Do we know what we "need" anymore?

Would the West be quite so quick to enter into wars if it was a level playing field though?

Don't get me wrong. I think that, very sadly, some wars have to be fought. But sometimes it seems much less fair than it used to be. If wars can ever be fair.

Teflon is bloody good!

Sorry! Hate frying pans that stick.

The stirrup was invented for war use. By 415 AD the use of two riding stirrups was popular throughout China. And with them, heavy armor, horse bardings (armor) and mounted archery came into use. The stirrup spread quickly through Asia, all the way to Korea and into Japan. It evolved from large toe loops on the side of a saddle to the flat, oval bronze or iron designs recognizable today. The face of warfare had changed forever.

You Wiki'd that.

durhamjen Urban myth alert. Teflon wasn't invented by NASA, although they have used it.

Of course, space exploration was entirely a military exercise in the days of the Cold War and has continued to be a power play ever since.

Aka But it was much later getting to Europe and it was the Norman's secret weapon.

jings, we have a new frying pan that has an even better coating than Teflon. It is orders of magnitude better as it can't wear out. Teflon does.

Space exploration is brilliant.

Like most other kinds of exploration.

It's what imaginative intelligent animals do.

Not Wiki'd but yes Googled! Knew it wasn't the Norman's invention 'cos I've seen pictures of Chinese horsemen with leather stirrups somewhere.

Is explore their environment

and try experiments.

The "What happens if i do this?" approach to life is a GOOD THING.

True, oh Queen, but almost all of it's still military because they are the only ones with the budgets. Do you remember Ronald Reagan and his ridiculous Star Wars Program? And don't overlook that maniac in North Korea.

Of course inventors of all descriptions will continue to invent and to push the boundaries of knowledge as far as they can.

But there seem to be two strands of discussion here. The first is about unnecessary consumption which individual people must make their minds up about.

The second is about the rapid escalation of technology which is driven by war and conflict.

I'm reading at the moment a brilliant biography of Robert Oppenheimer and have reached the months after the end of WWII. The scientists proposed that nuclear weapons be under the tight control of an international body and that uranium should not be allowed to be sold for weapons. This would have prevented the arms race as, of course, once knowledge is 'out of the box' it cannot be put back in. This was vetoed by Trueman who described Oppenheimer as a 'cry baby scientist' and said that the blood would be upon his hands.

So, while invention should and must continue it seems to me that it should never be in a morally neutral context and that if only political and moral development in the human brain developed in parallel with the inventiveness then we'd all be in a better place.

As I said, war generates inventiveness. From which, when the wars are over, the rest of us benefit.

Sort of 'light the blue touch paper and retire' philosophy Bags

What the scientists proposed, mice, was rejected. What is your historian's view of the usefulness, in the end, of the cold war?

No, not really, aka. I think that good societies do not repress imagination and I think that's a good thing.

The thing is, people need a good education to make the most of their inventiveness, and most of it does benefit humanity.

Aka I think I have also seen pictures of Mongol hordes – they're always hordes like Catholics are always devout – with leather stirrups. Still, there wasn't a lot of trade between northern France and Mongolia in 1066.

The Cold War? Well, I haven't got a few thousand pages! But it seems to me that the word 'usefulness' cannot properly be used as a descriptor.

It led to a huge expenditure on on arms instead of using those resources to benefit the populations of the countries engaged in the build up of weapons.

Today we still have nuclear weapons in the hands of some very unstable and unsavoury regimes.

It led to a lot macho politicking between the major power blocks, in which the USA eventually emerged as the top nation. We are now seeing shifts in the balance of power(s) and it remains to be seen if nations such as China are able to reign in states like North Korea and if extreme Islamicism can be contained.

It also led to insularity and fearfulness of 'the other' to an extent which I feel is much greater than would otherwise have been.

Some have argued that that there has not been a major war between huge power blocks since '45 but that has not prevented hundreds of smaller wars and thousands of deaths.

So - very, very briefly, I would say not much.

Absent

On a much smaLler scale I was only pondering the other day on the fact that I rarely buy kitchen rolL but, when I do, I use it all the time. Then, when it's run out [it's usually Christmas time that I buy it] I find that I don't need it any more. I still have lots of videos and a video player and it really annoys me that I can't record using video any more.

Bags I discovered a pile of brand new frying pans in the back of a cupboard just before Xmas. Don't remember buying 'em! When I have got through those I want to try the ceramic ones that have been mentioned on here. I am rough on frying pans.

I need kitchen paper to dry off the chips on a Friday. Turns a tea-towel black.

And to dry off the oil from the finished product.