This Is Our City

The military may have purchased the first electronic computer, but the principles behind it go back centuries. It was based on mechanical computers. The military always purchases cutting edge technology. So what? That doesn’t mean that without military spending the technology would never develop. The steam engine was far more important to Western development than the computer and the military had nothing to do with it. The computer would have been invented regardless of what the military or the government did. All you can say about military spending is that it might have speeded up the process. The transistor made modern computing possible and Bell Labs, a private company developed it.

Hermit, I don’t believe any of the things you attribute to me. Making those claims just proves once again that you don’t read my posts. You just regurgitate your socialist ideas. Yes, God gave us free markets. Study the Scholars of Salamanca. Free market capitalism is in the New and Old Testaments. The Church did not give us communal ownership of property. That’s a dishonest reading of scripture. Sharing private property is not anything at all like common ownership. Christ said to make your primary goal in life to please God. He did not condemn providing for your family and saving for hard times, which is capitalism. Capitalism did not invent greed; mankind did. Greed is far older than capitalism.

As to the military, government and computing: "From the beginnings of the computer industry, federal and military agencies promoted vital basic research into computing hardware and deployed early computers throughout the government. As economist Vernon Ruttan writes, "The role of the military in driving the development of computer, semiconductor and software technologies cannot be overemphasized. These technologies were, until well into the 1960s, nourished by markets that were almost completely dependent on the defense, energy and space industries." In fact, the ENIAC, the first electronic computer, was built in 1945 to crunch numbers for the Army Ballistics Research Laboratory." http://thebreakthrough.org/blog/2009/04/silicon_valley_garage_or_gover.shtm l

@RMcK- You believe in free market, capitalist economic determinism. You have a harsher view of man- you believe that man's actions are determined by impersonal economic systems, rather than man's free will. God did not give us 'free market capitalism'- man did. There is no free market capitalism in the New Testament; in fact, Christ and the early church gave us communal ownership of property- which is different from socialist economics. Communal ownership was the norm in Christ's community of apostles, it was the norm of the early church as recorded in Acts. Christ also said do not gather up perishable goods in barns, where thieves break in- the very aim of 'capitalist economics.' Christ said love your neighbor- not seek to 'maximize profit' from him/her.

Hermit, profit is not greed. Like interest, profit is the God-given preference for the present over the future. In order to put off present satisfaction, humans naturally require some kind of compensation. It's also just common sense. Without profit we have the USSR and China where people starve to death. You judge you fellow man very harshly. You assume that because they don't share your extremist philosophy they must be greedy. Maybe they have examined things and found you wrong and your extremist environmentalism destructive. BTW, major oil companies are the largest investors in alternative energy. And the military did not develop the computer. That's urban myth. There is no contradiction in choosing Christ and freedom. According to the Church, God gave us free market capitalism.