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> Granted, there are some breakthroughs that come from military research

Like the Internet that you are using right now.




15 Core smart phone technologies with military origins [0]:

1. AI – Artificial intelligence

2. Cellular Communication Technology

3. Computers

4. CPU – Central Processing Units – Microprocessors

5. DRAM – Dynamic Random-Access Memory

6. DSP – Digital Signal Processing

7. GMR – Giant Magnetoresistance – Spintronics

8. GPS – Global Positioning Systems

9. HDD – Micro Hard Drive Storage or Hard Drive Disks

10. HTML Hypertext Markup Language and HTTP – Hypertext Transfer Protocol

11. IC-Integrated Circuits

12. Internet

13. LCDs – Liquid-Crystal Displays

14. Li-ion – Lithium-Ion Batteries

15. Multi-Touch Screens

Probably a good time to reprise the fascinating Steve Blank presentation on "The Secret History of Silicon Valley" [1]

[0] https://www.techevaluate.com/your-cell-phone-was-born-in-the...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo


HTML came out of CERN, not the military.


Absolutely. Tim Berners-Lee was an independent contractor to CERN in his original March 1989 proposal [1]. But CERN paid the bills. I believe the point that citation [0] (above) is making in this regard is that CERN has received significant funding from the US, and that HTML/HTTP was an enabling technology of the original darpanet. CERN has 23 (European), even more Non-Member States (including the USA) and states with Observer status (Japan and USA). The US funding for CERN historically has been from both The US Department of Energy and The National Science Foundation [2]. The US contributed $531 million just for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) CERN project alone [3].

[1] http://info.cern.ch/Proposal.html

[2] https://united-states.cern/funding

[3] https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/pt.4.0488/full...


Sure, but that doesn't mean it would not be possible to develop such technologies without military research. There's nothing about people with guns that is necessary for communications research.

Having said that, I just posted across thread on why I think we still need the people with guns, so if that's the case we might as well take the incidental benefits where they come.


Saying we should eliminate the military is the geopolitical equivalent of rewriting your service from scratch. The military-industrial complex is the system we have and know. Another system might work but there is no reason to believe the costs of developing it would be less than fixing bugs in our current implementation.




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