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Recently Sally Field recited the very very tired and ridiculous line

If the mothers ruled the world there would be no goddamn wars in the first place.

She made this line in a very long and very asinine speech during the Emmy’s until the network finally saw fit to just turn off her mic and end it. We’ve all heard this line repeated before, and it’s struck most people as just plan ridiculous.

But the always entertaining Rachel Lucas, who has returned to blogging if you didn’t already know, takes it one step further and abuses it worse than a pretty goat in Bin Laden’s undisclosed location.

Now first of all you have to read her rendition of it. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

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Ok you’re back? Good. Now part of Rachel’s point is that part of the reason men have the inclination to fight said wars is basically the testosterone-driven ambition biologically inherent in men, liberals excluded…but then they aren’t really men so I repeat myself. And that the same testosterone drives men to invent all the cool shit we call technology. Ok fair enough, you can make a very rational argument for that, as Rachel goes on to do.

However, I don’t think even that leap is necessary. What most people refuse to acknowledge, or just plain are ignorant of, is that most of this “high technology” we take for granted was developed BECAUSE of war…or at least the possibility of it.

Perfect example, this forum we’re using right now. The reason Al Gore invented the internet is because of war….or more precisely the possibility of it. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) wanted to design a network that transmit information, even if part of said network was destroyed in a massive enemy attack, this gave rise to ARPANET. The ideas that were developed eventually evolved into what we now call the internet and remarkably little has changed at the fundamental level.

DARPA also invented many of the concepts that were eventually gave birth to modern operating systems. Operating systems like Window, Unix, and Linux.

So basically the fact that you can view this website right now, is because our federal government was concerned enough about a massive world war, that they developed this concepts which when applied in a civilian world, gave birth to other ideas.

Virtually every field carries examples like this. It’s no difficult task to find the ones in medicine. Something as simple as stopping bleeding….probably developed to treat battle wounds. Something as complex as amputations?? Guess where the primary need for that was?

Face it people, the reason you have the comfortable lifestyle you do, is not just because past wars have secured it, but also that the threat of future wars have driven people to develop the technology that makes it so.