|
McDowell posted:Universal Love is very irrational if you only see the world through the RAND/John Nash/Game Theory lens. This is illustrated in 'The Dark Knight' when the Joker places people on two ferries in a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma. Are you familiar with RD Laing? I prefer to base my worldview on the professed and demonstrated philosophy of Captain Katherine Janeway, my favourite villain 
|
#
?
Jul 21, 2016 22:39
|
|
I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 13:34 |
|
|
Maybe the "war sometimes does some good" argument just needs to be rephrased. It's not really war in particular that is doing any good, in the research sense. Good research requires a concentration of effort. It happens that the military industrial complex, and sometimes even war, creates the situations where good research can be more easily and more often performed. Adaptive Optics is a novel example of the US Military heavily funding an idea with military applications that later went on to benefit nearly all of astronomy. New telescopes aren't even taken seriously unless they have an adaptive optics system somewhere. Even space telescopes have adaptive optics systems now, just to correct for the static aberrations in the optical system; 20 years ago you would have been an idiot for suggesting such a thing (because why would you use an atmosphere-correcting optic on a system in space??). Yes, this kind of system probably would have been built eventually, but military spending brought it to us sooner, which is good. It's maybe not as good as world peace, but this is undeniably a benefit anyway. So it seems that it's simply incorrect to claim that good things only come from peaceful intentions. There are countless other examples that can be brought up to counter-prove it. The US Army spends money on solar power research. Has this completely revolutionized the field? Probably not, no. Has this resulted in at least some tangible benefits to the field? Absolutely, yes.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 05:56
|
|
|
Well the idea of linear, technological progress (people looking at history like an RTS tech-tree) is a fairly recent concept and there is no reason why it will hold true. Most cultures have seen history as cyclical - one example is the 'Rota Fortunae' that fell out of fashion in the West around the time of the industrial revolution. It seems to me that industrialization has been slowly degrading humans and the environment, and we might see a future that looks kind of like the one in 'The Time Machine'. A majority will be exposed to more pollution and disease and will be exploited by an upper class who benefits from genetic modification and IVF. The result will be two new branches of the homo genus with the entire biosphere showing fingerprints of human activity.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 12:41
|
|
|
McDowell posted:Well the idea of linear, technological progress (people looking at history like an RTS tech-tree) is a fairly recent concept and there is no reason why it will hold true. Most cultures have seen history as cyclical - one example is the 'Rota Fortunae' that fell out of fashion in the West around the time of the industrial revolution. I, too, base my beliefs around whichever philosophy most conveniently fits my preconceptions and/or politics, especially if it also has some science fiction movies to back it up.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 13:34
|
|
|
blowfish posted:I, too, base my beliefs around whichever philosophy most conveniently fits my preconceptions and/or politics, especially if it also has some science fiction movies to back it up. Yup, this is true of everyone. The blind are leading the blind on the road to Damascus.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 13:38
|
|
|
The largest difference in my opinion is that the military is willing to invest and develop things that are not profitable or even reasonably cost effective for normal day-to-day use. Then use that thing for years on a large scale leading to further discoveries, refinements, and exposure. Even speeding up a thing's introduction can be a huge deal. You introduce a new antibiotic 10 years earlier and there are going to be a lot of people happily not dead during that time. I'm also not entirely convinced some major technologies would have ever seen development to the point of usefulness otherwise.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 15:28
|
|
|
McDowell posted:Yup, this is true of everyone. The blind are leading the blind on the road to Damascus. Can you elaborate?
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 20:31
|
|
|
Warbadger posted:The largest difference in my opinion is that the military is willing to invest and develop things that are not profitable or even reasonably cost effective for normal day-to-day use. Then use that thing for years on a large scale leading to further discoveries, refinements, and exposure. Bingo. It's impossible to predict how technological progress would have proceeded without any defense research, and it would be a serious mistake to suggest that military research has not had peaceful benefits. McDowell posted:Well the idea of linear, technological progress (people looking at history like an RTS tech-tree) is a fairly recent concept and there is no reason why it will hold true. The only ones saying that technological progress is linear are the voices in your head. Take your meds.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 20:31
|
|
|
QuarkJets posted:Bingo. It's impossible to predict how technological progress would have proceeded without any defense research, and it would be a serious mistake to suggest that military research has not had peaceful benefits. Military research is not inherently opposed to peace.
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 20:51
|
|
|
Zombie Boat posted:Can you elaborate? I want to be banned because I don't want anything to do with social media. (USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST)
|
|
#
?
