[EggsOnToast]

There's also an argument to be made that remaining on the cutting edge of military science is a form of national security. Being one of the first, or only, nations to develop and test a new kind of weapon means that you'll also be among the first nations to be able to fully assess its practical viability and evaluate its countermeasures.

[IntronExon]

How many thermonuclear weapons do we need to be secure? Secure from what? Invasion? No one is invading a nuclear power.

[EggsOnToast]

I'm not sure I see the relevance of your question since what you're asking for is a necessary quantity not a necessary level of innovation. There could be lots of reasons to develop a better thermonuclear weapon even if it's never put into use. Innovation in that area would help us to gauge the difficulty of miniaturizing such a device and, if it turns out to be difficult but possible, whether or not modern technology makes such a feat possible for a hostile non-nation group such as a terrorist organization. In the situation being discussed in the article, the argument would be that remaining on the cutting edge of drone technology allows us to evaluate the threat that drones could pose to our navy if a situation like the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis ever happened again.

[IntronExon]

There's also an argument to be made that remaining on the cutting edge of military science is a form of national security.

Your words, I’m asking who’s security? Our security while we pretend to own the world? Our security against invasion? How secure do we need to be, when we can already end all human life in 45 minutes?

[EggsOnToast]

If you don't agree with a part of what I've said then you're more than welcome to articulate your objections instead of asking a series of rhetorical questions. It's clear that you have strong feelings on the topic but at this point you're not trying to have a discussion you're just being belligerent.

[dang]

You've posted so many low-quality comments and skirted the site guidelines consistently enough that I've banned this account.

Accounts that post prodigious low-quality comments, especially ones that specialize on all the grandiose themes, are particularly damaging to signal/noise ratio, and that is what we care about here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[IntronExon]

I’m asking a question you seem unwilling to answer. You invoked national security as a motivation to stay on the cutting edge of military science. I’m asking just what your definition encompasses, and pointing out that it’s clearly not just the sanctity of our borders. Traditionally national security is about the security of a nation, not securing its dominance; the latter goes by a different name. Our vast nuclear arsenal secures the former, but not the latter.

[dang]

You've posted such a huge number of low-quality comments to Hacker News that I've banned this account.

You also broke the site guidelines repeatedly after we asked you not to, and went into ideological flamewar repeatedly after we asked you not to. I have to conclude that this is not an account that wants to use HN as intended.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[EggsOnToast]

And if you read my replies you'll notice that I gave two examples. In response to your fixation on nuclear weapons I pointed out that developing better designs could be helpful with regard to maintaining an awareness of if modern technology has made some producing some version of the weapon, in my example it was a miniaturized version of the weapon, possible for a terrorist organization. I don't feel like it's asking too much to expect you to realize why that might be a useful thing to know for protecting the nation. In my other example I highlighted that having a cutting edge understanding of drone technology could be useful for defending our navy in the event that we another crisis similar to the time we sent ships to guard Taiwan. Given that the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis happened well within recent history I don't think it's unrealistic to suggest preparing for an analogous situation could be beneficial in the event that it should happen again but escalate this time.