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[Kagus]

The internet is the spawn of military research into communicating information quickly and through channels that could not easily be watched.  Unless they were trying to distribute music illegally, something like that wouldn't serve much purpose from a conceptual point of view except for use in war.

This entire discussion is being carried out using technology that was originally developed and owned by the military.

That's not to say that a similar invention wouldn't have come about under more peaceful circumstances as a method of simple information and enlightenment spreading, but it's still worth a few moments of thought.  

I can assure you that they were not expecting something like 4Chan to be hosted on their technology.  But they weren't accounting for the Japanese in any case, so the prospect wouldn't have come up.

[Zemat]

quote:Originally posted by umiman:
<STRONG>...Bangkok Dormitory Boys DVD...</STRONG>

I hate you for making me look at that...

... but I LOLed.

Just to add to the thread. Conflict isn't the only thing that drives innovation. Sure, it gives it a huge boost from time to time. But creative minds don't need conflict to innovate or be creative (take for example Toady creating DF). Creative and innovative people exist all the time. They don't just show up in time of conflict. The difference is with the governments and societies that support them. In times of conflict, money flows toward innovative people because governments and corporations need them. But when everything is peaceful everyone prefers the status quo and shun innovative people.

Ideally, in a perfect society, rules would exist that would ensure that there will always be time and money for innovative people. In lieu of that, there's the free market and anti-monopoly laws that create faux-conflict between corporations so that they drive innovation instead of governments.

[ April 25, 2008: Message edited by: Zemat ]

[ April 25, 2008: Message edited by: Zemat ]

[Lyrax]

quote:Originally posted by Earthquake Damage:
<STRONG>The threat of war drives innovation.</STRONG>

Threat of war is war. I mean, if you think someone's about to kill you, you get ready to kill him first.  That's war.

[Earthquake Damage]

quote:Originally posted by Lyrax:
<STRONG>Threat of war is war. I mean, if you think someone's about to kill you, you get ready to kill him first.  That's war.</STRONG>

That sounds like a nonstandard definition to me.  Meh.  Whatever.

[ShunterAlhena]

Lots of quality posts in this thread, truly a joy to read.

As someone pointed out, everything in life depends on and is filtered through your mindset. Computer games are no exception.

In my opinion the reason why some of us (myself included) perceive DF much more "violent" and "aggressive" than MMORPGs that actually involve a lot more slaughter is that DF is (I think unintentionally) set up in a way that stimulates imagination. The presence of extreme detail without a sufficiently detailed graphical presentation "forces" our minds to try and create an image of this detail, to turn the ASCII characters into true symbols of an entity we imagined - instead one that is already drawn on the screen for us. A Letter E won't trample all those smiley heads; but the imagined elephant that we "see" in it's place will trample the imagined dwarves in a gory and violent way.

So, because the game lacks presentation, we make up that presentation inside our heads. And thus, DF suddenly feels a lot more real and close than WoW and its kin ever will - in an action game, it is my 3D animated figure doing the killing that was imagined by someone else - in DF, it is the imagined dwarf that is my creation.

Hope that my attempt at expression is successful and you perceive this as meaningful, not as some random rambling.    

[ April 25, 2008: Message edited by: ShunterAlhena ]

[aeroue]

@ Vactor:

Where the hell did you get your annual GDP growth figures? I tell you now 7% is way off. Most countries hope for around 2% per annum. This is for industrialised countries. India China etc. have higher growth but this is cause they are less developed.

Just cause you disagree with it does not mean there aren't blatant economic advantages to war. Or that this is still a large part of war in this day and age. Look at Iraq now and you will see a lot of American countries involved in the reconstruction. To look past the more obvious oil.

Sure you don't need conflict to drive innovation but it sure helps. A desperate mind is a hard working mind.

On subject of DF. I don't kill nobles/cripple/cats I look after them. I try to do good things for my little dwarfs. Sure I build nasty traps of doom for the enemies but that is out of love. If playing Dwarf Fortress is turning you to the dark side that is simply a reflection of yourself. Or you simply find exploding kittens into ASCII gore amusing, and it is.

[Vactor]

The US isn't the entire world:
GDP growth rate
(remember the US is a nation that HAS gone to war recently)

Also, I'm not disagreeing about the imagination aspect of things, I too have a gruesome imagination when it comes to the hacking off of limbs, and whatnot, but it isn't DF that is gruesome, its me.  