Jul 22, 2016 22:13
|
|
|
fishmech posted:Military research is not inherently opposed to peace. That's true, but in many cases it is, so my point still stands. Peaceful benefits can be derived from non-peaceful intentions.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 01:25
|
|
|
mrbradlymrmartin posted:oh so you conspired to make them sound just as stupid as they make themselves sound? Delicious! Well, more like i didn't want anyone to think it wasn't my dumb joke rather than some good autocorrect.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 04:05
|
|
|
QuarkJets posted:That's true, but in many cases it is, so my point still stands. Peaceful benefits can be derived from non-peaceful intentions. There is no physical Law of War and Peace, so there is no reason to assume tech developed for making better guns can't become useful for non-gun purposes. I don't even understand why this is worth debating, beyond people looking for a deeper meaning in people doing things that are ultimately just down to people doing things.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 12:48
|
|
|
QuarkJets posted:Bingo. It's impossible to predict how technological progress would have proceeded without any defense research, and it would be a serious mistake to suggest that military research has not had peaceful benefits.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 17:46
|
|
|
fishmech posted:Military research is not inherently opposed to peace. I would argue that researching new and exciting ways to commit mass-murder is in effect inherently opposed to peace.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 18:25
|
|
|
Quift posted:I would argue that researching new and exciting ways to commit mass-murder is in effect inherently opposed to peace. It's interesting to allege that the internet is a new and exciting way to commit mass-murder.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 18:27
|
|
|
fishmech posted:It's interesting to allege that the internet is a new and exciting way to commit mass-murder. The whole point of computer networks like the internet was to make it possible for the military to remain operational during a full scale and possibly nuclear war, so yes the Internet was designed as a platform to facilitate mass murder, a modern military can't function without it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Internet#Development_of_packet_switching
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 19:06
|
|
|
fishmech posted:It's interesting to allege that the internet is a new and exciting way to commit mass-murder. You jest surely. The internet brought you the Donald presidential nominee. The capacity for mass murder is plain to the naked eye.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 19:10
|
|
|
Quift posted:You jest surely. The internet brought you the Donald presidential nominee. The capacity for mass murder is plain to the naked eye. Sigh, you know even when you stumble upon a correct position you manage to torpedo yourself with your arguments.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 19:14
|
|
|
Helen Highwater posted:The point that was under discussion was whether or not there was more technological advancement during wartime than otherwise. Not whether military research in general has ever benefitted peacetime endeavours (which I don't expect you'd get much debate over as there are a lot of very obvious examples that can be cited). No, actually it was kicked off with this post: Skinty McEdger posted:How would you reconcile the great number of scientific discoveries that have been made as a result of conflict and especially in times of war with the belief of a "christ potential"? We're not just talking about research during wartime, we're talking about any discovery made as a result of conflict. That can include a war. It can also include a cold war. It can even include research done as a result of a conflict that happened in the past.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 19:53
|
|
|
Baka-nin posted:The whole point of computer networks like the internet was to make it possible for the military to remain operational during a full scale and possibly nuclear war, so yes the Internet was designed as a platform to facilitate mass murder, a modern military can't function without it. This is 100% incorrect: the internet/ARPANET as a resilient communication technology thing was only realized after it had already been developed in practice, and people realized the implication of how the design would work with massively more nodes. It was solely developed to make it easier to coordinate research (because there was no automated way to easily share information between various physical sites, just manually moving something from say Stanford to MIT over their direct line, then asking MIT's computer staff to forward that over to a destination Stanford couldn't reach directly), and in fact could not have robustly withstood communication disruption until well over a decade from when it started. I realize popular understanding is that they thought up "redundant communications" first, but that was not the original goal.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 20:08
|
|
|
fishmech posted:This is 100% incorrect: the internet/ARPANET as a resilient communication technology thing was only realized after it had already been developed in practice, and people realized the implication of how the design would work with massively more nodes. It was solely developed to make it easier to coordinate research (because there was no automated way to easily share information between various physical sites, just manually moving something from say Stanford to MIT over their direct line, then asking MIT's computer staff to forward that over to a destination Stanford couldn't reach directly), and in fact could not have robustly withstood communication disruption until well over a decade from when it started. What? No, DARPA funded networking research to make the defence department and the military more efficient at what it does, development of weapon systems and the coordination of different military and research installations. The fact that the original pioneers weren't directly connected with the military is simply irrelevant. you might as well deny the tank is a military tool since they used the already existing technology of the tractor. The original goal of research doesn't in anyway negate its actual development and application, many explosives were originally developed for land clearance and construction before being used in the military. Or to turn the question around, you may as well claim is not an office tool because it was originally designed for the US army. The only relevant question here is can a military make use of computer networking systems like the internet which it helped to develop over the years to carry out acts of aggression on a wide scale, if the answer is yes than Quift is correct here and you are wrong.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 20:35
