War as an incentive to develop tech and science

Wars give motivation to make technological breakthroughs. Nazi Germany came up with rockets for long range bombings, used later for taking satellites and other junk up to space, and jet engines for fighters. The info from nuclear bombs is used in nuclear plants to make energy, blah, blah, blah.

This is an argument often seen especially when talking about the second World War. Do you think it's true? How would our sientific and technological development be different if there had been less/smaller wars?

Personally I think war doesn't make us do research any faster, but it makes us develop different things and weaponise them more frequently.

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

It's unfortunate, but it really does seem like our biggest technological advances were made with warfare in mind.

edited 15th Apr '12 12:54:07 PM by RTaco

I think the desire to kill the enemy as efficiently as possible while risking as few of your own people as possible just makes us more willing to try some very strange things. By sheer statistics, some of them end up working and advancing our technological level.

Course, the cotton gin and light bulb weren't exactly invented during war time, so it's not like war is our only incentive. There's financial gain, and wanting to make things easier on us. There's a reason we have washing machines and dishwashers, and it does not involve fighting anyone as a motive. There's a lot of things that got invented because we humans enjoy our leisure time. And also making money of stuff that everyone will buy because of that.

War is certainly an incentive for developing things. It is far from our only incentive.

What I'm getting at is: how much does war disrupt those other things that motivate us to develop stuff? Does figuring out ever better ways to kill each other get more and/or better of the non-lethal innovations than the wars they are developed for dirupt us from making?

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

Airplanes are used for commercial and military uses. So are many other things like radios, surgical techniques developed in the trenches, surveillance equipment, and probably a dozen other things I can't recall. Many inventions have as many peacetime applications as they do war time applications.

And there's certainly nothing stopping the computer industry of today developing where it can. Wartime doesn't really distract that long from scientific development, I think, given that a lot of our inventions have turned out to have every day applications. People aren't so one note that they didn't realize that planes were going to be good for more than dropping bombs, as in fact that wasn't their sole use from the start.

So no, I don't think that war time inventions distract us all that much from thinking of non lethal inventions. They just tend to be more prominent because they're a good deal more flashy and far less mundane than a washing machine.

I think you're arguing from the perspective of the US, which hasn't generally been on the reciving end of Death from Above. That might affect things somewhat.

You have to take into account both sides of the conflict, as well as the economic effects on other countries.

edited 15th Apr '12 2:56:05 PM by Qeise

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

No, that has fuck all to do with what my point is, Qeise. That was a sweeping and insulting dismissal of my point. Primarily insulting.

What I'm making my point from is this; the last two centuries or so where our development happened on steroids, and a lot of it was not directly affected by wars. The Transatlantic railway, for one. That telegram cable network one of Sweden's Kings set down way before everyone else in Europe for another. The fact that people were working on heavier than air flight for years before WW 1 got generals interested in planes to carry bombs. The fact that the advancement of modern computer tech is taking place largely in the private, civilian sector of the population instead of solely in the military.

War simply makes things flashier. More dramatic. You get less medals for things you invent in peace time.

Eh, I think this is more a side effect of "performing better under pressure," which explains better things like the space race. Waging war doesn't automatically make it easier to develop technology. After all, Vietnam and Iraq didn't do squat for us.

They never travel alone.

Qeise, am I correct in thinking your question is "Without World War II, would we have reached Earth orbit by 1961 and the moon by 1969?"

I honestly don't know. I don't know if, in the absence of military incentive, other things would've popped up to make us test the limits of sciences the way the Space Race did.

I think it's telling that after we went to the Moon, there hasn't been an epic breakthrough in Space Travel since. I have a feeling that if China really starts making serious noise in space flight, suddenly that oft-postponed Mars mission will kick into gear.

It was an honor

I'm sorry if it came out offencive. Guess I focused too much on you're second to last sentence and not enough on the last one.

Kind of. But it's more than that. There's also "would we have developed an economic model that doesn't crash every other year" and "would we have been able to build a space elevator before 2010". So yes, you're onto my thinking.

edited 15th Apr '12 5:09:04 PM by Qeise

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

War isn't necessary, but risk of war an tensions are a big driver. The Cold War is responsible for a lot of our Technological leaps. Any period of time where we are competing like that we will have quick advances.

I'm baaaaaaack

On that, you are incorrect. We've developed new polymers and ceramics for armor that are meant to resist both small arms fire and IED's. These materials are used in manufacturing on machines to lessen the wear and tear on a part due to friction and impact. Kevlar in and of itself is used for wayyyy more things than body armor. We've developed ceramics that are highly resistant to heat, and are often used in manufacturing as well.

Then there's UAV's, our extensive use of UAV's has led us to advances in the level of technology we use in radios and satellites, as well as a high familiarity in the US with using remote control robotic platforms that are now used in hazardous areas where we're hesitant to send humans, such as sending EOD bots or camera balls into a wrecked and collapsed building after an earthquake instead of having people creep in.

