Monday, November 20, 2023

Lost Opportunities are a Bitch

We love to look back and partly justify warfare by bragging about scientific innovation brought on by necessary victory in battle, or that war is good for an economy as it was for World War II, but we never seem to wonder about all the intellectual possibilities we sent out to get sprayed around battlefields in pink mists instead of nurtured & implemented into human life. I know the thinking generally is "they're all just 18 year-old kids who cares", but out of the millions of them purposefully sent off to fight wars and killed, who knows what possibilities really lived in each of them? How many cancer cures did we lose? Could we be living on the Moon by now, with pills that let us live to 200 years old? Who know? 🤷‍♂️ We bungled one chance back in the 50s vis-a-vis women and technology, and we seem intent on repeating such a thing with our endless thirst for war over peace. It's just weird I never seem to hear anything like this mentioned when it comes to the costs of war.

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