civilization collapse

List of wars and disasters by death toll - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_disasters_by_death_toll and my favorite new phrase - Anthropogenic disaster!

What do Joseph Tainter and the Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor have in common? You guessed right if you said "declining marginal returns on investment in complexity"! According to wikipedia "Upgrading the first 183 aircraft to the 3.2 upgrade is estimated to cost $8 billion." - which works out to $43 million per plane. Don't you wish you had that software development contract? Sure the contractors make more money - but civilization suffers as a whole. The wikipedia also notes that "the Ada software language was blamed for slow progress and increased costs on the program, leading to a reorganization in 2011." When in doubt - blame the tool. But what is this really about? Why are these planes needed? Why are the new capabilities that these planes represent needed? Why are the upgrades needed? Incremental threat escalation. It is not a called an arms race for nothing. These planes with these newer capabilities and upgrades a...

Der Spiegel has an excellent article - that highlights the "destruction power" of fininacialization - check it out here for a 2011 look at the crisis: http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,781590,00.html