Keeping debunked and refuted data past their expiration date is also a problem. — Vera Mont

What is refutable about Russia having nuclear powers and proving it can deliver? Sputnik proved the USSR had the ability to deliver a nuclear bomb. That is what justified the change in education, and IQ testing so teachers could select out those best suited for hirer education. That was not only a drastic change in the purpose of education but also a change in how we value people. What makes that history debunked and refutable?

No, however many times to repeat the claim, you Obviousl. You went from a hodge-podge of state, municipal, private, religious and trades education to something more nearly coherent. Education was always aimed at producing whatever kind of work-force the economy required. — Vera Mont

You are in a philosophy forum. What do you think education for good moral judgment is?

The survival game (in whatever cultural setting, tribal, Western-industrial, pastoralism, farming, whatever), IS the "comply" part. If the person born into the survival-game doesn't like that game, they have no choice but to starve to death, free ride, etc. or kill themselves. It DOESN'T MATTER what the contingent social game the person is born into, imposing ANY game (arrangement of survival) is what is wrong. UNLESSS the game was LITERALLY someone's individualized idea of what a utopia is (one where even being bored doesn't exist), then forcing this arrangement of comply (with the game, any game) or die is wrong to do to someone else. That is what one is doing when procreating another person into the world... forcing them to comply with the game (of survival of ANY variety tribal, industrial, Robinson Crusoe, or otherwise) or die. That again, is wrong. — schopenhauer1

I don't know. The US seems to have a lot of freedom and I would rather live with the benefits of a good economic system than without them.

Vera Mont
248
here you go again making a statement about something you know nothing about
— Athena

And your source of information for my absolute abysmal ignorance - besides my failure to agree with you is....?

The internet is the result of the 1958 National Defense Education Act and this applies directly to the subject of this thread.
— Athena

Okay. So all you need to fix the problems created by automation since the 1960's is to hop in your time machine and reset the US education system to 1957. — Vera Mont

You do not have to agree with me, but throwing out information because it is old is a problem. In your defense, I had a professor who rejected all research that was not in the Abstracts and was more than 10 years old. Perhaps you have a college education that taught you to reject information more than 10 years old.

:rofl: For sure if education had not changed in 1958, we would not be where we are today. The logic for this is the same as saying if the couple did not have sex 9 months earlier they would not have a baby. Education is like a genii in a bottle. The defined purpose is the wish and the students are the genii. We changed the purpose, the wish in 1958.

We went from education for good moral judgment to leaving that to the church. We went from education for independent thinking to "group think". We went from using the Conceptual Method to using the Behaviorist Method which can also be used for training dogs.

The changes were made in part because those in power thought the change was an improvement, and in part to advance technology as rapidly as possible and prepare everyone for a technological society with unknown values. That is not all bad, but ignorance of what was done is a problem because our liberty and democracy are not being defended in the classroom and we are shifting to a police state, and worse, an uncontrolled information age where China's TikTok has raised serious national security concerns and we are not prepared to talk about our changing reality.

https://apnews.com/article/technology-china-united-states-national-security-government-and-politics-ac5c29cafaa1fc6bee990ed7e1fe5afc

Of course I get what you are saying, because that is what I am saying. Complying is not JUST one arrangement (the modern Western capitalist economic system). It can be any system related to survival (like a tribal or Robinson Crusoe economy). It doesn't matter what arrangement you are causing (imposing) on the new person born, you are still imposing an arrangement that cannot be gotten out of except through degradation or suicide. This is not right to do to someone. — schopenhauer1

:cheer: Oh goody, a real philosophical debate. Is the imposing structure evil? I think you have clarified the force that makes us as we are is external. Is that correct?

In a tribe where everyone knows everyone, there are no formal laws and law enforcers, but everything happens on a personal level, and that personal level includes our relationships, so if you hurt my child, that child's father will deal with you, and if care for me when I am sick, or save my child from drowning I will owe you. I don't think that is the structure you are talking about. I think you are talking about a formal structure with written laws and law enforcers. These are very different realities despite the effort to use the gods or the one god to make people conform to an informal, cultural structure and use education to transmit information about being a good person.

The Hebrews faced a social conflict when they shifted from herding and communally sharing the land to farming and owning private property. Now instead of sharing everything in common, there are some rich people and some poor people. Genghis Khan was 100% opposed to settling in one place and private ownership of land. He commanded his people to never settle down and begin accumulating things and never chose religion over another. Did Genghis Khan have a higher standard of morality?

The concepts of heaven/hell are based on an :down: overlord :down: . Some people like being lorded over and others do not. — praxis

Actually those concepts came up in Greek philosophy as did the understanding of democracy.

Hades, the underground realm, is a place we all must go to get a sense of meaning. But a person should never go there without the help of the gods because it is so likely a person will get lost in Hades. To be lost in Hades is to suffer depression and worse mental disorders such as becoming a psychopath.
A person can talk with the dead by bringing a sheep to the entrance of Hades, digging a hole, and then slitting the sheep's throat and letting the blood flow into the hole. Then a dead person can drink it and you can talk with this person because life is in the blood.

