The only way to test this hypothesis objectively would be to divide humanity into 3 different planets. One planet would be in a constant state of warmongering, another would be full of hippies and another planet would be much like us. That would be our control group. For those not familiar with the term, a control group in an experiment or study does not receive treatment/intervention by the researchers so it can be used as a benchmark to measure how the other tested subjects do.
Since we are not able to perform such an experiment we will have to resort to speculation and rather extrapolate our conclusions based on some pivotal parts of humanity's development. For example, all great empires that ever existed had powerful militaristic dominion over their neighbors. Most of the developments in those civilisations occurred in times of war as a result of competition. Later on at times of peace those innovations were utilised in different ways. More or less, for the last 7500 years (aka the time upon which human civilisation has existed) war has been paving the way humanity moves forward.
Ancient Egypt ruled for 4000 years. It was through their ruthless medical experimentations on slaves that medicine got to be advanced and later on carried out by the Greeks. Architectural marvels like the pyramids, were enabled by the amassing of slaves as spoils of war. Through the manpower architects developed new concepts that wouldn't be possible otherwise.
The Roman Empire that lasted for 500 years developed our war necessity newspapers for getting the armies informed. Roads to have access to all possible venues and thus enabling control. Welfare, for supplying the conquered and those least ftunate in the Empire. In medicine, they have pioneered in innovations such as the cesarean section and field doctors, that performed surgeries in the battlefield. Due to their excellent written record, those techniques were followed much later during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
Recent examples would be aviation since it flourished between the 1930s and 1990s, a time where the world superpowers were competing to control the skies. Competition allowed funding for projects which otherwise would not have received a green light. Space exploration followed a very similar path. The cold war and the consequent space race enabled innovations like the satellite to take place after insane amounts of money poured into the military. Likewise, nuclear energy might not have been possible without the atrocities of the atomic age. Consider that famous people like Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein were on board with the nuclear bomb (even if they later regretted it). Undeniably much of the technology that exists today disposal is direct side effect of wartime innovation.
Other pieces of technology like radios, submarines and semiconductors were pivotal in human progress and they were all results in times of war as a way to have an edge over the enemy. Without transistors and semiconductors we wouldn't have developed computers. Alan Turing, the father of cryptography and for many computing was pushed immensely to find solutions decrypting military devices and this is how the allies ended up winning the war. Without the military the advancement towards this spectrum would be hindered and probably get slowed down.
To envision how unlikely the internet progress has been, Paul Robin Krugman, a distinguished keynesian economist who was awarded the Nobel price said: "By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's". This is to show that even after so many advancements in this technology very few people could envision the present we have today. Imagine how hard this was back in 1930's when computers were the size of a small living room. The first pivotal step only happened because of military advancement.
War challenges our species towards innovation because it creates new necessities. New problems emerge due to direct competition and new solutions are urged to be found asap because they are matter of survival. One is much more efficient in seeking food when hungry rather than when they are spoiled and well nourished.
The U.S Military is almost entirely responsible for the technology inside your iphone
The entire argument about war and innovation stems from another paradigm that all species go through. If the environment is challenging then the organism will adapt by changing its behaviour and qualities. If the environment is passive and unchanging the there is no need for radical evolutionary adaptations.
War is nothing more but an expression of conflict between two parties. It is a form of competition where the strongest prevails. We have similar competitions today in regards to many parts of our lives. Instead of spilling blood we rather define our victories with reputation and awards.
Many technological innovations happened in time of peace and then used in times of war.Surely, not all innovations are a result of war. Nonetheless, the world would be a totally different place if we were a peaceful species. Much of what we see today, much of what defines our life and current state of revolutionary development would not have existed for centuries if major wars did not take place.
Just musing:
If only all that creativity and those budgets could be used to solve other problems.
Even with no war going on, and no acute necessity of creativity for defence, we appear to be afraid enough all the time (or manipulated into thinking military expenditure is important) to spend many moneys on development of weaponry, and somehow we are at our most creative when that development involves killing other people.
If you can kick-start an economy by, for instance, killing many Germans, why can't you kick-start an economy by solving some famine problems here and there? Why does all that creativity go into (para-)military development even when there is no acute need for it, ie. no current circumstances dictate it?
I believe is because of prevailing over one another. Social darwinism. In much the same way we prefer our children over others.
@kyriacos reply I believe is the root of the answer to your question. However, another big factor is that war time is when DAPRA and other government agencies/budgets grow exponentially. Being a mechanical engineer myself, I know that creativity and invention hinges on one factor - money, support, and budget. War time budgets are way larger than peace time budgets (and for good reason if you ask me).
So yes, again, we are back to the love of money issue.
"One planet would be in a constant state of warmongering, another would be full of hippies and another planet would be much like us."
The third describes the first. The first will create the contrary. The contrary the first. The contrary is the 2nd.
