This entire quote is massively non-sensical to the point where your ability to have rational thoughts I find to be seriously in question. The point at which you say war machine you're still taking yourself seriously? This is the kind of thought process that leads a country into taking a path to devolve into Venezuela while saying the whole time, "No this is totally fine. The path of free markets and technological innovation is equivalent to the WAR MACHINE. We're destroying our own society like Venezuela, but at least we're doing it equitably."
Hmm ok let's just take a look at incredible advances in technology started by folks that are not funded by THE WAR MACHINE... Google, Uber, Microsoft, Jonas Salk and countless vaccines, Apple, Amazon, Intel, Cisco, AirBnB, Snapchat, SpaceX, Tesla, SolarCity, Dropbox, WeWork, Spotify, Square, Spotify, BitCoin, SAP, SAS, Domo, Twilio, and literally tens of thousands of other awesome businesses built purely from the desire of their founders for innovation, advancement, and some profit...
I see constant innovation all the time in my field of work, and none of it has to do with THE WAR MACHINE. It's all driven by very bright people building better products to better serve their clients through constant, ongoing technological innovation.
The thing is, I don't think that anything that I or someone who thinks like me could say that would possibly resonate with you, and I know that there are at least tens of millions of people in this country who have your same line of thought. This is why I'm legitimately afraid for the U.S. because we're going to just end up heading into some death spiral as a country that folks like you are going to rationalize as either caused by TEH WAR MACHINE or for which you're going to see people violently looting and destroying all of our social institutions and principles that make this country great and say, "Because we are an imperfect human society that does not match some non-existent utopian standard, burning this whole thing to the ground so all we are left with is violence and poverty for all is totally reasonable and justified." That's where that rationale ultimately leads.
This entire quote is massively non-sensical to the point where your ability to have rational thoughts I find to be seriously in question.
I kind of fixed it for you. This would have been enough. Because if my post as you quoted of 87 words was so massively 'non-sensical' <sic> and I do not have the ability to 'have rational thoughts.' You wasted 366 words ranting about my little post, trying to prove it false.
Now, if you want to get past your own habit of emotional overload while posting, when you have to deal with something intelligent which upsets your world view, then here it is, line by line :
And, for those misguided who can only repeat the mantra free (trade) capitalism - Clearly I am talking about a subset of those that favor free trade and capitalism, specifically those who have no reason why, or have no real evidence to back their dogmatic beliefs up. These folks are usually historical revisionists, or influenced by historical revisionists. In my opinion the group I am describing is a small but vocal minority of the whole free trade within the pro-capitalism group.
So I am specifically addressing a subset I see that hides behind free trade, and capitalism as am answer to everything. They ignore a couple of deficiencies in the real-world practice that allowed England and other imperialistic governments used free trade to commit atrocities, including but not limited to genocide, against our colonialists, and the Irish, over a period of say, six centuries. And that potential is just as omnipresent today in the execution of unrestricted free-trade capitalism anywhere in the world. Check the Roman Catholic Church teachings, among others.
As far as the British with the Irish : Nassau Senior, respected economics professor at Oxford University, and advisor to the The Exchequer said that the Famine in Ireland "would not kill more than one million people, and that would scarcely be enough to do any good." You see, the British took 40 to 70 ships
per day of cattle, grain, and other foodstuffs, from Ireland, as the population they wanted to eliminate (due to modernization of agriculture, the 'serfs' were no longer necessary) starved!
I ask you, if we had an economy that only favored this mantra, how would we ever move to a more technically advanced economy, without the pain of warfare requiring advances? - Unchecked free trade capitalism puts all the power and authority in the hands of those that control the wealth. And they, with the wealth and control become recalcitrant to change anything.
This has happened every time it has played out in history. It isn't the barbarians that caused the dark ages; but those charged with protecting civilization against the barbarians! Serfdom, and the starvation of almost every European population wasn't caused by the attacking hordes; but by those who mustered the forces to defend the populations, and then subjugated them!
So much so, that by the middle of the eighteenth century, a new idea was born, conceived in liberty. People, not the rulers, the system of government, the government, a church, were the ultimate source, and benefactors of rights!
So then, if we do not advocate for individual liberties, (true liberalism), without the checks of an effective government of the people for as to provide checks upon the free trade capitalism still espoused by some, (please add all trickle-down, or pissed-upon economic plans here), then there can be no drive to innovate, which in itself is an admitted basic tenant, if not the driving engine, for the whole philosophy of free trade capitalism.
Good so far?
It wouldn't happen. Just as big oil, big coal, etc., are frustrating efforts to develop energy alternatives, we would never move off oil as a fuel source, - So when there is concerted wealth, limited ownership, and political control, technical innovation is disincentivized, if by nothing more than the weight of unrecovered capital investment. We have seen this time, and time again with large, and multinational corporations. EXCEPT for one of two reasons.
until it was too late, - occasionally, even the top management suffers enough that they force changes that go against capitalistic principle. London abandoning openly burning coal in the nineteenth century is a good example; the trees were dying, horse and buggy accidents were occurring because visibility was becoming so limited, etc. So someone decided to go with the next more expensive alternative, that allowed people to actually breathe! A major move before, and in the very first part of the 20
th Century throughout the Western world, to move dumping sewage downstream from the water intake is another set of good examples.
unless we needed a more efficient alternative to fuel our war machine!Of all the companies you mentioned, all can attribute their origin, the origin of their product, or the origin of the product that makes their goods and services possible to : WWI, WWII, the Cold War, the Space Race, Korea, Viet Nam, or any other limited incursions that our government initiated.
Anything computer - WWII, Space Race, and Cold War.
Anything medical (including Jonas Salk's ability to do research) - WW I, WWII, Cold War, Space Race
Anything solar related (guess)
I have boxes of photo's from WW II. I had pill bottles full of experimental medication. They came with direct testimony that in the second WW theoretical technologies were developed and introduced in weeks, research was organized to the days best technology, and with methodology to help isolate, discover, and educate to help Allied forces overcome diseases, and inhospitable environmental conditions themselves.
Have you ever seen a kerosene refrigerator? Not for fueling a generator, but with kerosene as a refrigerant. The group(s) who researched jungle diseases in the South Pacific needed things that just weren't available, so in a matter of a couple of months they were all invented.
Then over the next two years everything they did was proceduralized, and was shared with research institutions and universities. Think about it, starting from scratch, doing jobs that had never been done, with equipment that had never been thought of, for a concentrated goal that was required for the Allied forces to win the war. Where do you think that incredible post WW2 research push came from?
Following shortly after that (historically), I have pictures of huge warehouses full of electrical equipment. I won't call it
electronic equipment, because it really wasn't yet. But the Federal government paid for everything from the first vacuum tube computers, to transistors, to microprocessors, and therefor I say the needs of war resulted in this great advance of technology.
In my post I chose just one example I see on the horizon, the lack of viability of fossil fuels that may force us to change to a more advanced power source, if we have a military necessity. Politically and economically, we have every reason to continue down our path of using fossil fuels. Scientists that are trying to warn against it are still decried. But there is a good chance that it may not be able to adequately power armies in the future. So with war, political expedience and capital investment would evaporate. Wouldn't they? It was a little intended hyperbole.
