[jasonkester]

In hindsight, it seems clear that if humanity had decided in 1939 to colonize space, instead of expending ~$17 trillion and ~74 million human lives on war and destruction, we would have reached the moon in a robust and durable way by no later than the mid-1950s

He kinda gives away the answer to this earlier in the article, while explaining why the cool edge-case technologies the Romans had never took off:

the truth is that all technological advances are dependent upon a complex mix of social, political and environmental factors which we still do not understand, and thus cannot predict

The implication then is that, had WWII not happened, 1950 would have looked a lot like 1939. Instead, the world saw nearly 10 years of rapid technological advances, with nations inventing amazing new things as though their life depended on it.

Plot the rise and fall of the Space Program alongside the Cold War, and you can see the pattern again.

[00010]

You could argue that a great deal of the technological advancement of the later 20th century is a direct result of the CIA's paranoia and inability to correctly assess the real capabilities of the USSR (and the attendant fervor and fear of the public, which enabled the vast level of government expenditure on the Space Program). A content and secure populace would surely have preferred the money to have been spent elsewhere (on, eg, feeding the poor).

What does it mean for technological innovation if the 'complex mix' of factors it depends upon includes the enthusiasm of a propaganda-fueled public? After all, the (relatively) content societies of contemporary northern Europe have never produced anything like the level of innovation seen in Cold War America, despite their unusually high appreciation of scientific rationalism. Uncomfortable thinking...

[watchandwait]

Actually if you study the history of LBJ's "Great Society" expansion of the U.S. welfare state, a major argument was that we had to spend more on food, housing, and health care for the aged and poor in order to win the PR war against communism.

[Plimsoll]

If I recall right during second world war many jewish scientist emigrated from Germany to America. It was these emigrated scientist, their students and American scientist who played the scientific part of cold war. With so many new scientist moving in and political motivation to beat those communists, it sounds only natural that there was an outburst of technology at that era.

Meanwhile in northern European countries (I'm seeing this mostly in Finland's perspective) had to play nice and humble with the Soviet union it being geologically right next to it. In addition to that Finland had huge amount of war reparations to pay due to losing winter and continuation wars against Soviet Union. Also since Soviet Union was the other big player of that time, with its own space programs and so on, it was only natural that the brightest minds in technological perspective went to Soviet universities and did their possible contributions there (I'm not expert of this matter but I remember reading there was at least some level of brain leakage during that era) Fall of Soviet union wasn't either that good of a change for Nordic countries since Soviet Union was one of our biggest sources of export.

Of course this is all just historical blabbering the real deal being imho the fact that in Nordic countries are good places in average, which means we do well in global rankings like PISA tests, but for technological innovation and economical rise it usually is the right side of gaussian curve that is needed. Also in eyes of Finn (I really don't know how these things are in states) due to more or less powerful labor movement and being "Nordic welfare state" (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nordic_welfar...) we have high labor expenses for employer. Add this to seemingly high bureaucracy to start a company, I don't see it that odd that we don't have any startup culture and every one just goes to work for Nokia (this is of course just extrapolation as there are interesting startups here and there but I feel the general culture isn't that motivating towards innovation).

[qw]

You can't compare the output of a country with over 300 million people with Northern Europe. The money spent on technology alone is probably larger than the combined national budgets of those countries. Of course this will produce more noticeable results, but that doesn't mean that they don't contribute to innovation.

[anamax]

> You can't compare the output of a country with over 300 million people with Northern Europe.

Why not? The comparison is considered fair whenever it favors Northern Europe, so why is it unfair when NE doesn't do as well?

Northern Europe has roughly the same population as the US. The people look basically the same. They're considered first world. etc.

> The money spent on technology alone is probably larger than the combined national budgets of those countries.

Not even close. Total govt spending, per capita, is roughly the same. (Canada spends a bit less per person than the US.) So, there's no way that US govt tech spending, which is a small fraction of govt spending, can be greater than the total govt spending in those countries.

The US probably does have more private spending on tech than those countries, but that's because the US' greater gdp/person lets it spend more money privately on everything.

So, why is their GDP so much lower? We keep hearing how much better they are, so why doesn't it show up in output?

