Looks like the industrial revolution had nothing to do with wars at all... strange, somehow stuff got invented anyway.
I'd be very careful about making such implications that "wars are good for technology". We have seen more advances in the past 20 years in technology than any time before, yet it was already the end of the Cold war. How do you explain that??
>wyclif: American business has been the greatest engine for technological progress the world has ever seen
>ekianjo: We have seen more advances in the past 20 years in technology than any time before, yet it was already the end of the Cold war. How do you explain that??
The US has kept itself pretty busy with warfare over the last 20 years[1]. The Cold War is ages ago and war has been waging for quite some time since the end of it.
"Defense spending" as it is now, probably doesn't require actual war. The whole "war drives tech" idea is fueled by the idea that war causes society to funnel cash towards a singular purpose... RADAR, Manhattan Project, NASA, etc. Nowadays we are still spending a ton of money on the military, but think of what that spending would be like if WW3 were to break out (barring nuclear holocaust). That's the generic idea behind the 'war <=> tech' relationship.
I disagree. Wars focus only on how to make destruction faster and more effective and deadly. It's not focused on saving people or making lives better.
The necessity from War is to stay alive and beat your foes. To this purpose, you burn your own economy to the ground (and the rest of the world with it) by going into massive spending and carnage.
WHatever innovation you actually get is from a massive, unnatural diversion of resources that were in the pockets of free people before the war. So, of course, innovation can happen at an accelerated pace, but compared to innovation during peace-time, it is way more costly and less effective during war-time, because you do not focus on the quality of your investments, and decisions are not taken on economic, rational grounds.
The cost of War is huge on society, and that's not a surprise the US were almost bankrupt by 1944 (remember the pressure of war bonds?) and wanted to end it as soon as possible.
I'd be more interested to make a rationale on the missed opportunities of technology BECAUSE of war. There are numerous cases of scientists who were disturbed by war events and who had to drop their works in order to save themselves. There are things that you see and things you do NOT see.
There are lots of side benefits to the things that aren't directly weapons (e.g. RADAR). I'm definitely not encouraging war, but I think it's a fallacy to imply that the only thing that come out of 'war research' is weapons. There are plenty of ways to make "destruction faster and more effective" without developing an actual weapon (e.g. making the supply chain more efficient, finding better fuels to power vehicles, etc).
Also examples of some of the greatest human meatgrinders and public-private war profiteering the world has ever seen. As a society we shouldn't remember the sweet without also remembering the sour.
