X-Message-Number: 14472
From: "John de Rivaz" <>
References: <>
Subject: Re: what propels technological growth and what could have been?
Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 16:34:18 +0100

World War II took place from Sept 1939 to 1944 (1945 in the Pacific).

If you look at amateur radio catalogues, and books about the history of
radio just before the war, and see what was available then, and what was
available just after the war the difference is not that large. Radar work
was starting before the war. PCM was invented in 1939. (It took a bloody
long time before it was used for public telephony or the CD). Sure there
were dramatic engineering uses of science during the war, usually
exaggerated for propaganda purposes. But the basic scientific advances were
few. In fact I can't think of any.

We have been in a long period of peace (if one discounts the cold war and
minor wars). The cold war produced the "Star Wars" debacle. Much military
hardware was built that never worked properly. Equipment built to such
standards would never have survived the open market if, instead of weapons,
it was electronic toys, ie, tv, hi-fi etc.

But in the post world war era of peace we have seen enormous growth in
computers and so on. It is because of their mass market appeal that they
have expanded and driven the economy. The companies that make them go on
growing because the manufacturing cost and hence the price falls. This idea
of falling prices has expanded into other areas. This week, the UK has seen
its first "strike" in favour of lower (petrol) prices. Previously all
strikes were to support the concept of  *higher* prices for a particular
commodity. At the moment the deflationary strikes, like this one and a
similar one in France, were not organised by any particular body such as a
trade union. But I expect that price lowering organisations will soon be
formed with official structures like the old trade unions..

I wonder whether fortunes as huge as those of Bill Gates and Andrew Groves
could have been made from munitions or supplying "public works". It is that
spur, rather than the spur of fighting, that could have driven an
alternative world of peace coupled with fast track technology progress.

--
Sincerely, John de Rivaz
my homepage links to Longevity Report, Fractal Report, music, Inventors'
report, an autobio and various other projects:
http://www.geocities.com/longevityrpt
http://www.autopsychoice.com - should you be able to chose autopsy?

----- Original Message ----- > Message #14467
> From: "john grigg" <>
> Subject: what propels technological growth and what could have been?
> Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2000 23:04:00 GMT
> World war two certainly brought about so many advances in areas such as(to
> name a few things) rocketry, electronics and even medicine.  I don't think
> advances would have come nearly as fast without that war which mobilized
> huge resources for scientific research.

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