Yes, it's plausible to choose lower output, but is that really what's going on? Let's see the numbers showing that having less makes them better off.

[h-sebell]

> Northern Europe has roughly the same population as the US.

Where do you get this number from? Looking at the definition of NE on Wikipedia, even if we include GB and Ireland we get roughly 100 million people. If we don't the number is closer to 30 million. The second number should be closer to your definition of NE considering your comment

> the (relatively) content societies of contemporary northern Europe

So NE has roughly 1/10th the population of USA, so if you are going to compare USA to NE you have to compare it per capita. I don't know about innovation per capita but with the exception of California I doubt there is a big difference, and the only reason California has a greater amount of innovation is cause of the anomaly called Silicon Valley.

Feel free to prove me wrong by getting the innovation numbers per capita during the Cold War. I wouldn't be surprised if Northern Europe would beat USA when population is considered, especially if you do not include former nations of the Soviet Union.

[vorg]

Northern Europe= UK+France+Germany+others

[qw]

> Why not? The comparison is considered fair whenever it favors Northern Europe, so why is it unfair when NE doesn't do as well?

US is a single country with a common language and culture. It's much easier to share academical results and knowledge in that environment. I hate to use a buzzword, but "synergy" is probably a good description of that effect.

> So, why is their GDP so much lower? We keep hearing how much better they are, so why doesn't it show up in output?

In my opinion it's not a good comparison. If we look at the GDP per capita, you will find lots of states with lower rates than many European countries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_...

When you hear "how much better the countries are", it is based on other factors than GDP. If there was something special about the US political system that generates wealth, you would expect the results to be more evenly distributed. Northern Europe consists of countries that are far more diverse than US states with larger differences in political systems, language, culture and history.

It seems that some US states are better at generating wealth than others. But it is my guess that they still have huge advantages of a single market with a common language and relatively similar culture. You also see more mobility in the workforce than in European countries.

[anamax]

> > Why not? The comparison is considered fair whenever it favors Northern Europe, so why is it unfair when NE doesn't do as well?

> US is a single country with a common language and culture.

True, but that doesn't explain why the comparison is fair in some cases and not others.

>> So, why is their GDP so much lower? We keep hearing how much better they are, so why doesn't it show up in output?

> In my opinion it's not a good comparison.

How about some support for that opinion? (And, as I noted, no one complains about such comparisions when they're trying to make the US look bad.)

> If we look at the GDP per capita, you will find lots of states with lower rates than many European countries.

Actually, you find a few states that would be in the middle/low europe and a fair number of states that are over the top.

But, so what? There's variation between and within European countries. There's variation between and within US states.

That doesn't change the fact that US per-capita GDP is significantly higher.

> If there was something special about the US political system that generates wealth, you would expect the results to be more evenly distributed.

Why would you expect that?

The US poor fare rather well on an absolute scale.

You seem to think that what your neighbor has matters more than what you have. I disagree.

As to "relatively similar culture", the US TV culture is fairly uniform and the areas that techsters see are fairly similar, but go to south San Jose and tell me that it's just like Palo Alto. Heck, go to East Palo Alto and Redwood City. (They're not the same.)

If you're willing to travel a bit more (the US is big), there is lots of cultural diversity. Do you really think that Madison Wisconsin is much like Dry Creek Missouri?

[00010]

My point was really just that the level of public investment in technology (as a proportion of any measure like GDP) in those countries is nowhere near what the US spent on the Space Race. And the US isn't spending money on technology like that anymore either.

[api]

The average person is only motivated by hate, fear, and superstition. That is the main constraining factor.

[gaius]

The average person just wants to survive. The problem comes when they believe, whether it is true or not is irrelevant, that their survival requires someone else to die.

[Charuru]

Are you saying that war increases technological growth? That's crappy pop-history that's largely been discredited. Competition invites advancement, blowing up your competitors does nothing.

[masklinn]

> Are you saying that war increases technological growth? That's crappy pop-history that's largely been discredited.

That is not quite entirely true, war -- especially long-term -- results in huge funds being funnelled towards things that can blow up the other guy, which can then move into more peaceful realms. Not to mention the requirements for research safety and grants are often quite different.

