Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuzz
I see it as a narrowing gap. Industry, and other countries have their own technology, and a lot of tech is dependent on other tech. The military couldn't possibly have 100 year ahead processing power, for instance. Probably not even 5 years ahead of the best commercial tech. Material science advancements aren't going to be the domain of just the military, either. I just don't see them having the gap that used to exist.
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Maybe when it comes to technology that has practical commercial applications. Civilian companies tend to be accountable to shareholders and therefore pursue science and technology with commercial applications. Public companies that pursue science for the sake of science, regardless of whether they can profit from it, ae rare. The amount of money put into research and development would probably not be worth it to them.
Now take a company like Lockheed Martin which gets research and development funds from the government. They can pursue technology regardless of commercial potential because they are getting paid anyway. Some of these UAP that reportedly can travel speeds of Mach 20 through any medium, while stopping and turning on a dime. If such a contraption existed, the military value would be obvious. But what reasonable commercial value would there be? I suppose it would be fun to try, but the costs would be so high, that no sustainable business model could exist.
Or if something like zero point energy extraction was developed and people suddenly had almost limitless free energy, that would have negative commercial value. The economic and social turmoil would likely cause societal upheaval. It would be a technology you might want to ease people into over a long time. But again, it would have priceless military value.