Technological progress for war

Hi there


As I am holiday (HOORAH). I have for once had no work to finish or writing to complete for some looming deadline. And that is why you have got a few more blog posts than usual,also due to this lack of work my mind as been thinking about lot's of knotty problems and ideas.
One of these ideas is does mankind need a war to advance itself? It is an interesting question though isn't it when you think about it. I am of course NOT arguing wars are good or in any way right! For two very good reasons one I'm a pacifist and, think killing someone is never right. Two I don't like the idea of inflicting or receiving pain. Very briefly I must sidetrack to a story from years ago. Now when I was about nine or ten I used to play rugby, which surprises me now because I deplore sport and physical exertion. But anyway I used to play rugby and, after one match or during I can't quite recall. There was a fight, I didn't start it was to do with somebody else. Yet as usual I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and, a rather large beefy boy decided he didn't like me, for whatever reason so promptly broke my nose. Obviously it was incredibly painful but I didn't retaliate. I could have done but I had no desire to inflict the same kind of pain that I was currently experiencing. Which shows how incapable I am of being violent even in self defence!
So back to the question, now sadly history does show us that in times of war humans do advance technology at a staggering speed. For instance during WW2 the power of the atom was unlocked creating the ultimate weapon and, ironically prevented a WW3. Because with every country armed to the teeth with nukes (said in an American accent). No sane person would launch them as it would end in total obliteration. Also in the next big conflict the cold war man entered space. As I'm sure you are aware this resulted with America going to the moon, however that wasn't the original purpose of space rockets. The original purpose was rather more brutal, the intention was to be able to send a nuclear warhead on top a rocket, over the Atlantic via space to strike Moscow or Washington. Thankfully we managed to prevent the cold war from going Nuclear.
In those instances you can see that without a war technological milestones like landing on the moon might not have happened that early. Which does beg the question would these things have happened at all? With Nuclear power the answer is certainly yes. With the space programme, due to it's astronomical cost I am forced to say probably not.
This is a rather sad thing in my opinion to realise about ones species. That we only make improvements of technology if they will help us kill one and other more quickly. Of course this isn't true in all cases but the fact that it happens at all is quite upsetting. However I am hopeful that eventually the Human race will transcend there petty disputes and, enter in to a period peace and exploration of the Universe.
Thanks for reading. My next post will probably be on something more astronomically based.

Kyle