Comment by epistasis
5 hours ago
"Seriously spent" where serious is less than the cost of a single bomber for the military. I forget what Geoffrey Hinton said it was, but it was an embarrassingly small pittance.
Military spending is largely economic dead weight, roughly the equivalent of handouts. And the end result is deterrence in a game of prisoners dilemma. Yet it is sacrosanct, and subject to ever increasing budgets for no gain.
The % of US GDP spent on defense has been going straight down ever since Eisenhower gave that speech about the MIC.
(Another fun fact is defense companies make fewer profits during war, not more. Presumably because they have to make real products instead of designing imaginary ones.)
Just look at all the handouts going to Ukrainian soldiers right now. What silly economic dead weight!