Just Imagine How Much Alien Technology Has Advanced Since Roswell.

reply to post by drakus

I have a(n intellectual) problem with the idea that wars/conflict will always be the biggest agent of scientific advance.

Until a certain age of development, yes, it will. That is due to the way the human mind works. Currently, the average citizen doesn't have to fight for his life, at least, not in a immediate threat kind of way. You fight for success, financial prosperity and so on. For you, and your children.

But that makes limitations. Since that growth and success are social, it isn't as urgent and in need for it to be easy and immediate. If you have an idea for an invention, you have to get sponsors and investors to develop it. When you do get the money, you have to make the invention work in ways that is profitable, otherwise, you will lose financial background to make it work.

Even when negotiating materials you have the margin that a business trade has in current form, which has it's own limitations. You are limited by the amount of funds you can gather for your project, and that undermines success and scientific growth in the long term.

When at war, the country steps in what is called a state of war. That state of war means that the Government has more power, more access to resources, and if the gov comes to a supplier with a piece of paper saying that the gov now owns those materials because it's going to be used for the war effort, making a bid on it, most industries will accept and help. It happened during WW2, it's good internal business.

Not only that, but the Government also recruits the brightest minds to develop the military. And some of those ideas have by-products that have a civilian purpose. For instance, when developing a jet-fighter that can beat the competition, you develop things like aerodynamics, and at the same time, if you try to go faster and beyond current technological limitations, you are faced with problems.

In civilian life, when you are faced with a problem in your project, lets say for instance, air friction or G-force limitation, you have to find the funds to develop those areas. Find new materials, do research, do the tests needed to back the theories, etc...

When the government is funding you, that problem doesn't exist. If you have a problem, and there is the need to develop that project for the sake of the nations survival, you will have all the means possible to achieve your goals. That's why machines like the Spitfire were born. During peace time, the engine used in it had tremendous problems due to over-heating. That problem was solved by the time that Rolls Royce engine was put into the first Spitfire.

Those sorts of developments can then be used in civilian airplanes. And who says airplanes, also says things like the microwave oven, which was a by-product of the first radar systems.

It seems logical to me that if we survive the downfall of the current socioeconomic system, there's an open door to a world-wide forum where all nations have ONE voice and ONE vote and earth's plentiful resources are shared fairly among it's inhabitants.

That's what has been happening ever since. You look at history, most major human rights breakthroughs happened after a major conflict. Obvious and more recent cases being WW1 and WW2. But it also happened during the American Civil war, and it happened in France with several kings. Many social standards of today are "descendants" of the French Revolution.

And although we still have a long way to go, we made some very good progress. We stopped burning people, we stopped the knowledge monopoly, we stopped a lot of bad things in humanity, together. But they were learned the hard way. We learned them after we realized the harm and suffering we were causing to other people.

And looking at the world today, we will have to suffer a little bit more to get all together in the same boat. That wound that will makes us realize we are one species, as a whole, that can work for the good of all, and not just a few. The same way we threw kings out of their thrones in the past, when they were feasting, and the people in hunger.

I usually say that we shouldn't fear an advanced alien life, by making a mistake I try to avoid, even in other people. Looking at our brightest and most inspirational, or intelligent people we have had in our history, all of them are commonly sensitive towards life and peace. If there is a civilization that puts those minds to shame, then I would like to assume they are more aware of how violence is futile.