Members Sean Gourley

Jun 17 2011: and could maths help me determine if I am self serving in nature, or judgementally righteous?

Jun 17 2011: yes - anyone else think this might be feasible?

Jun 17 2011: Interesting too to note that technologies not developed for war are now being used within wars - think twitter example in Egypt. What will be the next consumer technology to be re-purposed for use within the war/peace arena?

Jun 17 2011: This is like the NASA space argument - we go into space and see look at all these cool spin off technologies we get in return (like a space pen*).

There are of course obvious technological gains that are made with all the military spending that is done. von Braun leveraged both the Nazi and the US military might to pursue his dreams of human space flight. As a result of Iraq and Afghanistan we have improved critical medical care and built very effective translation devices.

War today though has perhaps contributed the most to the rise of two things. Robots and prosthetic limbs. The prosthetic limbs coming as a direct result of the increases in critical medical care on the battlefield. More soldiers that lose limbs are now surviving - so we generate new technologies to help them to walk again.

Whilst technologies are developed as a result of war - it is pretty hard to make the case that all the money spent on war couldn't have been spent on developing these technologies without the need to kill people along the way.




*note space pen not actually developed by NASA but makes for a nice story point :)

Jun 17 2011: another element to throw into the mix is the importance of media. Media is well known as a publicity tool - can be used to attract more resources and funding to an insurgent group. But it is also a very powerful tool for co-ordination.

The media in a place like Iraq allows all the insurgent groups to maintain a high degree of situational awareness. They can know what is going on today - and with social media they can even see things like the Bin Landen navy SEAL attack unfold in real time. This is a huge information advantage.

As this news is transmitted it can be used to see what strategies are effective, what works and what doesn't. In short the media is a great learning platform.