From: jim bell <jimbell@pacifier.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 06:27:23 -0800 (PST)
To: Sean Roach <cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: RE: Fighting the cybercensor
Message-ID: <199702111427.GAA19997@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 09:44 PM 2/5/97 -0800, Sean Roach wrote:
>This time I have opted for a point by point.
>At 07:59 PM 2/5/97 -0800, jim bell wrote:

>>1.  Large numbers of potentially competent and useful people get put into 
>>useless jobs:  "Army, Navy, and Marines, and Air Force" spring to mind.   
>>(Those people who still think military spending is really necessary 
>>obviously haven't read AP.)
>This point I can not argue with, at least not directly.  I do believe that
>the military way is wasteful of resources.

Notice, however, that "pre-AP-theory," there was never any "good" way to 
theorize getting rid of the military:  It always appeared that OUR military 
was needed to protect us against THEIR military.  AP fixes that problem.


> However, this is one area that
>has actually benefitted the lower-income bracket in that it gives them
>"inexpensive" (off-chance of death) access to good training.

"War is good business...Invest your son!"

There's no doubt that militaries look like a good deal to at least some 
fraction of the population.  However, as is usually true, the amount of 
money that could be saved if we didn't have to buy military junk would do 
just as well applied to other products or services.


>>2.  Large amounts of money are spent on military hardware, money which goes 
>>to fund  people who would otherwise develop useful products in the 
>>non-government private sector.
>Three things that promote technological growth, expansion, war, threat of war.
>As for expansion. we really have no where else to go.  As for war and threat
>of war, the computer was invented during a war, atomic energy was harnessed
>during war, the internet was created during threat of war.  Many
>advancements, though not all, come to benefit society later.  For that
>matter, steel was probably invented during a war as well, but I can't prove 
it.

I think that's a somewhat distorted way to look at it.  War drastically 
changes the economics associated with technical developments:  In WWII, 
millions of dollars became available for development of computers due to 
their ability to decrypt codes.  It is by no means surprising that suddenly 
making it 10x more affordable to buy computers (not by reducing their costs, 
but by raising the amount of money provided) would make computers appear to 
be the product of war.  

You may recall estimates (which are frequently re-quoted, BTW)that proposed 
that there would only be a market for (say) 5-10 computers in the world.  
That estimate is frequently cited as an example of how wrong they were, but 
in reality that estimate assumed pricing based on then-current costs, and 
they were probably accurate!  It is the _subsequent_ development of 
transistors which made those original estimates "wrong."


Nuclear power, similarly, was born in a flood of money for the same war.  
Expensive government installations, such as Los Alamos, NM, Hanford 
Washington, and Oak Ridge Tennessee were built for that purpose. Activities 
which would have been highly uneconomical during peacetime were suddenly 
worth doing.

If war makes technical development happen, it is only because of how 
supremely wasteful it is.  Useful things still get done, but they get done 
in a highly uneconomical fashion and _before_ they would normally be done in 
a non-war world.


Jim Bell
jimbell@pacifier.com