Without WWII, would we have operational jets in the early 40s? What about rockets? All of rocket science from the late 40s and early 50s came from WWII germany. Likewise for fission and fusion research, how much longer would it have taken without Los Alamos?

> Competition invites advancement, blowing up your competitors does nothing.

That's crappy pop-history that's largely been discredited. Inventors generally don't need motivation, only funds (of time, of money, of equipment, of relations). And the reason for those funds and where they come from is the lowest of worry, as long as they are provided. Competition is irrelevant to invention and advancement.

[montagg]

I think you've both hit on and missed the point of the article at the same time. We think war = technological progress because that's how it happened in our civilization. We're biased toward that line of thinking because the evidence -- our history -- keeps us biased. The article is saying, it didn't have to be that way. Likewise, that isn't how it has to be in the future. So, yes, you are correct that funds provide progress, war provides funds, so war provides progress, but that's only one of many possible scenarios. It isn't a law of nature.

[Charuru]

No... just no. :S

If you want to debate, please sign up for http://arguex.com/ I'm not going to do it here.

[JanezStupar]

Are you just trolling? Or are you trying to promote the service? In either case I guess you are doing it wrong - flagged.

Also - I signed up for the service - I love the idea, but if you expect me to sign up to Facebook just to start using your service - then forget it.

[JanezStupar]

So what you're saying that intense competition between national armies is not the kind of competition that humans are willing to stake almost anything and commit endless resources on?

War itself may not increase technological growth. But preparations for war certainly do. And please show me another competition that has yielded lets say 50% of technological advances that various arms races have?

Sadly when human develops new kind of tech and is looking for money to get it widespread - the first and deciding question is: "Can it be used as a weapon?"

Think of the nuclear bunker gap!

[toddh]

Wasn't low-cost sequencing of human genomes created by the competition generated by an X prize? Maybe we simply aren't harnessing gamification principles properly. Maybe really big games like wars aren't the only way.

[JanezStupar]

If you re-read my comment you will notice that I haven't said that wars are only way to induce progress.

However I did say that I would like to see an example of a phenomena that produced at least 50% of technological advances that warfare has.

Low cost genome sequencing is all nice and dandy - but thus far worthless. I'm not saying it ain't got potential, but thus far it hasn't really impacted us in any meaningful way. And I'd be willing to bet that any future impacts on this field are going to be financed through military complex.

Even the renewable energy sources will probably come from military and not from enlightened corporations.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not trying to pass judgment here. It's just an observation.

[btilly]

Are you saying that war increases technological growth? That's crappy pop-history that's largely been discredited

Citation needed.

I can certainly say that without WW II and then the Cold War, Silicon Valley would not have looked anything like it does today. Read everything in http://steveblank.com/category/secret-history-of-silicon-val... and watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo for evidence for that assertion.

[mrleinad]

So... isn't war a form of competition that was there and then, previous to the global competitive market of today?

[ThomPete]

As far as I remember to have read somewhere.

The Nazi doctors did quite a lot for the advance of the medical field simply because of all the horrible experiments they could do.

[devinj]

Not really. Unfortunately, while the Nazi doctors did a lot of stuff, it was almost all useless to the scientific community because they didn't really apply the scientific method. There are only a few citable results, in particular the Dachau hypothermia experiments (for example), and even those are rarely used for obvious political concerns. So actually, the Nazis have not advanced modern medicine very much at all.

[anateus]

A lesser known WW2-era legacy is the Japanese Unit 731 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731 which perpetrated horrific experiments upon great numbers of Chinese and some POWs.

Unlike the Nazi experiments these don't seem as well known in the west, though they've had a potentially greater effect. I say potentially because most of the doctors were pardoned (the ones that weren't captured by the Russians) and several rose to prominence in Japanese medical circles. The results of Unit 731 are mostly classified, and have been used to jumpstart biological weapons programs in both the USSR and the US (at least one Unit 731 doctor moved to the US to work on bioweapons).

[herval]

been discredited by who? I still take this as logical and true to many levels... would love to read a reasonable oposite opinion