The Peace Dividend

Whatever happened to looking for the Peace Dividend? What if the rampant prosperity in America these years is it? Money not spent on Defense gets spent on something. Research not sequestered into Defense applications gets loose into the world faster, and in pace with other events in technology and science. Policies not organized around paranoia can be organized around judicious optimism. The more former enemies there are, the more new customers and suppliers.

(Are Democrats getting credit for something that Republicans did? — -win and end the Cold War. But maybe Democrats are exactly who you want running things when a long debilitating war ends.)

Question: if the Peace Dividend is prosperity, is it a blip good for only a couple years, or is it a virtuous circle that goes on and on?

STEWART BRAND is founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, cofounder of The Well, cofounder of Global Business Network, cofounder and president of The Long Now Foundation. He is the original editor of The Whole Earth Catalog, author of The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT , How Buildings Learn), and The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility (MasterMinds Series).

Further reading on Edge: "The Clock of the Long Now" A Talk by Stewart Brand; and Chapter 3, "The Scout" in Digerati.

LINKS: Global Business Network; and The Long Now Foundation.