Many Americans subscribe to the annoying belief that our nation’s military-industrial complex is the surest way to remain the wealthiest and leading superpower in the world. After all, it’s worked for the last century, pro-military supporters love to point out.
However, America’s dependence on warmongering may soon become a liability that is impossible to maintain. Transhumanism, globalization, and outright replacement of human soldiers with robots are redefining the country’s military requirements, and they may eventually render defense budgets far smaller than those now. To compensate and keep America spending approximately 20 percent of the federal budget on defense (as we have for most of the last few years), we’ll either have to manufacture wars to use all our newly-made bombs, or find another way to keep the American economy afloat.
It just so happens that there is another way — a method that would satisfy liberals and conservatives alike, as well as other politically-minded folks (I’m a libertarian candidate for California governor). Instead of always spending more on our military, we could transition our nation and its economy into a scientific-industrial complex.
There’s a compelling reason to do this beyond what meets the eye. Transhumanist technology is starting to radically change human life. Many experts expect to be able to stop aging and conquer death for human beings in the next 25 years. Others, like myself, see humans merging with machines and replacing our organs with bionic ones.
Such a new transhuman society will require many trillions of dollars to satisfy humans ever-growing desire for physical perfection (machine or biological) in the transhumanist age. We could keep our economy humming along for decades because of it.
Whatever happens, something is going to have to give in the future regarding military profiteering. Part of this is because in the past, the military-industrial complex operated off always keeping a few million U.S. military members ready on a moment’s notice to travel around the world and fight. But there’s almost no scenario where we would need that kind of human-power (and infrastructure to support it) anymore.
Increasingly, small teams of special operation soldiers and uber-high tech are the way America fights its wars. We just don’t need massive military bases anymore, nor the thousands of companies to support the constant maintenance of ground troops. Such a reality changes the economics of the military dramatically, and will eventually leave it a fraction of its size in terms of personnel and real estate.
The coming military age of automated drones, robot tanks, cyberwarfare, and artificial intelligence just doesn’t require that many people
We’ll still have the need for technology to fight the wars and conflicts we entangle ourselves in, but it’ll be mostly engineers, programmers, and technicians who wear the uniform. The coming military age of automated drones, robot tanks, cyberwarfare, and artificial intelligence just doesn’t require that many people. In fact, expect the military not just to shrink, but to mostly disappear into ones and zeroes.
Many people think that the beast of a military-industrial complex—made famous by President Dwight Eisenhower’s warning against it in his farewell address — appeared only in the last 50 years. However, others persuasively argue that America has been at war 93 percent of the time since the U.S. Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 — so it’s been with us from the beginning.
In liberal California where I live, such facts annoy just about everyone I know — except, of course, those who are shareholders and beneficiaries of the defense industry. Thankfully, despite Congress being led by mostly older white religious men, the younger generation clamors for an improved America—one that can keep its economies running smoothly in a more peaceful way.
This is where the scientific-industrial complex comes in and could satisfy most everyone. And best of all, a society of science requires actual people. Lots of them: nurses, scientists, start-up CEOs, designers, technologists, and even lawyers. The advent of modern medicine to treat virtually every ailment — and the whole anti-aging movement, in general — affects all 325 million Americans. Over half of us suffer from health issues that can be improved but often aren’t, for a variety of reasons. For example, the U.S. Census Bureau reports that 40 percent of people over the age of 65 suffer from a disability — and for two thirds of them, it’s mobility-related issues. And millions are already racking up the symptoms of heart disease that will kill them. And a younger generation is just waiting to explore bionics, chip implants, and how to upgrade their genes to avoid health problems in the future. All this means we have the fodder to reshape the American economy from a militaristic-based one to a type that thrives off scientific and medical innovation.
Instead of spending American money on sending our soldiers to risk their lives for the whims of war, we could be giving civilians the medicine and healthcare they need to live far better and longer. And living longer has unseen benefits, too. In the future, bonafide transhumans won’t have to retire if they don’t want to. Their bodies will be ageless and made so strong through technology that work and careers may continue indefinitely — and therefore, they’ll be able to continue contributing to the economy indefinitely. Transhuman existence is a self-fulfilling economic-boom prophesy for both individual and country.
Currently, the U.S. Constitution (which I personally think needs a significant rewrite for the 21st century) is overly concerned with protection of national sovereignty—which is one major reason why the military-industrial complex is allowed to grow undeterred. If the U.S. Constitution was endowed with precise wording to also protect an individual’s health, well-being, and longevity, then a scientific-industrial complex could rise. This new cultural and legal reform would help to provide the most modern medicine, technology, and science possible to its people. And since I believe interpretation of the non-aggression principle should include harmful natural phenomena — like aging, existential risk, and disease — I believe minarchist values could support limited government to help people overcome these things.
Shamefully, the Iraq War will cost the U.S. approximately $6 trillion dollars by the time we’re actually done paying all our bills — despite the fact that it’s highly questionable whether Iraq was ever even a serious national security issue. However, our country undeniably faces a serious national security issue today — in fact, I’d call it a full blown crisis. Nearly 7,000 Americans will die in the next 24 hours from cancer, heart disease, diabetes, aging, and other issues. And the same amount of people will die tomorrow and the day after.
03V6Premium on July 17th, 2017 at 10:24 UTC »
Most of the technology of the 21st century is due to military research. Especially in areas like computing, networking, automotive, telecommunication, medical, and many more. The idea that the military only invest in research to blow things up is just false.
SuperSilver on July 17th, 2017 at 09:59 UTC »
The author lost me here
yikes_itsme on July 17th, 2017 at 05:20 UTC »
Military funded research actually comprises fully half of the research budget, about 60B of 130B total investment by the US. DOD, DOE, and DARPA have large efforts to understand a lot of areas besides the goes-boom ones. DARPA does biotechnology research, medical research, robotics, energy, and data collection. There is particular interest in robotic limbs, for the obvious reason that you have a lot of soldiers who come back wounded. These things are going to eventually benefit citizens as well, like the creation of the internet, which was a military funded invention.
A lot of cool stuff that you see come out are actually being done in university labs partly funded by the military. Just think: the military gives half of the research money, and the universities keep things going by using external grants. So how many labs do you think use military funding? Ans: a lot.
The problem, in fact, has nothing to do with the military. The problem is despite all of our pro science cheerleading, we don't feel like investing really significant money into science. The federal budget is like 4000B dollars, and we invest about 3% at best into R&D. We could easily double that without sacrificing very much of anything at all. Take one third from medicare, one third from social security, and one third from the military, our three largest items. Go ahead, see if that politically takes off.
The issue is that we cry for "more" science investment but we don't want to sacrifice anything. Really. The military is an easy target because liberals don't feel like we are getting anything out of it - but really, if they are doing their job the fight is kept very, very far away from us. If there were an active war anywhere near American soil I guarantee you would be complaining about the government not having spent enough on the military. But others can say the same thing about social security - e.g. it's gonna be gone by the time I get there so why not just spend it on science? Or Medicaid - well, I've got my own health insurance so I don't need it, why not spend this money on science? Or welfare, highways, whatever. Nobody wants to give anything up, science just gets the leftovers of what the other team doesn't want to defend.
If we don't just all agree that we are willing to sacrifice some of our own pet causes to further science you might as well give up right now. It's easy to propose using somebody else's money. The way I see it, at least with science being done under military guise, it's politically protected because it has something for both conservatives and liberals.
I'll know science is a priority when liberals start talking about cutting welfare and social security to fund science, and conservatives start cutting back on corporate welfare and the military to fund science as well. Until then, yeah, it's easy to talk a big game.