Spending to benefit humanity

Many tout the benefits that have resulted from military and space spending, but is that the most efficient way to get those benefits?

There is no doubt that much of the technology we now take for granted is the result of military, and later space, projects to solve the myriad problems encountered in trying to make equipment and support people to work in those fields. However, the underlying assumption for many spruiking those benefits is that somehow we would not have them otherwise, as if there were no reasons to do so. However, that is because there were, and continue to be, serious flaws in the priorities of governments that results in spending favouring those two fields.

We hope governments will spend on projects that benefit people. The reality is that politicians are often obsessed with power, but need to persuade voters to support them. Often that is by pumping out propaganda about our security and prowess as nations, and those have been directly related to spending on the military and space exploration respectively. Neither of these directly benefit anybody in their daily lives other than those companies involved in producing the equipment for them.

The benefits are fuzzy, as most nations are not fighting wars that might threaten their citizens' safety. Certainly, any benefits from space exploration is always years off, and even then, hardly affects anybody. Injecting military objectives into space seems to make it more immediate in its benefits. Then there are those multi-billionaires trying to tell us that we (as in them) need to be investing in space travel for the benefit of the billions of future humanity that will be conquering other planets to exploit them. Again, nothing for us now that will change our lives.

The whole problem with the huge spending on military and space is that it sucks the spending out of civilian projects that would benefit far more people and much much sooner. All the benefits that have trickled down to everyday people from military and space spending would have happened a lot more quickly if projects to solve our real problems on earth were given a much higher priority at the time compared to the destructive outcomes of focussing on the military, or the resource-hungriness of space exploration.

Spending that directly benefits our everyday lives, and much more for those who suffer health issues, does not sound as aspirational as power and prowess, with their warm and fuzzy bolstering to our egos. We would be far healthier with the former, while the latter just feeds our delusions about our national character while we slowly cook from the warming atmosphere in our bodies poisoned by pollution. The supposed trickle-down benefits of military and space spending are just as delusional as that trickle-down economics that relies upon giving wealth to the wealthy will bring us all prosperity.

The military-space-industrial-complex is a huge burden on our societies by diverting the resources of our nations towards benefitting few with little to directly show for it in terms of improvement to our collective lives. Even the inventions resulting from their projects had to be substantially re-designed for civilian use, mainly because we do not need technology that is expensive to produce because it needs to perform in extreme temperatures. Our needs are a lot simpler, and would be far cheaper to initially design and produce if not delayed by such inflated requirements.

We have a choice as to what our societies focus upon producing for us, but that starts with us not being fooled by those who benefit from such dubious investments, and electing politicians who are not caught up in the nationalistic delusions such people foster for their own aggrandisement and wealth. We can devote our resources to helping our citizens, but that does not mean we cannot invest in technology, defense or pure scientific research. We just need to prioritise that investment as civilian endeavours to benefit people, and not projecting our hegemony.