Talk:Technological escalation

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This is an interesting article, though it conflates technological escalation with several of the other weaknesses of Western capitalist societies. Rather than spend the time yet to root this out (which I think is worth doing), I so far only made some minor edits to disclaim some of the article’s arguments that were forcefully argued as the truth:

• Sources would need to be cited that the space race had "by far" more spinoff value than military investment. The spinoff-benefit claims of both classes of expenditures have historically been greatly exaggerated by the usual parties.

• Is it proven that there is an "increasing" degree of tension and confrontation between nations? Or does it only seem so because we did not live, well, in all the other centuries of civilization's history?

• Only a very few would claim the development of the dreadnought and aircraft carrier were the solitary root causes of WWI and WWII.

• The word "innovation" indeed is used all the time to mention energy efficiency.

• Although the SUV paragraph is interesting, I removed it because it does not have to do with technological escalation. SUV cars could have been built in the 1950s but did not become popular until the 1990s, indicating that the technological innovation was not causal. What about the technological escalation that made the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight popular cars in the United States? They are the latest technology on the block and their popularity (in USA West Coast cities, at least) is seemingly not merited by the mere incremental improvement in fuel economy that they represent over other compact cars. People are buying them because of the idea they represent. In any case, they should also be mentioned if we’re going to go on and on about how bad capitalists are with their big SUVs.

The three paragraphs about computer gaming are where the article really spins out of control, jumping to several unsupported conclusions in a row and deep into speculative feminist theory.

The computer game stuff was really interesting even if it belongs in a different article. [link] Re SUV's, I've heard they were invented as a way to make minivans look more masculine. Phr 22:49, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)Phr

Perhaps the definition at the beginning should be changed, since the last 1/3 of the article talks about technological escalation outside of the military context. Possible idea for expansion: The idea of inefficient technological escalation in the computer area (across business and personal fields) is interesting, and possibly more applicable now than it was five years ago because of anecdotal observation that "computers are fast enough" by now for most purposes, and there’s no particular need for a person using Microsoft Word to possess a 3GHz computer. But this is all anecdotal; if chip factories were still cranking out 500MHz machines, they would probably be using the same resources to do so, so the inefficiency was the work of the designers and the construction of one new plant ... and maybe all those workers with 3GHz machines save a couple minutes every day ... sorry for the circular argument. The topic is interesting, however. Computer gaming might be mentioned (though not at all in the current context). Tempshill 20:03, 16 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Some of the Motives section seems nonconformist in regards to the neutral point of view guideline. The most obvious examples are: "a key motive in all competition in all mammal species, especially among males, is simple showing off."; "capitalism permits inferior beings qualified only for deception to lay access to media"; "there need not be any direct gain or material motive involved to cause vast sums of skill and energy to go into goals that are, ultimately, symbolic.". These opinions, although couched in neutral language, are stated as fact. Greatjones

Technological Escalation in War

Technological Escalation in War is so far out of kilter that I am not going to bother to fix it! For example:

• Romans used Iron
• Armour was used by a Greeks in a phalanx.
• Cavalry was around before armour.
• What is a Greek phalanx if not a massed defence or a massed assult?
• Tanks were around before blitzkrieg
• Professional soldiers and merceneries are at least as old as the Greek phalanx
• The Byzantine Empire used greek fire (chemical weapon)
• In the middle ages it was common to use bilogical weapons. Philip Baird Shearer 23:48, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Anon comment

(moved to this section by Mgm|^(talk) 23:01, May 28, 2005 (UTC)) I removed all the computer gaming stuff. This is completely irrelevant to this article. Techonological escaltation has nothing to do with computer games!?!?!

Discussion of computer games has its own page.