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Or the first "proper" computer being designed purely for artillery control.

kalmar wrote:

That's my point. All this wondering about where we would be technologically, if not for war, seems to assume we didn't/don't have a hatefully elitist academic system. And again, any geniuses blown up in trenches, from the fact that they ended up enlisted men, means they almost certainly would never have had any opportunity for research or study even if there were no war. They would have been contracting lung disease in coal mines instead.

...human beings who drew up calculation tables of parabolas, again, used for artillery aiming and anal navigation.

Or the first "proper" computer being designed purely for artillery control.

AceAceBaby wrote:

Or the first "proper" computer being designed purely for artillery control.

The first proper computers were designed before the war and who knows how much more quickly things may have progressed if the scientific community wasn't split apart and forced to each solve the same problems due to secrecy.

You can't unprove it neever!

Zardoz wrote:

You can't unprove it neever!

you are not helping are you.....

well I can unproove it, as in our time line we are where we are...

If all the money and effort spunked away on killing tens of millions of innocent people had instead gone into something else (even if it took a few more decades), we'd have had all the same advances and hten some, except more of them would have been in fields that aren't just about killing.

Thing is if we are proposing that the human race was smart enough not to have two world wars they I think by definition we are also proposing a human race that understands the value of science and technology.

So we would have hover cars and everything by now, if we were these übermen we are inventing.

But I've liked the idea of alternate histories ever since watching the opening cinematic of Red Alert (PS1 version: WITH MOUSE). LETS KILL EINSTEIN!

Talking of star trek utopia, I saw a good costings article that said for the cost of the Iraq war and based on NASA's estimates and plans as a guide the US of A could have developed, designed, constructed and populated a permanent moon base for something like 200 people.

I suspect that would have created more trickle down tech than the Iraq war has.

Shit I actually meant mars.

But still space 1999 is win:win.

Lave wrote:

I don't think the wars were inevitable really, if different people had been in charge at different times then they might not have happened. It was just a combination of circumstances, you don't particularly need to imagine human beings as super-enlightened to envisage a scenario where the world wars didn't happen.

AceAceBaby wrote:

Or the first "proper" computer being designed purely for artillery control.

no Enigma machine[/color]

AceAceBaby wrote:

no Enigma machine[/color]

Although not a computer as such the Enigma machine was invented way before the war and was commercially available for transmitting sensitive business information. There were also several people working on machines nearing what we consider as proper computers long before the war, I doubt they would have for some mysterious reason just stopped their work during the 40s.

I'm sorry but you are flat out wrong. ENIAC is considered the first true electronic programmable computer. It was specifically designed because the US Army wanted an improved way to calculate artillery firing tables.

kalmar wrote:

The Bletchley Park stuff went on with the best boffins we had at the time. But the fact that we had them in the first place I don't think was anything to do with the war. Perhaps they were in fact a product of the elitist academic world that we had back then, and don't have now?

Field Marshall Kitchener :hat:

Thirty seven thousand officers died in WWI, including Field Marshall Kitchener.

The Bletchley Park stuff went on with the best boffins we had at the time.

Your gran went on with the best boffins of the time too?

Author:	Doctor Glyndwr [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 16:49 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
AceAceBaby wrote: Or the first "proper" computer being designed purely for artillery control. It's further than that -- the first "computers" were the human beings who drew up calculation tables of parabolas, again, used for artillery aiming and naval navigation.

Author:	kalmar [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 16:53 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
AceAceBaby wrote: kalmar wrote: That's my point. All this wondering about where we would be technologically, if not for war, seems to assume we didn't/don't have a hatefully elitist academic system. And again, any geniuses blown up in trenches, from the fact that they ended up enlisted men, means they almost certainly would never have had any opportunity for research or study even if there were no war. They would have been contracting lung disease in coal mines instead. There's more to it than that though. You need more than boffins and geniuses for advancement. Take my Grandad - he was in the war, he didn't go to a posh school or anything like that (he was the son of a gamekeeper), but he's a clever bloke and amongst other things, seems to have invented the "back hoe" gadget from which the modern hydraulic excavator was developed.

Author:	Zardoz [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 16:53 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
Doctor Glyndwr wrote: ...human beings who drew up calculation tables of parabolas, again, used for artillery aiming and anal navigation. Greek Fix.

