I am a little dubious about the "war makes technological progress faster" meme. I think technology has a pace determined mostly by physics and what is possible. War perhaps only stops us getting in our own way( see torpedoes).

Just to (cherry) pick a few examples

- WW2 was not even going to start unless progress had already passed the point that doctrine could see a way past the stalemate of the previous war. Germany had proven this (to itself) in Spain in 1936 - that tanks with close air support was now a viable thing at the divisional level. Progress from the say Panzer II to IV was not "quantum leaps" but solid well tested progress as was similar Russian tanks who were going up against them. Adding bigger engines and more armour, or sloping armour. This was progress by "failing fast". That is an organisational decision less than a technical one. for example :

- Torpedoes : In the battle of midway US torpedoes frankly did not work (it's a terrible thing to ask a pilot to fly low and slow into AA fire and not give them a torpedo that actually will shoot straight or explode on contact). That was fixed in the latter part of the Pacific war but not because of technological progress but organisational change. ie firing everyone who thought there was no need to test torpedoes by, you know, live firing even one.

- Manhattan Project. Yes and no I mean in early 1939 science did not think it was actually possible to make a nuclear bomb. After Piles' memo that changed and so there was a race on. But the goal was so tempting / threatening that even without a war it would still have been a major strategic goal. just like Rockets

- Rockets. Frankly these are like VR glasses. Basically the technology was just possible in the late 30s. And we would have worked on it anyway - war or not. But despite going from toy demo to actual bombs on London, they were ... well the V2 was the biplane compared to the Apollo 20 years later. It was not war that made rockets go up, it was funding.

War perhaps gives a focus to develop at a pace that would not be seen otherwise, but the space race showed you can do it without an actual live war-

Technology cannot be forced -the materials science or energy equations either make it possible or not. No amount of investment in 1917 would have made a Panzer tank by 1920. You also could not turn a V2 into Apollo by 1950.

Ultimately my view is that war strips away the self-serving excuses that organisations build up around why their progress is slow. It makes things faster because it gives clear unmistakable feedback (see torpedoes) and focuses funding, prioritisation and talent.

It seems it would be nice if we could find ways to improve our organisations without the deaths of millions.

Thank you had not thought about that before.

> Ultimately my view is that war strips away the self-serving excuses that organisations build up around why their progress is slow. It makes things faster because it gives clear unmistakable feedback (see torpedoes) and focuses funding, prioritisation and talent

Counter examples on both sides in WWII: A) The allied bombing campaign that failed to meet its strategic objectives for almost the whole duration of the war. B) The continued German development of strategically insignificant terror weapons (especially the V2). The bombing campaign did finally flatten German industry and transport, but not until the Germans were obviously going to lose anyway, in very late 1944 / early 1945. Its first several years had very little strategic effect but cost vast numbers of lives on both sides.

I guess "it can give, and does give such feedback more often than in peace time... if we are able to receive the feedback"

Anyway I hope I was saying that war is not necessary for us to learn to organise better.

And I would say that the Nazi "organisation" was so fucked up that anything that did not fit the internal psychosis of the Party was never going to make a difference.

Which I guess is the point.

A democracy has its blind spots - we should build a more perfect democracy with fewer prejudices and blind spots - and if we do we will I hope see a better society and more technological progress to boot.

Double down on democracy is kind of what I am saying.

(Strategic bombing seems to sit in that weird area of psychosis in military planners and politicians. See acoup.blog recently for it but it has never worked - London, Dresden, Tokyo, all made population more determined, drones killing people at weddings or roadsides is never going to make people give up. But we keep doing it.)