|
|
|
Baka-nin posted:What? No, DARPA funded networking research to make the defence department and the military more efficient at what it does, development of weapon systems and the coordination of different military and research installations. The fact that the original pioneers weren't directly connected with the military is simply irrelevant. you might as well deny the tank is a military tool since they used the already existing technology of the tractor. The original goal of research doesn't in anyway negate its actual development and application, many explosives were originally developed for land clearance and construction before being used in the military. Or to turn the question around, you may as well claim is not an office tool because it was originally designed for the US army. DARPA funded tons of different networking research for tons of reasons. In general DARPA/ARPA acted as the primary research funding appartus of the government because defense funding is never as hard to pass as other sorts of funding is, especially during the Cold War. ARPANET was specifically aimed at improving ability to coordinate research over long distance through simplifying communications - instead of dedicated circuits linking each of the places you wanted to talk to to you, and only being able to manually relay things to ones you weren't directly connected to, you would have automated routing. This wasn't about "killing more efficiently" in the least, the way that say the early and unrelated attempts to network radar systems to detect a nuclear attack and respond in kind were. That's not the relevant question, which is why Quift is wrong. You might as well say that zippers lead to better mass murder (his terminology) because after all zippers allow soldiers to put their pants on 1 second faster.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 20:44
|
|
|
fishmech posted:DARPA funded tons of different networking research for tons of reasons. In general DARPA/ARPA acted as the primary research funding appartus of the government because defense funding is never as hard to pass as other sorts of funding is, especially during the Cold War. ARPANET was specifically aimed at improving ability to coordinate research over long distance through simplifying communications - instead of dedicated circuits linking each of the places you wanted to talk to to you, and only being able to manually relay things to ones you weren't directly connected to, you would have automated routing. This wasn't about "killing more efficiently" in the least, the way that say the early and unrelated attempts to network radar systems to detect a nuclear attack and respond in kind were. It also wasn't exclusively a "military" agency while ARPANET was being established; ARPA was primarily created in response to Sputnik and went on to fund all sorts of basic research that didn't have any obvious military applications (except insofar as basic research benefits literally everyone and everything). ARPA didn't become a primarily defense-oriented research agency until the 70s.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 21:39
|
|
|
Quift posted:I would argue that researching new and exciting ways to commit mass-murder is in effect inherently opposed to peace. The Haber process is a pretty significant counterexample
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 23:31
|
|
|
Modem art wouldn't be as prevalent if it weren't for wars,since the CIA covertly funded a bunch of it.
|
|
#
?
Jul 23, 2016 23:38
|
|
|
tak posted:The Haber process is a pretty significant counterexample I don't get your argument. The Haber process was invented during la belle epoque. It's a peacetime, agricultiural, invention with significant military application, not the other way round. It would thus be in line with my argument that military research is of questionable merit. Source: http://www.the-compost-gardener.com/haber-process.html
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 10:25
|
|
|
Shbobdb posted:Modem art wouldn't be as prevalent if it weren't for wars,since the CIA covertly funded a bunch of it. This is interesting, care to elaborate?
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 10:26
|
|
|
Quift posted:This is interesting, care to elaborate? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_CIA_and_the_Cultural_Cold_War
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 10:31
|
|
|
modern art not being as 'prevalent' isn't really the best way to put it but the CIA did make a big effort to win over the european avant garde and bring them together with their american counterparts
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 10:32
|
|
|
 a mostly unrelated picture of john cage and karlheinz stockhausen
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 10:33
|
|
|
it's actually pretty far removed from war even by cold war standards, it was basically an 11d chess move to try to undermine the communist intellectuals of western europe
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 10:37
|
|
|
Quift posted:I don't get your argument. The Haber process was invented during la belle epoque. It's a peacetime, agricultiural, invention with significant military application, not the other way round. It would thus be in line with my argument that military research is of questionable merit. But you're still going to ignore all of the military research examples of unquestionable merit? Radar was almost exclusively a product of military research, does radar have questionable merit?
