[ExI] war and technological progress

[John Grigg]

BillK wrote:
  I don't do political discussion.  So Bush is irrelevant to my comments.
>
   
  I respect your right to not engage in political discussion but I do think politics & presidents in the real world have *much* to do with whether or not we get the enlightened Transhumanist world we are hoping to one day live in.  I believe some of the people on this list think there is a "purity" that comes from avoiding current political issues and leadership.     
   
  BillK continues:
And my comments are not intended to justify any war.

Just the facts. Many people are so overpowered by the horror of war
that they refuse to recognise that many technical advances come out of
the pressure cooker of wartime.
WWII was remarkable in this respect.

A bit of googling will bring out a list of stuff that the current war
is producing. Some pretty unbelievable stuff is in there. Driverless
cars, for dog's sake!

See:  <http://www.aaai.org/AITopics/html/military.html>

Darpa projects include robot vehicles, computer language translation,
unmanned air
vehicles for observation and combat, swarms of bot devices, laser
weapons, remote surgery, many battlefield medical improvements, etc.

Agreed, wars concentrate on weapons technology. But radar was weapons
tech, so was jet planes, so was O&M for controlling factory
production. When the war stops, all the tech gets reused for
civilians.

It doesn't justify the war or the many deaths. But new tech arrives
quicker when a nation is perceived as being in a fight for survival.
>

The list you gave is quite amazing.  I think robot cars could save many lives considering how many humans (drunk or sober) tend to drive.  It feels like every time I turn around I hear of another person who was killed while driving their car.  I'm truly sick of it.
   
  When it comes to new tech coming down the pike don't forget all the effort and money going into the domestic "war on terror."  The ability for computer software to successfully recognize and track people would have come about anyway, but things are moving along much faster due to the current climate.  It is the implementation of some of these technologies which concerns me as an American citizen who values his civil liberties.
   
  I remember a Transhumanist friend telling me how bothered he was by all the "so-called" technological progress, which ultimately he viewed as meaningless.  The people of his generation would still be "dying on time" due to anti-aging research being neglected, and so what was the point?  In a very sarcastic tone he would say "they should all be buried with their favorite damn gadgets, since this is where the world's research and development money was spent!"
   
  John Grigg       

       
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