1 Topic by michael.molitchhou

  • michael.molitchhou
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Topic: New member with an opinion!

I just had a piece published at 3D Printing Industry, where I'm a contributing writer, which discusses the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute, a federally funded (therefore, publicly subsidized) institute dedicated to developing 3D printing in the US. Sounds good, if you like 3D printing. But, if you like peace and are against a society that is run by the military-industrial complex, then you won't like that NAMII is headed by the National Center for Defense Manufacturing and Machining, which makes weapons for the military and helps construct drones. Also part of NAMII are companies like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, names everyone's familiar with. Basically, the 3D printing institute is just a way for the government to pay these companies to make weapons.

Please do me a favor and share the article, like it and +1 it and tweet it, so that the site I write for knows that it's okay to publish tech news that isn't strictly about cool, new gadgets and the like and that it's okay to write about these controversial and important issues.

Thanks so much!

2 Reply by michael.molitchhou

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Re: New member with an opinion!

I can't post the link, but it's up on the site right now. It's called "What the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Institute Is and What I Wish It Was"

3 Reply by ronsii

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Re: New member with an opinion!

You do know that there is a huge amount of tech in use today by ordinary people that owes it's existence to 'companies that make weapons'.... just to name a few...

Computers
GPS system
Duct tape
Microwave ovens
Aerosol cans
Freeze dried foods

These are just the most common things and they came about because of a need in warfare smile
The advances in just the medical field alone due to casualties in the middle east have been enormous in the last few years and are currently giving people chances they would never have had to live life normally.

4 Reply by Tomek

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Re: New member with an opinion!

Ronsii, that argument is frequently used, but I think dubiously applied.


Military research is notoriously closed information, for obvious reasons, and done at a very expensive military-grade level. This is typically wasteful. Sure, if you have 70 billion to drop, you can develop the F-22 Raptor...but imagine how far other social endeavors could go with 70 billion.

Just last June the National Security Agency donated a couple spy satellites with optics BETTER than NASA's hubble telescope, that was in the sky before Hubble.....Now, no one even knew those satellites existed! So a lot of R&D was wasted in so far as not propagated.


I don't mean to start a flame war....In part because I love a lot of really cool military tech...but I'm not sure how much credit they really deserve.

5 Reply by ronsii

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Re: New member with an opinion!

I understand about security and closed projects and will agree there is tons of waste in addition to a bunch of 'other' issues smile and of course the argument that someone else would have invented it anyhow... probably true but the fact remains that there is just a lot of tech overflow from military spending and projects that finds it's way into civilian life, just look at some of the high-tech plastics and composites.

6 Reply by michael.molitchhou

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Re: New member with an opinion!

Tomek wrote:

Ronsii, that argument is frequently used, but I think dubiously applied.


Military research is notoriously closed information, for obvious reasons, and done at a very expensive military-grade level. This is typically wasteful. Sure, if you have 70 billion to drop, you can develop the F-22 Raptor...but imagine how far other social endeavors could go with 70 billion.

Just last June the National Security Agency donated a couple spy satellites with optics BETTER than NASA's hubble telescope, that was in the sky before Hubble.....Now, no one even knew those satellites existed! So a lot of R&D was wasted in so far as not propagated.


I don't mean to start a flame war....In part because I love a lot of really cool military tech...but I'm not sure how much credit they really deserve.

Thanks, Tomek!

And the point of the article isn't that I don't like the tech that is developed through the military, but that the choice on how to spend our money is undemocratic. Taxpayers don't have much of a say one what their government spends its money on.  We just vote for who we like and wish for the best.  And, in the end, most of the money ends up going to the military, despite a lot of public opinion polls that indicate that the public would prefer cuts to military spending. I can't include a link to such a poll in this post, but, depending on how the poll is framed, that's often the case.

7 Reply by cmetzel

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Re: New member with an opinion!

Wait a minute!  Are you trying to imply that the government is corrupt and politicians are not honest?  What a revelation!  I could go on all day long about things that I wish the government wouldn't spend my money on, tech and military would not be among them.

8 Reply by DePartedPrinter

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Re: New member with an opinion!

michael.molitchhou wrote:

Taxpayers don't have much of a say one what their government spends its money on.

our government would not function if taxpayers were to choose how the government spends our money...most people are uneducated and don't understand the complexities of international affairs/politics/economics.  If you don't like it then you are free to re-locate but you will find these problems in almost every country in the world.

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9 Reply by Manx

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Re: New member with an opinion!

the corolory problem to that is most of the representatives (in my opinion this includes the president) are even more ignorant that the normal voters.