I hope that Masque de Z doesn't mind that I started this thread here cutting and pasting part of his argument about a differenct topic.

Masque says that Hitler and the Nazi era advanced science and technology faster than peace did. I think Masque is wrong. WW2 may have seen advances in war technologies, but only to the detriment of all other fields.

Here is Masque's argument. Do you agree with him or disgree?

I think he may be right. I'm pretty sure they were out front with a lot of new technology, like jet engines, and they also made a ton of medical advancements because they engaged in all sorts of unsavory experimentation on people.

At first it seems to me its mostly a technological boost more than fundamental science that indeed takes more quality unforced work, happening naturally in peace time best without forced frenetic efforts. Although of course some people can even do that under pressure. But then again heavy industry, advanced technology, economic expansion as the result of the creation of new superpowers etc provide the tools to do fundamental science later after war. So you get your theory boost eventually as well after war. In essence a heavy boost in technology results in boost to overall science eventually.

What did the war do for US and USSR completely transforming them to industrial giants in record time less than 3-4 years or so? What huge efforts and innovative new technologies came out of Germany itself mostly but Britain too.

I can see several areas of significant impact that required complex engineering and solution of many different problems to develop the efficient/desirable end products.
Lets try a few at random.

1) computers
2) communications
3) airplanes (jet engines and so much more)
4) ships (eg aircraft carriers)
5) submarines
6) cars
7) nuclear technology (amazing boost due to Manhattan project and the resulting cold war) ( nuclear arsenals and energy production)
8) medicine ie antibiotics
9) mathematics ( cryptanalysis, computer science, information science)
10) chemical industry
11) space exploration through rocket technology ( we went to the moon ahead of time actually i you think how rapid the development was within 15-20 years of the war given what followed the next 40 ) which then in itself required the solution of massive problems in developing spacecrafts, fuels, special materials, electronics etc.
12) food industry?
13) agriculture?

Feel free to add more or to expand what i missed or over/under/stated.

This is weird, because you're treating the "cold war" as peacetime when it was called a "war" for a reason. A "cold war" could be argued as the best of both worlds. Of course Hitler and the Nazis advanced science and technology faster than they would have otherwise. That's always been the case.

The best combination the world has seen, if you want to have all-encompassing cultural development which includes scientific advancement, is to have an imperialistic nation that is more or less constantly at war to some degree, and has the constant necessity for wartime technology advancement, but which has a level of stability and peace within it's actual borders, which fosters progressive thinking on every level. Most of the "golden eras" for both cultural and scientific advancement have occurred in those types of scenarios.

I would argue that a "cold war" is an even more effective manifestation of that, as the "constant war" isn't resulting in consistent, high level bloodshed (with the exception of various proxy wars) that occurs during a "world war" scenario.

Unfortunately, "war is the health of the corporation" has no ring.

I absolutely agree that war will quicken scientific and technological advances. There's really not much of a doubt, it's called military Keynesianism, and a lot of the technologies we have today wouldn't be here without war time progresses, (internet, GPS etc.) In peace time project are most often limited by their economic and fiscal feasibility, during war these limitation decrease as the government looks to any edge possible to win the war, creating new technologies and scientific advances. Even in the most simple cultures it will be true. If a group of cave men are in war with other cavemen, then they might attempt to build better weapons, better techniques, and technologies however simple to deal with problems they may encounter. Any new technologies has a multiplying effect that carries into peace time. An example would be the technologies created during the bronze age. They were created out of a need for stronger swords and armor. This led to smelting which eventually led to the creation of steel. In short war creates demand for new advancements, governments most often fill that demand by basically stuffing cash in companies pockets and telling their engineers to go for it.

I see this as totally non controversial, actually.

The economy shifted from mostly producing consumer goods (which require little innovation), to a state of consumer thrift and massive, and I mean massive, funding in research. And the mass design and building of difficult and innovative machines.

WWII pushed research forward 20+ years IMO.

I'm drawing a blank on the name of the Japanese plane that was shot down near Alaska. I know at the time they had the best fighter plane and we used the plane **** down to help us catch up.

As for the topic itself I agreed. And also as to the idea of staying in the war mindset to advance technology I believe that would benefit us tremendously

Agree. The problem is staying in that mindset in a democracy in times of peace is easier said then done.

Fear makes people willing to do things they are not willing to do when not scared. History is ripe with examples the have proven this many times to be true.

Do you think most American's would support detaining and isolating a group of people out of fear? We have many times in our history. I think innovation to try to protect your way of life works in a similar way.

America will do a lot of dumb things for poor reasons. But to the real point no I don't think we could stay aggressive in this manner, mainly b.c. we as a whole are really lazy

I don't find this particularly controversial, either. War has always been probably the best driver of technological innovation. It's a sad commentary on human nature, but I don't think there is an especially strong argument against it.

Other examples: European warfare in the 15th-17th centuries vis-a-vis gunpowder weaponry, Warring States Period of China vis-a-vis steel technology, etc.

