Originally Posted by
joft
defense spending is just one part of government spending and government spending doesn't make up much of our economy compared to the services sector, and it's also arguably a black hole for resources.
the idea that things get "out of hand" unless there's some kind of tension between opposing forces is a silly ontological fallacy. windows don't need to be broke in order for money to be made, people will find something to spend money on, like entertainment. new things will be invented and people will "need" them; phones, ipods, psps, drugs. fuck war, we can (and do) have tons of scientific and technological advances without war.
we need to be making computers powerful enough to simulate complex organisms like humans, or even entire ecological habitats or planets (no more product testing on mice, you can speed up the program and watch the effects of minute amounts of plastic coming off in our food that we store in plastic over the span of 50-100 years, on a human rather than any old mammal, and test the effects of various genetically engineered foods). we need to develop the capacity to win the war against disease, bacteria, parasites, etc. we need to figure out how to travel astronomical distances and colonize other planets. fuck fighting each other, we have plenty of other shit out there that threatens our existence and we need to get our fucking act together and stop being our own worst enemy so we can concentrate on better things