I sing the honor of our fallen soldiers
and their final sacrifice on behalf of country, freedom, security,
And technological innovation.
Let us know humanity by the ever-great efficiency and creativity
with which it visits death upon itself,
And wars by the salutary influence they have
on what we are pleased to call progress.
It’s been awhile since those wiley Greeks snuck into Troy
Inside a hobby horse. An early example of
technological artifice applied to surprise and kill the enemy.
Shakespeare enshrines Henry V and his band of brothers
But every schoolgirl knows it was the long-bow, newfangled and surprising,
That won the day at Agincourt.
What on earth is saltpetre? That key ingredient of gunpowder,
it sounds like something from a nursery rhyme.
As does blunderbuss.
Incremental innovation took us from the musket
on to the rifle, which sounds serious indeed
with its single helix on the inside that can keep a bullet
spinning straight and true right into the enemy’s heart.
Long before The Matrix we needed guns, lots of guns.
Back then, interchangeable parts and mass production became possible,
and therefore necessary.
We figured out how to do it on behalf of our soldiers.
How we all benefit from such advances now.
So much creativity unleashed; even the tinkerers beget death.
It was all of eleven years from Kitty Hawk until the first bomb was dropped from a plane.
And a mere 31 more to the Enola Gay. (Although those casualties were civilian
And thus, strictly speaking, not the subject of today’s encomium).
(And speaking of civilian casualties, did you know that most of the killing of Jews during World War II was done through simple means like a bullet in the head,
malnutrition, disease and starvation, or a simple bludgeon? The old, traditional ways can still be effective - especially if the enemy is unarmed - though we memorialize the gas chambers because they were the latest technological marvel. I thank the historian David Edgerton for bringing this point to my attention.)
So, some recent history in a nutshell:
1. Machine guns, tanks and mustard gas.
2. High altitude bombers, proximity fuses, V1 and 2.
3. Supersonic fighters, Agent Orange, Napalm, anti-personnel devices.
4. My personal favorite: neutron bombs. Supposedly we didn’t build them, but I have my doubts.
5. GPS-guided cruise missiles, nanotechnology enhanced exoskeletons.
6. Not anthrax or small pox, though. That would be against the rules, fortunately. (But we’ve got the genomes just in case.)
7. And coming soon to a theater of war near you: autonomous killer robots.
Their sacrifice was not in vain. Battle fields are the testing grounds, the demonstration projects for the outcomes of our ingenuity. Where else would they let us try this stuff out? Every buck private is a Chuck Yeager in some modest, unconsenting way. And one thing leads to another, that’s progress: We needed to do a better job calculating the trajectories of artillery shells and bombs, so they build ENIAC. From those humble origins evolved your laptop.
Sure it starts out sad,
but look how far we’ve come.
And imagine where we might be
100 Memorial Days hence.
and their final sacrifice on behalf of country, freedom, security,
And technological innovation.
Let us know humanity by the ever-great efficiency and creativity
with which it visits death upon itself,
And wars by the salutary influence they have
on what we are pleased to call progress.
It’s been awhile since those wiley Greeks snuck into Troy
Inside a hobby horse. An early example of
technological artifice applied to surprise and kill the enemy.
Shakespeare enshrines Henry V and his band of brothers
But every schoolgirl knows it was the long-bow, newfangled and surprising,
That won the day at Agincourt.
What on earth is saltpetre? That key ingredient of gunpowder,
it sounds like something from a nursery rhyme.
As does blunderbuss.
Incremental innovation took us from the musket
on to the rifle, which sounds serious indeed
with its single helix on the inside that can keep a bullet
spinning straight and true right into the enemy’s heart.
Long before The Matrix we needed guns, lots of guns.
Back then, interchangeable parts and mass production became possible,
and therefore necessary.
We figured out how to do it on behalf of our soldiers.
How we all benefit from such advances now.
So much creativity unleashed; even the tinkerers beget death.
It was all of eleven years from Kitty Hawk until the first bomb was dropped from a plane.
And a mere 31 more to the Enola Gay. (Although those casualties were civilian
And thus, strictly speaking, not the subject of today’s encomium).
(And speaking of civilian casualties, did you know that most of the killing of Jews during World War II was done through simple means like a bullet in the head,
malnutrition, disease and starvation, or a simple bludgeon? The old, traditional ways can still be effective - especially if the enemy is unarmed - though we memorialize the gas chambers because they were the latest technological marvel. I thank the historian David Edgerton for bringing this point to my attention.)
So, some recent history in a nutshell:
1. Machine guns, tanks and mustard gas.
2. High altitude bombers, proximity fuses, V1 and 2.
3. Supersonic fighters, Agent Orange, Napalm, anti-personnel devices.
4. My personal favorite: neutron bombs. Supposedly we didn’t build them, but I have my doubts.
5. GPS-guided cruise missiles, nanotechnology enhanced exoskeletons.
6. Not anthrax or small pox, though. That would be against the rules, fortunately. (But we’ve got the genomes just in case.)
7. And coming soon to a theater of war near you: autonomous killer robots.
Their sacrifice was not in vain. Battle fields are the testing grounds, the demonstration projects for the outcomes of our ingenuity. Where else would they let us try this stuff out? Every buck private is a Chuck Yeager in some modest, unconsenting way. And one thing leads to another, that’s progress: We needed to do a better job calculating the trajectories of artillery shells and bombs, so they build ENIAC. From those humble origins evolved your laptop.
Sure it starts out sad,
but look how far we’ve come.
And imagine where we might be
100 Memorial Days hence.
About the Author: Dan Sarewitz is co-director
of CSPO.
