S. were unable to create an annual Federal budget on time.

The difference is that the U.S. is extremely good at creating "projects" but not so good at doing basic planning otherwise. This is one of the reasons so many of our Allies have so much difficulty coping with the choatic nature of American planning circumstances.

One President will set a specific goal, and for eight years, we follow that plan. Our Allies then adjust their 30-year plans to compensate for what we are up to. Then, that President goes home, a new President shows up, and the whole pattern of what the U.S. is doing will change, while we expect our Allies to change their plans along with us.

Still, if not for these specific "project" programs, we do not tend to plan well otherwise. Congress cannot decide whether to pay for mammograms under the same Medicare programs one year to the next, while these other nations are looking fifty years into the future, planning their actions.

To those nations, our "normal planning cycle" is psychotic and irratiional, yet we persist in repeating this pattern over the past century, yet we NEVER LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES!

This is the point I am trying to make with this thread.