There is a huge difference between a cartoon where someone gets cut in half, where they notice it a few seconds later and just slide apart, and a person actually getting cut in half, yet these are both ways you can perceive "Vactor gets cut in half"

And yes many of our modern technologies have been developed by military projects, but you are left with the chicken and the egg question, since huge sums of money are given to the military industrial complex.  I do not believe that the dude doing research is working on it diligently because he is in fear of his life.  There have been inventions occuring throughout human history.  So yes, war does drive innovation, but I maintain it is because people are getting rich. (as a society is willing to make them rich to save itself).  In war the innovations that occur are geared towards war, while in peacetime nobody is figuring out how to apply the innovation towards destroying other people.

[Lyrax]

quote:Originally posted by aeroue:
<STRONG>On subject of DF. I don't kill nobles/cripple/cats I look after them. I try to do good things for my little dwarfs. Sure I build nasty traps of doom for the enemies but that is out of love. If playing Dwarf Fortress is turning you to the dark side that is simply a reflection of yourself. Or you simply find exploding kittens into ASCII gore amusing, and it is.</STRONG>

What game are you playing?  

[Alfador]

quote:Originally posted by Arkose:
<STRONG>

It would probably be reasonable to make a distinction between failing to save someone, and choosing not to save someone.</STRONG>

Asimovian robots aren't very reasonable then. If they fail to save a human's life through inaction, they go insane. ('least that's how I remember it)

[Rictus]

Vactor:

I gotta side with aeroue on this one.  Rich, industrialised countries (which are mostly, but not entirely Western European/U.S./Japan) would consider a years GDP growth of 7% to be a bonanza beyond its wildest expectations. Instead, 1-3% is a reasonable standard to expect from a decent, fairly well run industrialised nation. Developing nations, as aeroue says, are expanding from a smaller base, so a growth rate of 5-9% is not as astonishing.

Now, considering you are speaking in fairly high-grade English, on the internet, it is not particularly unreasonable that you are from a country that has a "Western" (i.e. rich) living standard. Combined with your assertion that "our economies grow at 7% anually" (sic), it is not difficult to understand why aeroue disagreed with your figures. Yes, the U.S. is not the world, but in economics it comprises a significant part of it. I'm no expert on the figures, but I would be reasonably sure that a U.S. growth rate of 2% adds more wealth to the world than Chinese growth of 9% does (though obviously were this to be a continuing trend, it would eventually overtake the U.S.).  

Essentially, "our" economics grow at 2%.  They comprise the majority of the worlds wealth.

There are some big economic pluses to war, probably as many economic minuses. If you can ensure all the damage, deaths and destruction is confined to the other side, (few industries employ quite so many people as the arms industry) and THEN getting your own guys to rebuild the place using their taxes, you're onto a winner  

[Kogan Loloklam]

Your right, the cold war wasn't a war. Vietnam and Korea? They were just peaceful spitwad matches.
Afghanistan? What about Afghanistan? THERE'S WMDS IN IRAQ!!!!! Ignore that guy over there saying we made Bin Laden, if you don't you hate America because there is WMDs in Iraq and therefore terrorists!
And the Cuban Missile Crisis? That was just the Liberal Media making up stories.
Yes, the cold war wasn't a war. Countries weren't used as pawns in a power struggle. That was all an illusion.

As for economies, there are very complex issues regarding economies. Take, for example, Argentina. Look at that beautiful color of economic growth, 10%+. How wonderful, it must be the land of Milk and Honey. In fact, everyone in Argentina must be wonderfully rich! (GDP Per Capita $13,307 for Argentina, vs $43,444 for the united states)

Wars drive innovation though, for two good reasons.
1) Money and "lack of oversight" pour into research stations, and results are taken as the payment for such free flow of resources.
2) People who become absorbed by the conquering force usually become equipped with the same base as the conquerer, widening the base that the particular technological advancement is standing upon. Even those that manage to hold off still "capture" technology of the aggressors, allowing their technological base to increase to the standard.

Times of peace do appear to have many new inventions come out, that is true, but they are almost always refinements from war technology, and aren't the great leaps forward that come from the creative thinking that war requires.
The reason for that is pretty simple, Money is an object for corporations and "the free market", so the base of a new technology, the often unprofitable base of a new technology, is never developed. If it doesn't make someone a lot of money, it isn't done. Until the initial uses are discovered there is no way to make a profit out of it. Where was the initial profit in the Internet?

That is the story of all the base technologies, from roads to the usage of radiation.

[Vactor]

a response to a few things,

Firstly my argument was not that the most advanced economies of the world grow at 7%, nor was I arguing that a higher economic growth is indiciative of the wellbeing of the citizenry.  Rather I was trying to point out why for a very long time the easiest way for a nation to augment its economy was to steal it from another nation.

