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

On Mon, May 03, 2004 at 02:24:30PM -0500, Bob Pendleton wrote:

> 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.

If you leave it at that, that's where the miscommunication starts, I
guess.

We all agree that invention is good.  Then someone says that war
stimulates invention.  Anything that stimulates something good
inevitably starts looking good too, in a way.  Leaving this impression
is something unacceptable for a lot of people (including me).

I know you're far from an "innovation is stalling, some war would
help"-type of cynic.  But war is so sensitive a topic that it's just no
good to present fractional truths about it.  If your message was more
complete, along the lines of "war stimulates innovation ... but we don't
want it anyway since it also stimulates (possibly massive) destruction
and loss of life", which I'm sure is a statement you wouldn't oppose, at
least not fundamentally, then everyone would agree and no
miscommunication would occur.

> I see no contradiction between what I have been saying and what you just
> said. Though, I think you said it much better. I think that some people
> have such a strong negative emotional reaction to war that they cannot
> accept anyone saying anything that may sound even slightly positive
> about war. 

Well, there might be people on this list coming from nations that had
tanks in the streets in the last couple of years or decades (we had
Russian tanks in the streets just a few years before I was born) -
although it might not be the US or Canada.  Some of those people might
even have lost some of their loved ones in various wars, you never know.
They tend to be sorely aware that no amount of invention, no amount of
new gadgets originating from military research justifies loss of life.
Human society is not here to maximize the rate of innovation.  It's here
to make its members life better, I believe.

Those things are not to be taken for granted.  In an international
environment like this list, there are people coming from very different
backgrounds and one should be careful not to assume too much.

I'm just trying to explain the negative reaction you got that I'm sure
you don't deserve.

> As always, your wisdom is a valued contribution to the list.

Thanks, you're very kind.

        latimerius

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