
Ask HN: What can we achieve with 1.6 trillion dollar? - ayumu722
the world&#x27;s top 15 military spenders spent in 2015 about 1.6 trillion dollar, I am wondering what are the things that humanity can achieve if such amount of money were put in a good use, for example in research, education, health care, etcetera. do you guys have any ideas ?
======
codeonfire
Its not as simple as money in, progress out. Nations have unlimited money
because they can print as much as they want, inflation aside. If their
workforce can't do something, no amount of money will make it happen. Further
there are forms of government in place that will limit the ability of the
world to achieve goals. This is because many governments around the world will
likely just take whatever excess profits arise out of any extra effort and
people will have no profit motive to change the status quo. Most research IS
motivated by military applications so defunding that would probably kill a lot
of progress in space travel, health care, etc.

------
NumberCruncher
Global disarming is a good thing until everybody participates without any
exceptions. Unfortunatelly there is always someone ready to rebell against any
rule.

~~~
Mz
It also falls apart if we make first contact and they aren't hippies and it
also also falls apart in the face of large wild life not understanding that
humans are sacrosanct and you aren't supposed to touch us (meanwhile, we are
happy to destroy your habitat and/or kill and eat your kind).

~~~
NumberCruncher
Aliens and wild animals are also my biggest fear.

------
samfisher83
That military budget does go toward a lot of jobs. How many people work at
Lockheed martin, boeing, bae, Raytheon, etc. That is why congressmen keep that
spending up because it ends up going to their counties, districts, etc.

~~~
JamesBarney
Another way to look at this problem is, given we are funding an enormous
amount of people to figure out to drop bomps more efficiently. What other
problems could these people be figuring out, or what other devices could they
be building that would have a more tangible effect on our day to day lives.

------
Mz
(if it) _were put in a good use_

Security _is_ a good use. If you think America would be a better place by
completely disarming, think again. In reality, it would cease to exist in
short order as hostile nations took it over and parted it out.

Same goes for any other nation.

"A man of peace must be strong."

The truth is that anti-military hippies only ever exist in secure nations that
can count on their biggest worry being local crime. There probably aren't any
hippies in Aleppo at the moment. They only sprout in secure, walled gardens
that are created by the very military forces they decry as some kind of innate
evil. Because they are clueless fools.

~~~
BjoernKW
Do we really achieve more security through excessive military spending though?

Arguably, the world's less safe than it was 15 years ago in spite of massively
increased defence and security spendings during that time.

Now the usual counter-argument to that of course is that it'd be even a lot
worse if we hadn't spent so much on defence.

However, for instance both the war in Iraq and many of the new airport
security measures in recent years were quite counterproductive in that they
not only failed to make the world a safer place but achieved the exact
opposite (the war in Iraq in particular, which gave us ISIS).

~~~
Mz
That is a totally valid point and one worthy of meaty discussion. It is also
unrelated to dismissing military spending wholecloth as nothing but a waste of
resources.

~~~
BjoernKW
> It is also unrelated to dismissing military spending wholecloth as nothing
> but a waste of resources.

I'm not sure this was the OP's intention.

I see this more as thought experiment in terms of "Mankind doesn't actually
lack financial resources.". Ideas and measures that'd improve the quality of
life often are bluntly shot down with the argument that we don't have the
financial resources for implementing them.

We do have those resources. We just need to use them purposefully.

~~~
Mz
It may not have been their conscious intent, but it is the implicit assumption
behind the question. Otherwise, the question could have been framed
differently, such as:

"I think that is excessive and we could readily cut it by 10%, leaving 16
billion (or whatever -- not checking my math here) to put towards other
causes. What good could governments do with that amount?"

"We spend X amount on (presumed frivolous expense, such as gold jewelry, haute
couture or backyard swimming pools). What might be a better use of those funds
if we could convince people to spend it differently?"

------
BjoernKW
Give that 1.6 trillion dollars to people as an annual basic income. As of now
this would mean $230 per year for each individual, which would lift a lot of
people from abject poverty. This in turn would help to eliminate a lot of the
issues that require such huge military spending in the first place.

