war, what is it good for?

doomsteaddiner |  A while back I wrote a 5 part series analyzing the relationship between Money, Energy, Waste and Thermodynamics I titled "The Money Valve".  The effort there was to show that the way the monetary system works is to regulate the downhill flow of an energy stock as it is dissipated and turned into waste of various kinds.  The physical waste that stacks up in landfills, the CO2 that collects in the atmosphere, the pollution that works its way into the groundwater, rivers, lakes and finally into the biggest toilet of them all, the world oceans, etc. 

I looked at the major players in this game, Goobermints, Banks, Industry, the Military and Consumers, but I missed a very important connection.  How the War Machine itself directly produces Waste!  In fucking COPIOUS QUANTITY AND FAST!

 

This came to me in another epiphany when I was considering how Mother Russia has recently been upgrading and increasing it's Military power in a number of areas, due to the constant and increasing threat from NATO on its borders.  NATO is moving missiles into states bordering Russia which were formerly part of the old Soviet Union, and in response the Ruskies have formed up entirely new divisions to drop on these borders also.  It's not just manpower they're ramping up here, they're upgrading their jets and boats and coming up with their own hi-tech drone systems as well. 

Besides those investments in military personnel and hardware, they're doing NATO one better in the Death From Above campaign against ISIS down in Syria, which is no cheap operation.  Where is all the money coming from for this bizness, which does not have any direct form of revenue coming out of it?  It's not like Mother Russia is swimming in cash these days, like the other Oil exporting nations their budget has been hit hard by the collapse in oil prices.  Nevertheless, over the last 15 years, Mother Russia has somehow found the money to keep upgrading their military hardware, apparently actually doing better with this task than NATO and the FSoA.  Their new Jets apparently actually WORK, unlike the F-35s. 

So now we can answer the question: What is War Good For?

It's good for the ECONOMY, stupid!  lol.

At least it is good for a Waste Based Economy, which is the only type of economy Homo Saps have run since Agriculture supplanted H-G living. 

What War does is to DESTROY much if not all of what was built before, which then means it must all be REBUILT!  That provides a lot of new jobs!  In our current situation, at least in the 1st World, we have a SURPLUS of housing.  You might not believe that since there are so many homeless people, but it's true.  The problem for the homeless is not that the housing doesn't exist for them, the problem is they can't AFFORD that housing. 

The next thing that War does is to disproportionately remove a large slice of the Poor population, from both the sides of the Winners and Losers of the War.  It is the poor mostly conscripted as grunts used as Cannon Fodder in Wars, and the poor also suffer the most civilian casualties.  They can't get out of the way.  The wealthy people in a society generally can find somewhere to run and hide until the war is over. 

In Biblical terms, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Famine, Pestilence, War and Death took a 25% cut of the Homo Sap population each time they showed up.