This is a very interesting theory and as you say hard to really test or prove although the anecdotal evidence seems quite powerful. Even if we did assume a real basis to this idea I think any kind of challenging situation could provide a similar spur. For example if our civilisation decided to commit itself to colonise space because we believed there was an imminent threat of the earth being destroyed (within a time frame which made it feasible) I'm sure we would get similar rates of advancement. It is a case of necessity pushing people to strive harder I think.
Yeap. This is why I Neil Tyson said that a potential space race with China (much like with Russian during the cold war) will put us on Mars on no time.
The point though is the cost. There is definately a tipping point in war though where everything can result in total extinction.
I think that is why war is such a big driver - if you are worried you could be wiped out cost goes out of the window!
There is a book I read a long time ago it is a kind of spoof in the form of a fake government document called The Report from Iron Mountain and puts forth the case for how the US would cope with a lasting period of peace!
It covers some of these issues. A lot of people believed it to be real but I think it is satire although it is written in the very dry style of a real government document.
But you have to factor in the unseen opportunity costs. What about all the capital that has of been lost due to war? The burning of the Library in Alexandria might have set human civilization back hundreds of years. There is nothing inherent in force creating innovation or being unique only to it.
Wel; the Burning of Alexandria was rather a result of religious christian fanatics. Surely there is nothing inherently in force that creates innovation but there is definitely in competition. War is competition on steroids.
Innovation in cooperation is very doable; this is why many innovations stem from government-funded research, not just military. And there's Linux.
War is competition by other means, no argument there, but war also leads to a whole nation cooperating in the war effort, with different companies normally at each other's throats now cooperating in full to churn out what the war machine needs.
Maybe there is another side to this, namely that war leads to full cooperation within a nation to innovate, and the normal, non-wartime, competitive goings-on within a nation are actually a break on innovation.
Most definitely.
A bit of a shame, then, that we need wars to achieve these levels of cooperation. I sometimes wonder what we could achieve in global cooperation in stead of competition.
Anyhoo, I am not entirely convinced that competition is the best possible driver of innovation. Natural curiosity and cooperation could also go a long way. I know I design stuff for the fun of it, sometimes with friends.
Is it just fear and greed stopping us from having a go at it?
Right. Back to surpressing my idealism. Time for a beer.
This. Competition.
War is an arcane means to an end. It's impact on innovation is unsustainable and has now taken us to the point that we can guarantee MAD- Mutually Assured Destruction. Humanity will have to evolve to higher state of functioning if we are to survive as a species.
I was having a discussion with my uncle, I was describing the potential that Blockcian can have on humanity and my vision of a world where, with a new world economic model, technical innovation, and efficiency, everyone on the planet could be provided for.
He responded that "until the root of all evil i.e. "competition", is eliminated we will always be in a state of war. Not until we evolve into a state that we are all functioning primarily from a position of love can war and competition be eliminated."
I believe this statement to be true, and I am seeing the evolution happen before my eyes. My son, his friend's and younger generations are being raised with more love and are learning to be more tolerant and empathetic toward others. Our future generations will evolve to this higher state of functioning and will create a world free of war and with the help of AI increased innovation.
War is competition at an infantile level, so I guess it's similar to people who take steroids versus those who develop their body naturally. It takes sophistication and humanity to compete peacefully.
I like to think the lazyness drives all the innovation. Im lazy as fuck :D
this is true as well
I like to think that governments hinder progress and innovations through regulations. Governments are the #1 perpetrator of wars. A free (and peaceful) market would bring on a world of new advancements.
I would like to exchange US funds given for military and NASA...
So would you think this is a good thing? I believe if the money that has been spent on military budgets over thousands of years had been spent on research without the military intermediary, we would be way better off than we are now.
during war, people unleash the full potential of the tech. Probably from there, the tech starts to move into the market during peace time.
War is just pure destruction and waste of resources.
vice versa can work as well.
Unfortunately yes...
Yes I think so because of the need for top and highly destructive weapons...unfortunately, the weapon of mass destructions are all innovarive. Upped. Thanks for sharing
you know my friend when wars starts the army use every powerful weapon ? what happened than the other side mothers cry hard for there families everyone lost there senses war is useless
your topics and articles are always spot on! I'm still reading :)
thank you
Yes, yes it does! its sad but true.
War is the engine of innovation, jet engines for example, were constructed in WWII in Britain,sometimes that helps humanity to make further steps, but sometimes these steps are dangerous, like creating nuclear weapon :(
I never really thought about it this way, conflict breeds a search for a solution. Interesting read.
The innovation comes from rebuilding the countries the war mongers destroy. It's the same companies that build the tanks that rebuild the houses! It's a vicious circle that needs to keep turning.
What do you think of mine?
https://steemit.com/longarticle/@aureliusdares/marcus-aurelius-the-stoic-way-mastering-cynism-with-nerves-of-steel
very nice thanks for the experience...very useful
This is a tricky topic.