Also, keep in mind that there is a huge difference between .1 and 1% growth.  a 3% growth rate is leaps and bounds above what people have experienced in the majority of human history.

I don't think I was incorrect, or even hyperbolic of me to say that in modern times economies grow at 7%, half the countries of the world average higher than 5%, each individual country is an entity that can go to war, they don't have to be a superpower.  

And while I admit 7% is not accurate for the US economic growth, a 7% return on an investment is a very reasonable expectation.

But i'd rather not continue to discuss the 7% comment, as it is inconsequential.

This is why: nobody has addressed my initial point.  I mantain that it dosen't matter what your starting wealth is, a X% (remember 7 was just an example) growth rate makes your economy a much safer investment than going to war IF the rate of return you can expect from war is less than X%.  In the past the return from war was much more than X%. (this can be due to a few things, a difference in X%, a difference in the number of wars fought, or a difference in the cost of war).

Now there are some other ways to profit from war, like a private company coercing a nation into spending its treasury on a war, and paying that private company exorbitant amounts of money for the logistics and 'rebuilding' of said war. But my initial point was about how it is no longer in a nations economic interest to go to war.

My apologies for helping to severely derail this thread.

[Lyrax]

quote:Originally posted by Rictus:
<STRONG>Essentially, "our" economics grow at 2%.  They comprise the majority of the worlds wealth. </STRONG>

If you mean 'Western economies combined' then I have no problem with the second part of this statement.

The US, however, does not have a majority of the world's wealth.  Merely a plurality.

[Kogan Loloklam]

quote:Originally posted by Vactor:
<STRONG>a response to a few things,

Firstly my argument was not that the most advanced economies of the world grow at 7%, nor was I arguing that a higher economic growth is indiciative of the wellbeing of the citizenry.  Rather I was trying to point out why for a very long time the easiest way for a nation to augment its economy was to steal it from another nation.

Also, keep in mind that there is a huge difference between .1 and 1% growth.  a 3% growth rate is leaps and bounds above what people have experienced in the majority of human history.

I don't think I was incorrect, or even hyperbolic of me to say that in modern times economies grow at 7%, half the countries of the world average higher than 5%, each individual country is an entity that can go to war, they don't have to be a superpower.  

And while I admit 7% is not accurate for the US economic growth, a 7% return on an investment is a very reasonable expectation.

But i'd rather not continue to discuss the 7% comment, as it is inconsequential.

This is why: nobody has addressed my initial point.  I mantain that it dosen't matter what your starting wealth is, a X% (remember 7 was just an example) growth rate makes your economy a much safer investment than going to war IF the rate of return you can expect from war is less than X%.  In the past the return from war was much more than X%. (this can be due to a few things, a difference in X%, a difference in the number of wars fought, or a difference in the cost of war).
</STRONG>

I didn't misunderstand you at all, I just didn't agree with the conclusion you came to about profit/loss calculations in war. Perceived should be added there. Not expected. The Japanese expected their attack on Pearl Harbor to give them the run of the Pacific. The United States perceived the gain of the Pacific by the Japanese as a significant threat, and that their long-term benefit would be better provided by attacking the Japanese. It was an expected gain of elimination of a threat, not the growth of the resource base. Wealth was only a factor in a "denial of wealth" form from the United States, and not a gain of wealth as was for the Japanese.

And that is part of why large expenditures for technology are common in wars. It isn't so much about the Gain of Wealth once the politicians stop talking, but about the ability to defeat your enemy in detail, allowing you to rationalize the loss of resources that military action automatically causes (a single bullet fired represents a loss of a resource. Effort went into making that bullet, and materials. The use of that bullet in a way that doesn't benefit the nation that created it constitutes a loss of resources. This happens in every battle that ends in defeat, except where the defeat allows for victory to a greater level)
Things that aren't economic when it comes to the initial creation, such as large scale road networks to remote areas, become an advantage when it is employed for military purposes. After they are created, they benefit those who wouldn't be able to recap their gains had they created them. This allows the utilization of that technology, and then the spin-offs that make it even more profitable to use the idea. The idea itself doesn't allow the growth of the Spin-offs without being realized though. There is no need for an automobile when there is no way for it to travel, therefore no incentive to create the automobile. Granted roads have existed for a long time and before that there were paths/trails, but that doesn't change the fact that if you couldn't use a car, a car wouldn't have ever been made.

[Rictus]

quote:Originally posted by Lyrax:
<STRONG>
If you mean 'Western economies combined' then I have no problem with the second part of this statement.

The US, however, does not have a majority of the world's wealth.  Merely a plurality.</STRONG>

Western economies combined is exactly what I meant.