Author:	markg [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 16:56 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
AceAceBaby wrote: Or the first "proper" computer being designed purely for artillery control. The first proper computers were designed before the war and who knows how much more quickly things may have progressed if the scientific community wasn't split apart and forced to each solve the same problems due to secrecy.

Author:	KovacsC [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:02 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
markg wrote: AceAceBaby wrote: Or the first "proper" computer being designed purely for artillery control. The first proper computers were designed before the war and who knows how much more quickly things may have progressed if the scientific community wasn't split apart and forced to each solve the same problems due to secrecy. This is going to stay a circular argurment.... you can't prove your what if point. All we can work with is that the tech advances have been done becuase of miliatry use

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11.11.11 https://www.beexcellenttoeachother.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2412	Page 5 of 5

Author:	Zardoz [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:07 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
You can't unprove it neever!

Author:	KovacsC [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:08 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
Zardoz wrote: You can't unprove it neever! you are not helping are you..... well I can unproove it, as in our time line we are where we are...

Author:	sinister agent [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:11 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
The 'war advances technology' thing is basically just the fallacy of the broken window, is it not? If all the money and effort spunked away on killing tens of millions of innocent people had instead gone into something else (even if it took a few more decades), we'd have had all the same advances and hten some, except more of them would have been in fields that aren't just about killing. And, y'know, millions of people would hae been able to contribute to society instead of shooting at each other. Just look at the number of creative industries that became super-prosperous once major wars in europe stopped - if we were still invading each other every decade, there'd be no video game industry, barely any tv, hardly any movies, loads of our artists and scientists would have marched out to die or build bigger bombs instead. It's just a stupid waste of resources. You know what else spurred innovation and unnaturally fast development? Stalinism. But do people bang on about how that advanced society? Do they arse. It's not worth the price, and that's before you even consider the effect it has on human relations - how many racist arseholes are that way because their granddad lost a leg in the war to a german rocket? How many Japanese hate americans because their parents died horrendous deaths from radiation sickness in Nagasaki? And these are only the major wars - what good came from the unfashionable wars in Croatia or Somalia, exactly? One of my housemates spent his childhood diving under the table whenever he heard a loud noise after invading armies took to showering his town with grenades. People would be sitting around minding their own business when suddenly a grenade would crash through the window, and then they'd all be dead. What fucking good did that do anyone, and would you really say having the internet a few decades earlier is worth doing that to millions of people? It's not worth the price. Anyway, i don't bother with the silences thing, as I don't feel the need to act sanctimonious once a year just so I don't have to think about what dicks we've all been the rest of the time. A really decent memorial would be to stop supporting governments that do exactly the same things as the German, Italian and Japanese governments did during and before the wars, namely being fascist, imperialist cockrags. Some people stood around being quiet for a bit? Great, thanks. Meanwhile, our taxes are still going to kill poor people in Iraq for no good reason, North Korea is still run by a tyrannical lunatic, and the Congo is still fucking hell on earth. But at least there are no more wars and our freedom of speech is no longer under threat, right? Old soldiers - mostly not actually motivated by freedom and democracy and all that jingoistic bullshit, but by the desire to keep their friends alive and come home safely. They went through a hell of a lot and ultimately we benefitted as a result, yes. I appreciate that insofar as someone who hasn't lived through war can, but I'll do it in my own time and in a way that actually matters, not by bowing my head and scowling at anyone who dares speak when it's time to act like you give a shit.

Author:	Zardoz [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:14 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
Kovacs Caprios wrote: Zardoz wrote: You can't unprove it neever! you are not helping are you..... well I can unproove it, as in our time line we are where we are... And you can prove I exist on the same timeline how?

Author:	Dr Lave [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:15 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
Thing is if we are proposing that the human race was smart enough not to have two world wars they I think by definition we are also proposing a human race that understands the value of science and technology. So we would have hover cars and everything by now, if we were these übermen we are inventing. But I've liked the idea of alternate histories ever since watching the opening cinematic of Red Alert (PS1 version: WITH MOUSE). LETS KILL EINSTEIN!