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 10:42
|
|
|
My example would be GPS. It's ubiquitous now, used in a huge number of applications, and it was a huge leap in the field of geolocation. It was also 100% a US military system developed and funded to support ICBM targeting along with its chief competitor GLONASS and its predecessor TRANSIT. It was certainly based on very simple pre-existing theories. However, the cost of creating of the satellite network alone meant it would have never been profitable with the first few waves of commercial exploitation (simple coordinate devices, ship/plane navigation equipment, etc.) and it was never going to be a case of hordes of voters clamoring for a better way to locate themselves on a map. I simply don't think many people would ever have realized how useful/profitable such a thing would become without having time to play around with it. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Jul 24, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 17:14
|
|
|
Either one argues that these inventions or break-throughs would have happened regardless of the military financing of the research. Inventions and discoveries being seen as a result of their time rather than the unique work of brilliant Genius.In this case the military financing of the reasearch might have speeded up a process that would have happened anyway. The military aspect then becomes at best irrelevant and at worst terrifying. Or one argues that these inventions would only have happened with the military guidance. If that is the case, the value of these wondrous inventions must be compared with the inventions these scientists would have been made had they been given a more peaceful foci for their work. Since we would then discuss the relative value of military research visavi civil research. That a particular society is unable to finance it's scientific endevours unless it claims a military motive is irrelevant for the question, even if it speaks volumes about that particular society.
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 19:16
|
|
|
Quift posted:Either one argues that these inventions or break-throughs would have happened regardless of the military financing of the research. Inventions and discoveries being seen as a result of their time rather than the unique work of brilliant Genius.In this case the military financing of the reasearch might have speeded up a process that would have happened anyway. The military aspect then becomes at best irrelevant and at worst terrifying. That's an irrelevant counter-counterargument. If military research brought about a good thing earlier than it would have occurred anyway, then that's still A Good Thing that military research did. You're also presupposing that those inventions and discoveries would have occurred regardless, which is a huge and probably wrong assumption in many cases. Your hypothesis that it just takes "a genius" to come to some breakthrough is just completely wrong, real life isn't a game of Civilization where you just need to get a Great Person to discover that next Technology quote:Or one argues that these inventions would only have happened with the military guidance. If that is the case, the value of these wondrous inventions must be compared with the inventions these scientists would have been made had they been given a more peaceful foci for their work. Since we would then discuss the relative value of military research visavi civil research. So what you're saying is that a scientist is going to make N breakthroughs in their career regardless of what field they work in. Like before, this sounds like you think real life research is just like a game of Civilization: tell all of the scientists to work on discovering the Radio! You've demonstrated to us in the past that you actually know very little about science and scientific research, there's no need to remind us of that again. Also, you claimed that military research is meritless, not that it has less merit than civilian research. You're attempting to shift the goalposts. quote:That a particular society is unable to finance it's scientific endevours unless it claims a military motive is irrelevant for the question, even if it speaks volumes about that particular society. It's actually extremely relevant to your hypothesis that <genius scientist> is going to make N discoveries regardless of the type. If we dropped all military research tomorrow, you can be certain that the NSF would not get a big funding boost the day after. So how does <genius scientist> make the same number of discoveries without any funding?