Its the basic need to do what is needed to protect what you have that drives people.

I was looking at a list of discoveries in the twentieth century in wikipedia (blushes ever so slightly) and it is not clear to me that aside from discoveries related to military goals that the war effort actually helped advance science. I remain persuadable by further reading on the matter, nevertheless.

If I were to quote from an ancient nonexistent fragment from Pseudo-Herodotus , I would want it to say something along these lines, "War is Father to all and Commerce it's doting and demanding mother."

It's not just the specific technologies, but the creation of state-supported research combinations. Aerospace, computers -- these entire industries, and all the research they do, come out of WWII corporatism.

a) you are not analyzing the opportunity cost

b) progress grows in the area where there is money - if we invest in genome sequencing and not I-TOW missiles progress in compression algorithms would be in the healthcare industry and not in military

c) a lot (with a capital L) of research is independent of military but military is the only one that has the money to test it and advance beyond the initial stage - R&D is quite expensive and the cost is easily transferred to the state via military

Incredibly the Nazis were the first modern society to discover the hazardous effects of smoking cigarettes and in turn initiate anti smoking campaigns

Sadly tho, for years American tobacco companies would use this as a tool to discredit anti smoking campaigns

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-to...n_Nazi_Germany


Herman Goring was also an avid animal lover and massive animal rights activist. Apparently he did not like humans tho

I'm not arguing in favor of military Keynsianism, just noting its dominance. Use of the term "corporatism" was the tip off.

Jump to conclusions much?

The spending could and should be turned to more productive areas than killing people more efficiently. We would get the same technological advances, fewer dead people as well as something useful out of it.

I'm a big fanboy of peace, but I don't think the possibility that the Nazis (or more generally, war) advances technology is at all far-fetched.

But I'd offer the point that advancement in technology isn't necessarily a good thing. (At least, it isn't a race.) The Nazis can use the technology too.

You look at the guy who's eating fast food and listening to what his television set tells him, unhealthy and totally disconnected from anything meaningful, and it's kind of obvious that technology isn't doing him any favors. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with a simpler life of growing food and hanging out with friends and family. And then we can create technology organically (when we're capable of using it peacefully), rather than rushed into it by an act of war, and then it won't be used to flood people with misinformation and confusion.

Not exactly sure what this refers to, but stealing billions of dollars to give to banks is not "peace".

There's also lots of literal war going on. We don't live in a peaceful world.

IMO, actual peace (and the creative explosion that comes with it) is much stronger than your idea of feeling at war with the need to make progress.

Thesis: government actually holds human progression/evolution back.

Wars = people die

Millions of people dying > waiting ~20 years to achieve same leap in technology?

F that

edited: figured it out... (what you were saying)

sometimes I'm slow

Peace.

It's certainly not a statement which comes from nowhere so credit where credit's due but I just don't believe for a second we can consider this to be true.

It is well-known these days that peace is the fastest way to promote scientific progress. I could write all day on this but ill try not to...

The first thing we need to remember is that science produces techs and military techs do little to beneift the everyday Joe. In wartime most of the scientific progress brought the Germans techs with military applications.

Secondly, the Nazis were close to finishing one or two famous weapons and we're working on things we don't even have today - but they also made lampshades out of human skin and so unlike in most cases, here i think its safe to say that some of the techs they were working on were not techs which would later surface organically during peacetime.

Lastly for now at least, the US took most of the useful sientists in after the war, spared them the trials and put them to work in the US under a false identity. NASA's space programme famously owes a lot to such men.
A lot of the scientific advancements by the US and her allies since WW2 were indeed based on something the Nazis were working on, but they did not complete most of them and credit should go the US.

The only fact i can think of which would in some way counter-act this, is that the Nazis had access to human testing of whatever they wanted. However, ethical issues aside, whether or not this is even useful to science is debatable.

Peaceful countries such as in Scandinavia were also making great strides in and around that time also. There's little that's significant enough in our memories though to immortalise their efforts a la the Nazi science programmes.

I'll leave it there as i have a tendency to write too much lol

true to the above.

the technological advancements that usa made because of ww2 are huge. from radar and sonar tech they got from the brits, jetpropulsion from the germans. Atomic bombs from groundwork and continued effort from european refugees. They wouldnt even have had the bomb if european scientist didnt insist on building it. Jetfighter design, after the war russia and usa came out with two almost identical jetfighters. They both stole the plans from the germans. Submarine design. V2 rockets. Biological stuff from the japanese and german human experiment programs. Alot of those warcriminal doctors got a job! not a trial

USA had the worst tech in WW2 compared to the axis, and the brits. And now they have the best army. go figure

Might be a different discusion but ww2 made usa a superpower instead of the industrial giant that waited untill the right time to step in. In the meanwhile they suplied both the brits and the germans from their nice island waiting for which side the coin was gonna drop. Tanks dont drive without fuel, weapons cant be made without steel.