do you think war is NEVER the answer ?

[Revolutionary Justice]

I think wars can be justifiable certainly, it just depends on what class is waging it and for that classes aim.

[Bortelex]

If an aggressor wants war, and all attempts to resolve the situation in any peaceful manner fails. The only option to preserve the safety of the your nation is to meet the aggressor in combat. Despite anyone's best efforts some people will hate another group so much that there is no compromise or reasoning with them. If those people control armies then war is likely, and if conflict comes and it is not war then it was probably a massacre or possibly genocide.

War is not the ideal solution, it is a hard and tragic time, but it is better then the destruction of your nation.

[Blood Valkyrie]

Sometimes, a nation must fight in a war.
War is not something a nation should ever do for the hell of it.

[That Cursed Number]

Bortelex

If an aggressor wants war, and all attempts to resolve the situation in any peaceful manner fails.

[GeeWilakers]

Je Nique vos Merdiers

Hydraulic Fluid

War has been the single most powerful force in driving technological advancement. Like it or not, it's true.

Believe it or not, prove that it's true.

It actually is fear is one of the best motivators their are.

[Heimdalr]

GeeWilakers

Je Nique vos Merdiers

Hydraulic Fluid

War has been the single most powerful force in driving technological advancement. Like it or not, it's true.

Believe it or not, prove that it's true.

It actually is fear is one of the best motivators their are.

Fear as a motivator for technological creativity? I think I'm just going to plug this one in where it's supposed to and hope the boss doesn't use Force Choke on me.

[Wendigo]

Heimdalr

Fear as a motivator for technological creativity? I think I'm just going to plug this one in where it's supposed to and hope the boss doesn't use Force Choke on me.

Hey, them ******** built a moon, man.

[Liebe Und Blut]

Je Nique vos Merdiers

Hydraulic Fluid

War has been the single most powerful force in driving technological advancement. Like it or not, it's true.

Believe it or not, prove that it's true.

I can't prove it, but I can give some good arguments.
War is competition. Innovators are necessary in order to technologically better the enemy.
England's highly advanced Navy was a result of going to war with other nations.
The need for movement of troops and goods allowed for the steam engine to be created.
Nuclear weapons were developed in wartime, which set the stage for other nuclear technologies.
And let us not forget the space race which happened due to competition between Russia and the USA during the Cold War.
For ******** sake, the internet is a resultant of military technology.

Competition is necessary when it comes to development. China was pretty sustainable for a very long time - they did not need to develop anything new. That was, until England took them over. England had the technology to occupy China because Europe's been at was for... pretty much forever. China - they built a wall, yes. But after Mongols and Huns, they were pretty chill.

Thus, I believe it is a fair and sound argument to say that war has been (if not the single most powerful) one of the most powerful driving forces for technological advancement in all of history.


Now in response the original question.
Was in unfortunate, but it is sometimes necessary.
Necessary in terms of going to "help our friends overseas"? No. I think that's got to be the biggest ideological propaganda out there. Let's go kill eachother to save our friends. Bullshit.
It is necessary for self defense. Humans are violent creatures, and even if you're so wonderful a person you can be a conscientious objector, by no means is everyone.

[Hydraulic Fluid]

Je Nique vos Merdiers

Hydraulic Fluid

War has been the single most powerful force in driving technological advancement. Like it or not, it's true.

Believe it or not, prove that it's true.

Because in war you don't give a ******** what something costs (not necessarily money), you simply need it and you make it happen. Look at the Second World War, it's probably the best example. We went from wood and fabric biplanes that had 30 horsepower engines to turbine powered aircraft with metal monocoque fuselages in less than a decade. From bolt-action rifles to the precursors of modern-day battle rifles. The nuclear age. Rockets. Quite a bit happened during that time frame. There was a good jump during the First World War as well, thought not as great. Necessity is the mother of invention after all.

[Spierred]

Wendigo

Hydraulic Fluid

War has been the single most powerful force in driving technological advancement. Like it or not, it's true.

Not a very good reason for having wars, as you can just invest in new research and development for research and development's sake, without anybody dying.

We would have never created many modern technologies if we were not forced. Once man reaches a point where he is content, he does not advance. Look at the US Native Americans. They were spread out, they had plenty of natural resources, they did not often need to compete or fight against each other.. With this kind of lifestyle, why would they need to advance technology? The spear kills deer to eat just fine, why invent the gun? The land is naturally fertile and there is plenty of food, why invent irrigation? Deaths from infection happen, but we are not dying off by the thousands from bullet and knife wounds, why invent antibiotics?

We only have radios, cell phones, and the internet because of the importance of military communication. We only have the jet engine from WW2. We only have digital photography because we needed a way to collect photographs from spy satellites during the Cold War that didn't involve jettisoning a canister of film to the earth then searching for it. If we lived in a society that never experienced war, or the fear of war, we would not have even thought of many inventions. No one would have just been like "The internet is a cool idea, I should invent that." It was more like "I need these computers connected together because we need to know whether or not that thing the Soviet Union just launched into space could nuke us, and these computers each take up a room." Thus, ARPANET, the basis of the Internet was formed.

[Hydraulic Fluid]

Spierred

Wendigo

Hydraulic Fluid

War has been the single most powerful force in driving technological advancement. Like it or not, it's true.

Not a very good reason for having wars, as you can just invest in new research and development for research and development's sake, without anybody dying.

We would have never created many modern technologies if we were not forced. Once man reaches a point where he is content, he does not advance. Look at the US Native Americans. They were spread out, they had plenty of natural resources, they did not often need to compete or fight against each other.. With this kind of lifestyle, why would they need to advance technology? The spear kills deer to eat just fine, why invent the gun? The land is naturally fertile and there is plenty of food, why invent irrigation? Deaths from infection happen, but we are not dying off by the thousands from bullet and knife wounds, why invent antibiotics?