|
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 19:51
|
|
|
fishmech posted:DARPA funded tons of different networking research for tons of reasons. In general DARPA/ARPA acted as the primary research funding appartus of the government because defense funding is never as hard to pass as other sorts of funding is, especially during the Cold War. ARPANET was specifically aimed at improving ability to coordinate research over long distance through simplifying communications - instead of dedicated circuits linking each of the places you wanted to talk to to you, and only being able to manually relay things to ones you weren't directly connected to, you would have automated routing. This wasn't about "killing more efficiently" in the least, the way that say the early and unrelated attempts to network radar systems to detect a nuclear attack and respond in kind were. Okay cool, and the original bow and arrow was probably developed as a tool to acquire food, first and then adapted as a weapon, and the steam engines developed by the Ancient Greeks were novelty items, before becoming a cornerstone of power generation, radar was used almost exclusively for air defence and its now used heavily for civilian purposes. Kellog's cornflakes was invented to prevent masturbation (somehow), its now just a breakfast cereal. Original intent doesn't trump actual application. quote:That's not the relevant question, which is why Quift is wrong. You might as well say that zippers lead to better mass murder (his terminology) because after all zippers allow soldiers to put their pants on 1 second faster. Deliberate mischaracterisation, and really poor form, but even if you can show me an example where zips or Velcro or what not were used as a tool for mass murder I'll happily agree it has offensive applications in addition to being convenient articles of clothing. That isn't a smoking gun mate because apparently unlike you I don't subscribe to a binary worldview, things can have multiple uses. Its you whose trying your hardest to arbitrarily limit the applications things here. I guess your passive aggressively saying yes computer networks and the internet can be useful in committing mass murder. this is what Quift said, Quift posted:I would argue that researching new and exciting ways to commit mass-murder is in effect inherently opposed to peace. And this is your response fishmech posted:It's interesting to allege that the internet is a new and exciting way to commit mass-murder. So yes the question is relevant because you made it relevant by bringing it up. Quift was quite clearly making a moral argument about not liking things that can be used to commit mass murder(his terminology), you responded with the internet. So yes the relevant question here is can a military use the internet to carry out acts of mass murder. Yes or no? If the answer is yes than it isn't a rebuttal and you chose a poor example, and no amount of out of hand denials or tech trivia will change this. Shbobdb posted:Modem art wouldn't be as prevalent if it weren't for wars,since the CIA covertly funded a bunch of it. Maybe, Dadaism and Surrealism wouldn't exist though as both movements were in direct response to World War One. Baka-nin fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Jul 24, 2016 |
|
#
?
Jul 24, 2016 20:04
|
|
|
Baka-nin posted:Okay cool, and the original bow and arrow was probably developed as a tool to acquire food, first and then adapted as a weapon, and the steam engines developed by the Ancient Greeks were novelty items, before becoming a cornerstone of power generation, radar was used almost exclusively for air defence and its now used heavily for civilian purposes. Kellog's cornflakes was invented to prevent masturbation (somehow), its now just a breakfast cereal. Original intent doesn't trump actual application. You just proved yourself wrong by quoting those things though? Seriously reading comprehension isn't very hard. And you want to talk original intent versus actual use? Internet: not invented for mass murder, not used for mass murder now. Unless you count video games, lol. He took the ludicrous position that everything related to the military is about improving mass murder, which is the very reason he is wrong. Even in the days of ancient civilizations, tons of what the military organizations of the time was straight up for peaceful civilian purposes, because military units have long been useful workers for the civilian authorities.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2016 00:41
|
|
|
fishmech posted:You just proved yourself wrong by quoting those things though? Seriously reading comprehension isn't very hard. And you want to talk original intent versus actual use? Internet: not invented for mass murder, not used for mass murder now. Unless you count video games, lol. No not at all, I see you've come to the stage of making things up, that's quite sad but oh well. Quoting examples of things that have many uses combined with a comment about how I believe things are capable of having multiple applications proves me wrong, somehow. Reading comprehension isn't hard you're right, which is why I can only assume your being deliberately dishonest now. And are you seriously suggesting that modern militaries don't use the internet or any type of computer networking at all to function? The radio is just used to talk to another person, sometimes what comes through the radio is an order to carry out an offensive act, so the radio can be a platform for mass murder if it is used for that purpose. I realise this is the third time you've dodged admitting this so I can only assume given your position you know the answer is yes but just can't handle saying it. Do missile systems require computer networks to function? Anyone whose seen Wargames knows the answer is yes, so a computer network can be used to commit mass murder. How about the internet, I used to think not, I used to believe cyber warfare was just a scary sounding name for spying and e-mail hacking, but apparently it now has the potential to get quite a few people killed http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/cyber-warfare-cyber-weapons-real-growing-threat/ so yes it looks like the internet can be used as platform for murder after all. And that's ignoring the role all communications technology plays in making the ability to go to and direct a conflict that much easier. quote:He took the ludicrous position that everything related to the military is about improving mass murder, which is the very reason he is wrong. Even in the days of ancient civilizations, tons of what the military organizations of the time was straight up for peaceful civilian purposes, because military units have long been useful workers for the civilian authorities. Okay cool, a shame that's not what you actually said at the time, its almost as if your changing what you said retroactively due to criticism. I mean that's shocking given how well you've responded to it so far.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2016 01:23
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 13:34 |
|
|
Baka-nin posted:
it is exactly what I was talking about and saying at the time, try your disingenuous bullshit in defense of the crazy man somewhere else, thanks. Baka-nin posted:No not at all, I see you've come to the stage of making things up, I wish I was making up your incoherent attempts to argue, but sadly they're right here in gray and white.
|
|
#
?
Jul 25, 2016 01:29
|
|