Vehicle sciences have moved quite a bit as well. V shaped hulls, more powerful suspensions, extreme advances in bullet resistant glass, and beyond.

GPS and Satellite observation have really came along because of Afghanistan. We can now look down from a satellite in space and see that a terrorist has a pimple on his cheek. Advances like that are great for search and rescue operations.

Vietnam? Massive developments in avionics for airplanes. The invention of new pesticides for clearing out dense brush and jungle, as well as many models of airplane that were tested tried and true in Nam' that are used in the civilian world today.

Recent wars have done so much.

Veitnam also taught us not to give up on old tech just because something new seems to replace it.

Taking guns out of our planes really screwed us over.

I'm baaaaaaack

Yup. Which was why the F4 was lunch for the Russians flying Migs in Vietnamese colours% until they fitted it with cannon.

• What? We still pretending that wasn't true or something?

V-shaped hulls came out of the wars in Southern Africa as a way of dealing with the IED threat posed by the ANC and the other Alphabet terrorist organizations. Worked too.

edited 15th Apr '12 6:57:14 PM by TamH70

Yup. It really makes sense of course. It only took a few thousand casualties for us to realize that though.

(we really need an eye roll emoticon)

I'm baaaaaaack

Of course not, we wouldn't have kidnapped all the German scientists!

/silly

War seems to have two big advantages when it comes to developing sciences:

A) the bulk of scientific research is in material science, communications, energy storage/transportation, and few other areas that give a big bonus to a lot of other areas making them a lot easier.

B) during a war with no real heavily limiting factors, Uncle Sugar throws a lot of money at the sciences to see what sticks.

Fight smart, not fair.

Well, of course it worked, and there's no use in complaining about the past since we can't change it.

In the present day, though? Completely, utterly immoral. You shouldn't sacrifice innocent lives just for the sake of progress.

I have no beard. I have no beard, and I must scream.

How would Vietnam be different without the war? Would they be more advanced without the war leveling infrastructure? Would there have been as much scientific advancement in the US if it's major cities were bombed down?

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

@ Barkey: Infra-Red Technology was also advanced in Vietnam (the B-57G used it, for one), along with guided bombs (which probably lead into GPS).

...and there were UAV's in Vietnam, too.

Keep Rolling On

Vietnam without the Vietnam War would probably have been a richer, more populous country.

(As the Vietnam War killed a lot of Vietnamese, Agent Orange was Released and several Crimes Against Humanity were commited so its understandable)

Vietnam MIGHT have become more advanced without infrastructure being leveled, but since they were going Communist, it would not have mattered. Economic Policy would have rendered infrastructure useless.

The US is a difficult place to bomb. Even if say, half of America was bombed flat, America is so big, has so many people and brilliant minds from all over the country, that such devastation would at best, only slow scientific advancement.

It would probably take a nuclear MAD style bombing to significantly reduce America's scientific advance.

—Threadhop—

That reminds me of this book - sounds like a pretty interesting read.

Sex, Bombs and Burgers: How War, Porn and Fast Food Shaped Technology as We Know It

edited 16th Apr '12 6:05:02 AM by betaalpha

Are you saying communist countries didn't make scientific advancements?

My point exactly. If there's war the fighting, bombing, refugees causing economic burden, all that is happening somewhere, and so slows advancement there. The question is does it slow it more on the devastated areas than it accelerates it on others?

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

I highly doubt it would be much more advanced than it was before the war began. Communism doesn't really lend itself well to advanced tech. Communist Russia was able to develop highly practical technology, but nothing particularly advanced compared to others.

If the US had its cities being bombed it's possible that we would have more technological advances because of having our backs against the wall, but having such a huge territory with so much scientific industry.

Communism has been proven to be a bad economic policy in that, so far, no nation has managed to adopt communism and become rich.

Wealth does determin if you have the resources to spend in developing science or not.

ANYWAY, back on topic.

Balance is probably key.

Even the very THREAT of war can be a huge incentive to innovate, as the fear of death and destruction can do wonder's for one's creativity and work ethic.

However, War is not the only incentive to develop tech and science, its just one that takes priority over all others when its happening to you.

As stated above, yes, War does cause a lot of devastation and destrution/loss of resources is never good when you are trying to do anything so the loss of material is generally a worse "Negative" factor in the equation than the "Positive" factor due to duress to develop tech and science.

However, there is also the old argument of Guns vs Butter / Swords and Ploughs.

Devote too much/all of your resouces to war tech and science, you end up looking lke North Korea. Well funded military using technology that was good for its time (about 50 years ago) but now embarassingly obsolete because it doesn't have much resources to spend on anything because it neglected the "civilian" economy.

Devote none, and you'll end up getting invaded.

To me, this is the same dilemma posed by medical advancements stemming from human experimentation. Obviously, the fast-track doesn't necessarily require ethics.

I'm a skeptical squirrel