You would also have to add to menagerie things like swing music being developed in the 20s; a time of peace.
Further, this post doesn't really address innovation, it talks about implementation. It is what happens after the inventor has the flash if inspiration. After that, many of those inventors live quiet, desperate lives of not enough material inputs to get it developed.
There is a huge gap created by capitalism. What the investors want is something that is one step away from being marketed. They don't even see, most cannot even imagine, what an invention may look like in several iterations. Further, capitalism puts a blanket over everything. Keep it secret else someone else will steal it.
And so, another piece of war time is that we all have to pull together to win the war, is the motto, so the information is tried to keep secret from enemy, but is much more freely shared.
I believe the internet free and open source community will destroy the idea that war is the best times for innovations. I am looking forward to the future.
Very interesting prospective war certainly is a big business that the wealthy and greedy can't do without. Once they brainwash and create confusion then rumors of war is right there.
If we are going look to a big picture, not the war who fuel the innovation but the goal to save more life during the war. On time of peace people also innovate things to save life in field of medicine and makes it more comfortable in field of technology. While in the production industry, innovation takes place to cost cut. Therefore, innovation in human history main goal is to save and promote comfortable living.
information post. thanks
The world has seen many great inventions that took place during the world war, Every country employs the great minds and intellectuals from the country or even sometimes the slaves to discover something amazing and develope it.
It's more about the path we chose for our development. Before wars necessitated the use of R&D for large scale destruction methods, encrypted and long range communication, it was nature that inspired us doing things that we couldn't do as humans.
Take birds for example. When you see them flying, what would be your first thought? Taking control of the skies or flying into the skies to see world from their perspective?
I think that war on a global scale, between nations-states can be stopped, that the only reason we haven't done so, is that currently, we can't handle the organizational complexity to do that. And the one thing reduces organizational complexity is technological progress.
If you look at long-term human behavior, I think a clear trend emerges: first, we competed with each other in tribes. Then, when agriculture was developed, we competed each other as small states. But the states had a lot of internal dynamics, a lot of different power centers competing each other.
In the last ~300 years, that internal competition has been reduced because of written constitutions, which couldn't be distributed widely without the printing press. The printing press also improved human literacy rates, which also has contributed towards peace.Then we had the telephone. I believe the UN, faulty as it may be, would not have survived for as long as it has, if humanity was as militant as it was 300 years ago.
I believe that the internet, and the phone, is the next step that will reduce organizational complexity even further.
Obviously, small scale violence will never stop, but i think large scale wars can, and will be stopped
The short answer: yes.
Long answer:
Humans thrive when their existence is at risk. That is of course achieved by war, but also by the capitalist society, especially the manipulated one we live in, maybe it would be different if it is more anarcho-capitlaistic.
However it is far from the only force that drives innovation and abundance of knowledge. I see a huge problem in IP, Copyright and patents. I think the mind-set that ideas belong to people is very hurtful to true scientific progress and that is why we see no innovation in our modern days, well except for some "digitalisation".
War has certainly led to a lot of technological innovation, but we've also seen a lot of innovation in piece times. I'm not sure the assessment of the technology in the iPhone you are presenting is 100% fair as I wouldn't say that all military spending during piece times can or should necessarily be viewed as innovation brought on by war. I would say preparation for possible war and real war are not the same. Still, I wouldn't say that this invalidates your point or even this specific example by any means as you could say preparation for the potentiality of war
But I would surely agree that war is like competition on steroids, but I wouldn't say it's the only way to encourage innovation. I think technological innovation is currently thriving and it's being fueled by the good old regular free market competition not just war. I would say a global market and global competition has created more value for humanity than war with value including both technological progress and prosperity in general. When there is war, technological advancements might be happening, but they are not leading to prosperity and making the lives of people better, so they are not really creating real value for society while the conflict itself is destroying value in mass amounts. Humanity can take advantage of those technological advancements only in peace times for the most part.
For much of history, humans hadn't made the connection between tech innovation and winning wars, so it wasn't so much of a priority. We now have firmly realized this and any wars that we survive will probably bring with then new innovations (not worth it in my estimate)
While I think that war can drive technology, I think that there is also something else that drives technological advancement, and that is competition. Russia and the US wanted to beat each other in space, countries want to beat others and this pushes technological innovation, not just war. But I do think war pushes technology too.
War prompts governmental investment and research of/into fields that would otherwise remain on the backburner. As you accurately mentioned, that creates competition.
Humans as a species has evolved to be inactive, only creating enough to sustain themselves, unless prompted into activity. War and any activity in general where there must be a winner and loser creates that prompt. Encryption, for example, would not have been even considered if there was no need to pass messages in a safe manner.
awesome article @kyriacos! is so bad that great post like yours are not getting more awarness. Anyway, this is an awesome video of what really frugal innovation is. By the way i met this guy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=161&v=lA2WOgZcq_c