On Fri, 2002-08-23 at 13:03, Ben Goertzel wrote:
> > Friendliness isn't sacrosanct necessarily.  Its just hard to get funding
> > for a project where the end product might eliminate the investors. :)
> >
> 
> I think this statement is soundly refuted by the large amount of funding
> currently going into military projects!


I think one could reasonably argue that military power, particularly in
maintaining parity of power, protects those who control the military. 
Grossly excessive military spending may cause problems in the long run
as does inadequate military spending, but that is usually a symptom of
other problems.  Exactly how much military funding is "excessive" is
hard to determine.  While many people view US military spending as
excessive, as a percentage of the US GDP it is not dramatically higher
than most European and other "first-world" nations, and the US military
is actually deployed all over the world and involved in various
activities unlike most of the European militaries (excepting perhaps the
British, who have a similar GDP percentage as the US).

Almost every country that actually spends more than a few percent of
their GDP on the military is a second-rate backwater that you wouldn't
normally think of as a military power.  And not surprisingly, none of
those countries are garden spots either.

-James Rogers
 jamesr@best.com