Author:	Cras [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:16 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
sinister agent wrote: If all the money and effort spunked away on killing tens of millions of innocent people had instead gone into something else (even if it took a few more decades), we'd have had all the same advances and hten some, except more of them would have been in fields that aren't just about killing. Except the relevant point (sorry to cut out most of what you wrote) is that we don't know if anyone would have bothered putting all that energy into advancement, without the spur of needing to be better than your enemies. No-one is saying that war is a good thing, but it's surely been a motivator.

Author:	NervousPete [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:17 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
I can't pretend that two minutes a year will stop people from invading militarily inferior countries for resources, but it can hopefully help to keep people from thinking that blind obedience to military orders, total war, and walking slowing into withering machine gun fire and whirling shrapnel is a good idea. But certain a on everything you said about war not helping technological/society's advancement in the long run, Sinister Agent.

Author:	KovacsC [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:17 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
Lave wrote: Thing is if we are proposing that the human race was smart enough not to have two world wars they I think by definition we are also proposing a human race that understands the value of science and technology. So we would have hover cars and everything by now, if we were these übermen we are inventing. But I've liked the idea of alternate histories ever since watching the opening cinematic of Red Alert (PS1 version: WITH MOUSE). LETS KILL EINSTEIN! Bring on the startrek utopia

Author:	Dr Lave [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:25 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
Talking of star trek utopia, I saw a good costings article that said for the cost of the Iraq war and based on NASA's estimates and plans as a guide the US of A could have developed, designed, constructed and populated a permanent moon base for something like 200 people. I suspect that would have created more trickle down tech than the Iraq war has.

Author:	Squirt [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:24 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
I think about 80 British and Commonwealth generals died in WWI. The popular image of them supping port in mansions miles behind the lines wasn't totally correct.

Author:	MrChris [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:27 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
nervouspete wrote: Thirty seven thousand officers died in WWI, including Field Marshall Kitchener. Quite possibly deliberately, too, if one is a consipiracy theorist. He was massively unpopular with the government by 1916, and seen as incompetent. He was stuck on a boat to go to see the Russians on a diplomatic mission (not exactly his area), with those sending him knowing full well he was going through a heavily mined area with lots of active German Navy units.

Author:	MrChris [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:53 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
Dudley's nan shagged Russell Crowe? I'm confused.

Author:	Malc [ Sun Nov 08, 2020 12:16 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
For the first time in about 15 years, I'm watching BBC one's coverage of this instead of being at an actual parade. Feels odd. Made worse due to big Ben not doing the pre bongs, and only the second part of the last post playing. Still it's better than nothing.

Author:	KovacsC [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:27 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
still government paying for it..... and arn't nasa part of the amrican airforce

Author:	NervousPete [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:39 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
Lave wrote: Talking of star trek utopia, I saw a good costings article that said for the cost of the Iraq war and based on NASA's estimates and plans as a guide the US of A could have developed, designed, constructed and populated a permanent moon base for something like 200 people. I suspect that would have created more trickle down tech than the Iraq war has. And the inhabited roving satelite after earth explodes in war and moon is propelled away will provide fantastical opportunities of exploration under the heroic helm of Martin Landau.

Author:	Dr Lave [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:42 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
Shit I actually meant mars. But still space 1999 is win:win.

Author:	NervousPete [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:52 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
Lave wrote: Shit I actually meant mars. But still space 1999 is win:win. One of my favourite ever quotes: Gerry Anderson: "It looked like a million dollars! ... Shame it cost ten million."

Author:	markg [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:55 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
Lave wrote: Thing is if we are proposing that the human race was smart enough not to have two world wars they I think by definition we are also proposing a human race that understands the value of science and technology. I don't think the wars were inevitable really, if different people had been in charge at different times then they might not have happened. It was just a combination of circumstances, you don't particularly need to imagine human beings as super-enlightened to envisage a scenario where the world wars didn't happen.

Author:	KovacsC [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 17:57 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
markg wrote: Lave wrote: Thing is if we are proposing that the human race was smart enough not to have two world wars they I think by definition we are also proposing a human race that understands the value of science and technology. I don't think the wars were inevitable really, if different people had been in charge at different times then they might not have happened. It was just a combination of circumstances, you don't particularly need to imagine human beings as super-enlightened to envisage a scenario where the world wars didn't happen. The human race just thinks up more inventive ways of killing each other. We are not enlightended, as long as one side wants to fight the other has to defend

Author:	markg [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 18:01 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
ok

Author:	Zardoz [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 18:04 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
On this timeline maybe.

