[gameprogrammer] Re: Innovation and Creativity. Getting OT?

>But, no one every said that war was necessary for invention. If that is
>what people think has been said, then there is a serious
>miscommunication going on. Let me state that one more time. No one on
>this list has stated that war is necessary for invention. I hope no one
>on the list *believes* that war is necessary for invention.
>
>As you said "necessity is the mother of invention". Strife creates
>necessity and therefore stimulates invention. War is extreme strife, and
>therefore stimulates extreme rates of invention.
>
>  
>

War isn't necessary for invention. But the military is a good source of 
funds to push inventions forward.

To take an example from my field of research: Analytical Chemistry. I 
work with something called a Mass Spectrometer. The technology is about 
80 years old. It seperates ions of different mass/charges in order to 
classify them. Then we can identify the different molecules making up a 
mixture (big simplification there). While some people can say that the 
technolgy was being developed prior to WWII, we must not forget that 
during WWII the researchers on the Manhattan project were given 
permission to melt all the silver in Fort Knox to build a massive Mass 
Spectrometer. It's purpose? To extract the correct Uranium (235) Isotope 
to make a nuclear bomb.  Why the need? Because you must push its 
abundance from about 0.7% to 99%. The technology was also used to test 
organic gas mixtures by the petroleum industry during the same period.

Would the Mass spectrometer have developed as fast without WWII? Not 
really. People need money to do research.
Would it have eventually reached its pervasiveness in the modern world? Yes.
Is it useful? There is not a single aspect of life that hasn't been 
affected by this technology. This goes from paint to the latest medical 
advances.
Have scientists recieved any Nobel prizes for this technology? I can 
remember at least 5 nobel winners.

As you can see from this brief outline, the technology is useful. It 
received a huge boost from war simply because the military was willing 
to invest resources that the private sector were not. The army isn't too 
concerned about profits. It has a virtually unlimited source of income 
(OK, not unlimited, but it can count on having a budget each and every 
year until the world ends). Does the army have to "sell" its ideas 
before it will get money to fund them? I don't really think so.

The US has a ridiculous military budget. Is it all going to pay for the 
troops? No. There are research groups that are funded by the US military 
to develop ew technologies based on the Mass Spectrometer (e.g. better 
explosive detection systems). Are the groups honest in their budgets? 
No, they double their estimates (I know this is common practice 
everywhere) and they fund other research that way.

Finally: why do we have armies? Because politicians are afraid that 
otherwise the countries would be invaded. Case in point: take out your 
maps, look at South Afrcia, Look in the middle of it, you will find 
Lesotho. A completely independent country. Surrounded by South Africa. 
Now tell me, why would anyone want to invade them? They have mountains 
and water. If South Africa were to attack them, their army wouldn't 
really stand a chance (you don't get the latest weapons seling water) . 
Yet they have an army.

So, the threat of war can be seen as driving science forward. Why did 
the US and  Soviet Union want to get to space?  To provide the world 
with new horizons? Or because it is the "ultimate high ground"? And yet 
we now benefit simply by having satelites that can reach the ends of the 
world and enable us to communicate, predict weather patterns, etc. Would 
companies have invested the billions of dollars necessary for the 
research???? For an unproven technology????


Besides: just look at the games out tere. How many people like to play 
First person shooters? Why is it so importnat to them? Why do so many 
programmers try to get cutting edge graphics and very high frame rates? 
Why are PCs getting faster if all we did was to type reports on the PCs?

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