According to Guns, Germs and Steel, necessity is not the mother of invention. In fact the opposite is true: inventions appear when the needs of the inventors are already met.
Jared Diamond notwithstanding, WW2 led directly or indirectly to:
1. The atomic bomb
2. Jet aircraft
3. The digital computer
4. Modern rocketry
And the Cold War gave rise to
1. The internet
2. The space program
3. The interstate highway system
These are the kinds of big swings that Thiel is talking about and that's just off the top of my head. You can go through previous wars as well. Wouldn't be surprised if WW1 was a real shot in the arm for aviation, for example.
Probably the biggest peacetime innovation since the end of the Cold War has been the sequencing of the human genome. But arguably that was also a computer science innovation, as it revolved around better assembly algorithms and required no test pilots, clinical trials, or atomic bomb detonations.
The first flying jet aircraft was before WW2, the Heinkel He178 on August 27, 1939.
The first freeway network was in Germany before WW2.
Before the internet gained popularity, about everyone with more than one computer tried to connect them together. There were quite a proliferation of networks before the internet subsumed them all (after all, even the term "inter" net was derived from connecting disparate networks together, not computers). There was BIX, FidoNet, Compuserve, Prodigy, MCINet, just to name a few off the top of my head. Some students at Caltech in the 70's built their own ad-hoc network when I was there.
While the other networks have all been forgotten today, to suggest that without the ARPAnet networks wouldn't have happened is without foundation.
And I'm sure that Heinkel was so puritanical about the jet engine not being used for military purposes that he refused to consider the substantial profits he might make from using them in the multitude of bombers he was already making for the Luftwaffe, nor that he might be able to create a competitive fighter design (given that he'd lost out on that side). I'm sure his research was not at all motivated by the possibility of future government coin.
Of course Heinkel wanted to sell the jet to the government. But the fact remains that jet engines and jet aircraft were not developed with government research & development contract money.
Neither the US, British, nor German governments wanted anything to do with funding jet research until they saw flying jet airplanes.
Jet aircraft are a poor example of foresighted government research.
Hmmm. My point is that innovation speeds up dramatically during wars, in part because the involvement of dot.mil organizations can supersede the regulations imposed by dot.govs.
Taking your points in turn:
1. August 1939 in Nazi Germany wasn't exactly peacetime :) They were already planning to invade Poland. I believe it's pretty well established that aircraft development slowed between the wars but really got underway again with WW2 and then the Korean War.
2. The Autobahn was arguably a peacetime development (though very useful for war), but it's inarguable that the US Interstate Highway System was developed for defense purposes.
3. Would computer networking have happened in some fashion? Probably, but DARPA saw it as a national security issue and cut through various kinds of red tape. Fiber could be laid across huge swaths of the country without environmental impact statements or FCC involvement. It's hard to say what would have happened without sponsorship from one part of the government.
1. Heinkel's jet airplane development was not funded by the government, as the Nazi government saw no military purpose to jet aircraft. They only got interested after it was flying.
2. Both the German autobahn system and the US interstates were partially justified by military use, and both were done in peacetime.
3. Computer networking did happen independently from the ARPAnet, and it did cover the entire country, both with dedicated lines and piggybacking over the phone lines. All the networks I mentioned were national (and even international) in reach. Everyone with more than one computer wanted to connect them together.
I should add that in Great Britain as well, the government did not begin funding of jet engines nor jet aircraft until after government officials saw flying jet aircraft.
In America during WW2, the government told Lockheed to halt their dev work on jet engines and concentrate on piston engines. Flying jet aircraft (from GB and Germany) again changed their mind.
Wow, what's with WWII and the Cold War lately? Everyone is trying to find silver linings in them. So I'll just whip out my previous comment about the broken window fallacy: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3255480
The whole war = innovation thing never held much water for me.
First of all, there is no way to know what would have happened if there was no war. Some of those things might have been invented anyway. Maybe other more important things would have been invented.
Also, if you look at non-war years they too are full of innovation. The period just before WW1 brought us the light bulb, the telegraph, the phone, skyscrapers, the type writer, etc. etc. I mean, it was over a slightly longer period of time, but I don't think it would be outrageous to argue that the rate of innovation was just as high as during WW2.
Well, that's an entirely fair way of looking at it. Pshaw! A few years of war held less innovation than a hundred!
A working telegraph over 8 miles was invented in 1816.
typewriter 1829
telephone 1876
light bulb 1879
skyscrapers ~1890ish... but preceeded by buildings with similar number of stories from Roman times!
Yes, you're quite right. A hundred years (two thousand, if you include Roman precedent) does indeed hold more innovation than four.
And if you characterise ~98 years ('period just before WWI' with examples, 1816-1914) as 'slightly longer than WW2', which came in at 6 years (5 in earnest, 4 if you're American), perhaps you should pursue a career in archaeology, paleontology, or politics...
Work on jet engine began long before WW2 (and it failed to accelerate during WW2).
So did the work on nuclear fission (if it wasn't for top scientists incl. Einstein convincing US President to fund it, there wouldn't be Manhattan Project at all. German scientists fortunately failed to persuade Nazis even though they were much closer to nuclear device.)
Probably the biggest peacetime innovation since the end of the Cold War has been the sequencing of the human genome. But arguably that was also a computer science innovation, as it revolved around better assembly algorithms and required no test pilots, clinical trials, or atomic bomb detonations.