Author:	AceAceBaby [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 18:19 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
markg wrote: AceAceBaby wrote: Or the first "proper" computer being designed purely for artillery control. The first proper computers were designed before the war and who knows how much more quickly things may have progressed if the scientific community wasn't split apart and forced to each solve the same problems due to secrecy. I'm sorry but you are flat out wrong. ENIAC is considered the first true electronic programmable computer. It was specifically designed because the US Army wanted an improved way to calculate artillery firing tables. It doesn't matter that it wasn't completed until after the war, they started on it in 1943 when the US Military was fully committed to the war, for the purpose of war. No war, no ENIAC. No war, no Enigma machine, No Colossus.

Author:	SisterCheeba [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 18:28 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
According to Kotaku, today is actually Pocky Day. As, of course, the celebration of japanophile-beloved chocolate sticks is what really matters. I know it's just them being them, but that's really fucking wound me up, that has.

Author:	markg [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 18:30 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
AceAceBaby wrote: no Enigma machine[/color] Although not a computer as such the Enigma machine was invented way before the war and was commercially available for transmitting sensitive business information. There were also several people working on machines nearing what we consider as proper computers long before the war, I doubt they would have for some mysterious reason just stopped their work during the 40s.

Author:	AceAceBaby [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 18:42 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
markg wrote: AceAceBaby wrote: no Enigma machine[/color] Although not a computer as such the Enigma machine was invented way before the war and was commercially available for transmitting sensitive business information. There were also several people working on machines nearing what we consider as proper computers long before the war, I doubt they would have for some mysterious reason just stopped their work during the 40s. Without a desperate need to crack the Enigma, no Colossus. The only reason I mentioned Enigma was because it led to the development of Colossus. This stuff is the birth of modern computing, you cannot ignore the affect that wartime necessity had on the momentum of computer development.

Author:	Doctor Glyndwr [ Tue Nov 11, 2008 19:12 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
AceAceBaby wrote: I'm sorry but you are flat out wrong. ENIAC is considered the first true electronic programmable computer. It was specifically designed because the US Army wanted an improved way to calculate artillery firing tables. I wouldn't contest that WW2 had a dramatic impact on computer development, but Zuse was very very close to a true programmable computer before the war started. It spurred it on, yes, but as a species we were on the cusp of that development already.

Author:	MrChris [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:04 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
AceAceBaby wrote: kalmar wrote: The Bletchley Park stuff went on with the best boffins we had at the time. But the fact that we had them in the first place I don't think was anything to do with the war. Perhaps they were in fact a product of the elitist academic world that we had back then, and don't have now? That's my point. All this wondering about where we would be technologically, if not for war, seems to assume we didn't/don't have a hatefully elitist academic system. And again, any geniuses blown up in trenches, from the fact that they ended up enlisted men, means they almost certainly would never have had any opportunity for research or study even if there were no war. They would have been contracting lung disease in coal mines instead. I think you're forgetting the officers, here. Who were, largely, educated men. My wife's granddad was An Hofficer in the artillery in WW2, and was, and continued after the war to be, a veh' clever chemist. And a lot of officers died in both wars. A lot. This is why there were all those laments about a generation being lost in WW1 - the guys in the trenches in WW1 weren't just farmers and factory workers, they were the guys who'd just come out of Oxford or Cambridge. Pretty much every family lost someone.

Author:	NervousPete [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:09 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
True, the ratio of officer deaths was in fact higher than for the enlisted men. Thirty seven thousand officers died in WWI, including Field Marshall Kitchener.

Author:	DavPaz [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:20 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
nervouspete wrote: Field Marshall Kitchener FTFY

Author:	Dudley [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:51 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
kalmar wrote: The Bletchley Park stuff went on with the best boffins we had at the time. Like my gran!

Author:	markg [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:53 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
Your gran went on with the best boffins of the time too?

Author:	Dudley [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 12:10 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
markg wrote: Your gran went on with the best boffins of the time too? It's entirely possible, she didn't marry until after the war.

Author:	metalangel [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 12:29 ]
Post subject:	Re: 11.11.11
markg wrote: Your gran went on with the best boffins of the time too? I just gasped in razor-sharp half-chewed crisps reading that and laughing, you bar steward.