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Comment by Terr_ | Hacker News Reader

No, you're incorrectly assuming that "the economy" is a single unified whole, owned-by and benefiting a harmonious global hivemind.

In reality... the door to your home has a lock on it, right? Think about the materials and effort that went into the design, manufacture, installation, and ongoing operation of that lock. Are those "wasted"? After all, it doesn't actually produce anything new! In fact, its entire purpose is to sit there and impede the flow of resources... which would otherwise flow towards people who think they can utilize them more effectively...

For a more naturalistic example, what about your body's immune system? A big portion of your body's "budget" is invested in mechanisms for finding and destroying other organisms, ones which have done quite a bit of their own work to build themselves up. Do you honestly weigh the Staphylococcus economy equally to your own?

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I imagine I would find it somewhat more difficult to justify having the most heavily locked door in the world - which, by reasonable context, is closer to analogy being drawn above.

I disagree with the "context" you're trying to conjure up here. Petersellers' post is quite explicit, and directly equates paying for the construction/use of weapons to paying laborers to dig/re-fill holes in the ground.

At no point did he say it was disproportionate to the nation's wealth (or dirt-supply.)

Rather, his post argues it shouldn't happen at all.

In a part of the discussion talking about the arms industry funnelling tax dollars back into the American economy. I don't find it particularly unlikely that someone might then equate, within that context, it to be effectively analogous to ditch digging and not bother to qualify their remark more fully.

But, we can assume:

1. That Petersellers has grown to adulthood with a remarkably naive understanding of human nature.

2. Believes that the industrial and design capacities of modern nations are such that we could conjure effective weapons faster than a strike could be effectively delivered.

3. That they meant their statement in a somewhat more bound form.

Since 1 & 2 seem either unlikely to be held, or to be held by a mind that hasn't been convinced by the other arguments / observations it would have come across to the contrary, the latter seems the most useful context to interpret their remarks in. The others would either be mistaken assumptions or remove the point of talking to them.

By definition, somebody has to have a most heavily locked door in the world.

In your analogy, it's clear to me that the US is better suited for that status than any of the other realistic candidates.

Someone has to have killed the most children as well, but that's hardly a justification one would care to rely on in court.

My point was not that no-one could justify an extreme of door locks but that I could not. If someone wants to try and justify an extreme of door locks, they're welcome to do so. But merely noting that we all do some thing, or that someone has to have done the most of it, is not such a justification even by analogy.

I think you are underestimating the effect that globalization has regarding the linking of economies of nations together. Blowing up your neighbor will result in negative consequences for your own economy, even if they aren't a direct trading partner with you.

Additionally, your analogies don't really fit with the behavior of the US and how it utilizes its vast military resources. We aren't acting defensively, we are instead acting very aggressively and overthrowing governments who we perceive to be our enemy.

Maybe my initial statement wasn't very clear: I'm not for a 100% reduction in military costs, as I think it can provide an insurance benefit when used defensively. But in the context of the discussion, regarding the funneling of trillions of dollars into the machine: that level of spending is incredibly wasteful, unnecessary and even harmful when you consider the negative side effects that have arisen from our brazen use of these resources.

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