Sorry to sound cynical, but when talking about the economy, people tend to ignore the proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room: 'defense' spending. This should be the center of conversation about the economy.
I hate wasteful defense spending and the military-industrial complex as much as anyone, but saying that innovations in killing never help the economy is just patently false.
EDIT: Ok, weapons sure, but most of the entries in that list aren't weapons.
The problem is that these organizations will never be given similar funds. People respond to fear; they don't respond to the Higgs Boson. The only way to get billions invested basic science is to say that without it, we're at risk of nuclear annihilation from the Russians/Iraqis/Afghans/Chinese.
Is there no hope that we can educate people to be more rational? To look past the short term? And to stop seeing boogy men everywhere?
It doesn't much matter if something else "could". What matters is whether something else "will".
Past performance is no guarantee of future results, but it is a constructive argument.
I'd love to see other sources of innovation. (And there is one, but it's often military-associated.) However, it's dumb to rely on them until after they've produced.
If earth was for certain doomed in a short term astronomical sense, I'd wager that NASA would see all the funding and then some that the military complex sees.
The inventions listed are all beneficial spin offs of ones that were designed to further the military's main goal: killing. It is unlikely that something such as RADAR is invented when it is if one does not need to shoot down aircraft carrying thousands of pounds of bombs.
There are simpler and easier ways to accomplish everything else we use RADAR for.
Moreover, defense spending doesn't necessarily equate to violence. Look at the trillions spent during the cold war, paradoxically spent to avoid violence.
No, I'm trying to get you to look at what you just said. Spending money on killing people isn't an "investment" no matter what you find out in doing so.
>Look at the trillions spent during the cold war, paradoxically spent to avoid violence.
I think if you look into it you'll find that that money was indeed spent on violence. Just by violence by proxy.
Even today, during two active wars, if you look through the appropriations bills you'll find that a surprisingly large amount of US defense spending is not spent on violence. Back in the cold war, the proportion spent on maintaining that detente was even greater.
If killing or threatening to kill others keeps the dollar strong it's an investment? So in that case mafia violence is also an investment, right?
We seem to be on a subjective, slippery slope here. What would you call it, if not an investment? You skipped that part.