Comment by jjeaff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jjeaff | Hacker News Reader

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While I agree that war is a bad thing, the money is not necessarily wasted. At least not all of it.

All this money isn't being thrown into a burn pile.

It pays American soldier salaries, it buys products from American defense contractors that provide hundreds of thousands of jobs, it funds R&D that trickles down to the rest of society.

Thats more than 1 million soldier salaries and probably hundreds of thousands of jobs with companies like Boeing, Raytheon, etc.

And I know this is a generalization, and that some of our sharpest minds and highest caliber people are in the military. But I also have quite a few aquantences that really seemed to be on a bad path until they joined the military. It adds discipline and provides an outlet for agression as well as a salary for some people who would otherwise be difficult to employ. I would hazard a guess that without the military, domestic crime would go up a fair amount.

Again, this is not an endorsement of the military industrial complex, but I think that many tend to think of government waste as just total waste. When in reality, it's just a really inefficient engine of wealth distribution.

> It pays American soldier salaries

It pays soldiers to do "useless" work. These same soldiers could have been working as construction workers, teachers, factory workers, etc doing something productive. Instead, they've spent their lives killing and getting PTSD.

> it buys products from American defense contractors that provide hundreds of thousands of jobs

Once again, non-productive goods. Instead of building missiles and bullets, the resources could have been used to build new trains for example.

> it funds R&D that trickles down to the rest of society.

Don't need war for R&D. R&D money was going to be spent regardless.

It's about the opportunity costs. Money spent well vs money spent poorly.

> Don't need war for R&D. R&D money was going to be spent regardless.

I would say that is an assumption that is not fully true compared to knowing that war R&D has in fact produce technologies adapted in civil society. Reminds me of a false claim that if the Wright Brothers never were the first to have a successful flight, we would still have planes. We could have easily never have had a successful flight -> airplanes. Although negative, we should still give credit to war R&*D

But Wright Brothers weren't alone who build planes at the time and even weren't the first to have a successful flight. It was Santos-Dumont.

Oh interesting, did not know about Santos-Dumont. Probably my Amercian bias and history in school of just knowing the Weight Brothers.

It actually wasn't Santos Dumont. It was the wright brothers. But most Brazilians have convinced themselves otherwise. The sources clearly indicate the wright brothers were a year or more before Santos.

It's just that many Brazilians simply claim that the wright brothers and those that witnessed the flight were lying.

http://www.wright-brothers.org/History_Wing/History_of_the_A...

if it really is for some reason the state's responsibility to make work for barely-employable people with aggression problems, can we agree that such a program that doesn't result in anybody getting bombed or shot up or colonized could also be hugely more cost-efficient than the military currently is?

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