Perhaps different spending priorities would have produced unprecedented advances in biotech, artificial organs, etc, and delayed the Internet by 20 years. Would society be worse for it?
In short – who gives a flying spaghetti fuck? Besides, there was plenty of good civilian research in the late 1800s and interwar period of the 1900s without the massive/parasitic military-industrial complex to fund it. Other mechanisms of funding existed.[/quote]
Military innovation during the 1920-1930 interwar period is why we have radar, space program, submarines…
Military drives innovation, creating the need (you need to innovate in order to survive) and the funding (you need to give up your time/goods in order to survive).
The first few minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey explain the importance of military innovation – you either do it or it gets done to you.
