[ExI] War drives innovation

Stefano Vaj stefano.vaj at gmail.com
Mon Oct 10 15:42:22 UTC 2011


On 6 October 2011 15:11, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> A Wired article has reminded me that it is governments & war that
> drives technological innovation.
>
> <
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/gadgets-the-pentagon-made/?pid=814&viewall=true
>

This is very close to some of the subjects I dealt with in my brief speech
at the London "Beyond Human" even held during last week-end.

In particular, while innovation certainly happens at the cross between
cooperation and competition, past experience suggest that both the
cooperation and the competition that are capable of producing breakthroughs
are those amongst *political*, as opposed to economic, entities.

The former need not be necessarily a State-nation, since this has not
existed nor is bound to exist forever, nor it is strictly necessary that
competition only takes the form of actual warfare, let alone "total war",
but the point is well made by, inter alia,  La recherche et la technologie,
enjeux de puissance<http://www.amazon.fr/recherche-technologie-enjeux-puissance/dp/2717845933/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318261040&sr=8-1>
de
Valérie Mérindol, David-W Versailles et Patrice Cardot.

The same cannot be said for competition between international corporate
groups and conglomerates, no matter how large they are or how violent it may
become.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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