We only have radios, cell phones, and the internet because of the importance of military communication. We only have the jet engine from WW2. We only have digital photography because we needed a way to collect photographs from spy satellites during the Cold War that didn't involve jettisoning a canister of film to the earth then searching for it. If we lived in a society that never experienced war, or the fear of war, we would not have even thought of many inventions. No one would have just been like "The internet is a cool idea, I should invent that." It was more like "I need these computers connected together because we need to know whether or not that thing the Soviet Union just launched into space could nuke us, and these computers each take up a room." Thus, ARPANET, the basis of the Internet was formed.

To be fair, the Natives did irrigate in arid climates.

[N3bu]

Wendigo

Heimdalr

Fear as a motivator for technological creativity? I think I'm just going to plug this one in where it's supposed to and hope the boss doesn't use Force Choke on me.

Hey, them ******** built a moon, man.

More realistically didn't the US go to the moon on the basis of fear that the Russians were beating them there? They used science to launch a flimsy tin can to the moon and the back of some very powerful explosive fuel.

[Je Nique vos Merdiers]

Hydraulic Fluid

Because in war you don't give a ******** what something costs (not necessarily money), you simply need it and you make it happen. Look at the Second World War, it's probably the best example. We went from wood and fabric biplanes that had 30 horsepower engines to turbine powered aircraft with metal monocoque fuselages in less than a decade. From bolt-action rifles to the precursors of modern-day battle rifles. The nuclear age. Rockets. Quite a bit happened during that time frame. There was a good jump during the First World War as well, thought not as great. Necessity is the mother of invention after all.

GeeWilakers

It actually is fear is one of the best motivators their are.

Liebe Und Blut

I can't prove it, but I can give some good arguments.
War is competition. Innovators are necessary in order to technologically better the enemy.
England's highly advanced Navy was a result of going to war with other nations.
The need for movement of troops and goods allowed for the steam engine to be created.
Nuclear weapons were developed in wartime, which set the stage for other nuclear technologies.
And let us not forget the space race which happened due to competition between Russia and the USA during the Cold War.
For ******** sake, the internet is a resultant of military technology.

Competition is necessary when it comes to development. China was pretty sustainable for a very long time - they did not need to develop anything new. That was, until England took them over. England had the technology to occupy China because Europe's been at was for... pretty much forever. China - they built a wall, yes. But after Mongols and Huns, they were pretty chill.

Thus, I believe it is a fair and sound argument to say that war has been (if not the single most powerful) one of the most powerful driving forces for technological advancement in all of history.

I said prove that it's true, not delineate your personal line of reasoning for believing it's true.

Quote:

Look at the Second World War, it's probably the best example. We went from wood and fabric biplanes that had 30 horsepower engines to turbine powered aircraft with metal monocoque fuselages in less than a decade.

Yeah, and after the war we went from piston-powered propeller aircraft to jet-powered aircraft capable of sustained supersonic flight, and nuclear-powered bombers. In the mid-90s to the mid-2000s we went from barely anyone using the internet to the internet being available in most populated areas on a device that fits in your pocket.

Quote:

For ******** sake, the internet is a resultant of military technology.

I guess you could say that, but not really. The military technology was a result of science that was being done independently. Link-layer networking had already been around for decades, and Xerox PARC developed both ethernet and a precursor to TCP/IP called PUP.

Quote:

Competition is necessary when it comes to development.

That's not true, and in fact, it's the other way around. Development is necessary in a competitive environment, but this does not mean that competition is necessary for development. For example, most of the internet runs on open-source technology, which is developed in a collaborative environment to internally-derived specs, and not necessarily to compete with other browsers. Collaborative innovation can result in highly divergent designs, i.e. Mozilla vs. the dominant Internet Explorer. Competition usually only results in small, iterative changes to "keep up" with the dominant innovator, i.e. nearly every tablet ever produced is designed to look and feel like an iPad.

Quote:

The need for movement of troops and goods allowed for the steam engine to be created.

Uh, this is just flat out bullshit. The steam engine came about because of the need to pump water from coal mines.

Quote:

Nuclear weapons were developed in wartime, which set the stage for other nuclear technologies.

What other nuclear technologies? There's not many of them, and nuclear weapons would not be possible without the likes of Marie Curie and Albert Einstein. Too bad Einstein was dumb enough to think the Americans were going to just drop the bomb over the ocean.

Quote:

Thus, I believe it is a fair and sound argument to say that war has been (if not the single most powerful) one of the most powerful driving forces for technological advancement in all of history.

So has the economy. So has human suffering. So has space exploration. So has pure curiosity. There's no clear "winner" when it comes to what is the most powerful driving forces for technology, which is why I'm calling bullshit on all of you people. Go find or perform a study demonstrating that the military is unequivocally the number one influence or stop spreading bullshit nonsense.

[Heimdalr]

It should immediately occur to any individual capable of reasoning that the great inventions of bygone centuries were not invented during war because the war made people invent them, but because we were at war for most of that time.

[Hydraulic Fluid]

Heimdalr

It should immediately occur to any individual capable of reasoning that the great inventions of bygone centuries were not invented during war because the war made people invent them, but because we were at war for most of that time.

Perhaps I should rephrase my argument: Technological advancement is fueled primarily by the motivation to have better s**t. War usually does provide a nation with that motivation, because most governments are willing to invest significantly more into the research and development of technological that would aid in the war effort. And money talks.