A perfectly rational explanation of reality don't you think? But then came men such as Hippocrates who argued it is not the gods that make people behave strangely but they do so because of biological reasons and thinking like that pulled the Greeks further and further away from silly superstitions, until the Christians and their book of God's truth and explanation of demons and good and evil. Thank goodness for Christianity's stand against superstition. :wink:

I don't see that. — T Clark

From the OP.

The other is the opposite. Hell. It is a hostile environment with limited resources and dangers abound everywhere. Every day is a struggle to survive.

Both domes are opaque and soundproof, nothing is known of the "beyond" outside. However the domes are not impenetrable and can be escaped given the right methods - through trial and error, a dedicated effort. — Benj96

Now imagine you are in hell and that is all you know. What do you see? What do you experience?

Actually, you can not do know a reality you have not experienced and you can not unknow what you know.

An important question might be what makes us as we are? Are we born as we are or do we become who learn to be?

The reality of a serfs life was pretty bad and yet for a long time they did not flee.

Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Wikipedia

That is a long time in hell and you would accept it because you would fear burning in hell if you rebelled against the reality God gave you and if you could not feed your children you may walk them into the forest far enough, they hopefully would not find their way back home.

Not all of education is relevant to the current topic. Not even Eisenhower is relevant to the topic - too far outdated. — Vera Mont

There you go again making a statement about something you know nothing about. We can not go on like this. There is so much information you reject before learning anything about it, that it is futile to continue. Maybe in the morning I will read more carefully what you have said and possibly find something worth my time to think about.

The change in education is about military technology developed in WWII. The internet is the result of the 1958 National Defense Education Act and this applies directly to the subject of this thread. If you don't want to know anything stop replying to what I say with explanations of why you will ignore it. :roll:

Meaning this arrangement (of working or death) should never be imposed onto someone else. — schopenhauer1

But working or death is imposed on all living things. You might get what I am saying if your survival depended totally on yourself.

Here we are in our own dome imagining, inventing, hoping for, fearful of something outside of the world we experience every day. Why wouldn't people in the hypothetical domes described in the OP do the same? — T Clark

Because their reality is not equal to ours. They do not experience life as we do so they can not have the consciousness we have.

You don't need a far-fetched thought experiment to get your answer. Just look at the world. People leave places where they are suffering from starvation, oppression and poverty to go to places they think will be better all the time. For examples see the US's southern border, the border between Russia and Kazakhstan, and the Mediterranean Sea between northern Africa and Europe. — T Clark

In the real world, those fleeing people believe there is a better reality and those in the Hell dome would believe their reality is the only one.

While those in the Heaven dome, would be curious. That is the human trait that pushes us beyond all borders and since all they know is goodness that is what they would expect.

it’s not even ethical to have children because it’s forcing them into complying (aka working) or kill themselves through slow degradation or suicide. You have to expand what is the scope of the human negative experience.

You’re a dbag if you think this an acceptable arrangement to cause for other people (imposition). So it’s not automation, it’s the very job itself that is unethical.
@Bret Bernhoft@Agent Smith@Joshs
a day ago — schopenhauer1

It looks like you got a lot of agreement but I am not sure Mother Nature would agree with you. All life has to work and compete for a living and especially humans need a challenge or they get bored. I know many people think heaven would be a great place, but I am not so sure of that. I think what we think about life is mostly a matter of attitude. What would be better than what we have?

I see where you're coming from. It's very simple, isn't it? After all, (our) liberty is at risk. What's needed is a good education for our children and we'll be ok. Democracy, by the way, is a wonderful system and I'm glad you're for it. — Agent Smith

Hey, are you interested in what philosophy had to do with democracy and education? Because of challenges to what I have said, I opened my books and got better information. and now I am eager to use it. For me, these forums are like going to college. We all have to find our own books, but then we come here and share what we have learned with our peers and develop our ideas. That is what makes democracy superior- all the individual growth that is made possible by communication using the past and present to become enlightened. :heart:

In the home is where early imprinting, domestication, internalization of social roles, and world-view formation take place. All in the first 3-5 years. By the time children enter school, their attitudes and self-image are established. — Vera Mont

True and not the whole truth. Children's peers and media can have a very strong effect on shaping the child. Consider the millions of dollars spent on advertising products to children and millions of dollars made from movies for children. Schools are social institutions filled with peers and they are essential to transmitting culture.

If you want to discuss education, I would love to share the information in my books but if I go to the work of quoting them, I do not want my effort ignored.

There is truth in the rest of your paragraphs but not enough information. You made it a choice to ignore information and that means not being aware of how much information you know nothing about.

Do you really see liberty, equality and justice "for all" in the actual practices of US legislatures, judiciaries and social organizations through the nation's history? If you want to delve into the philosophy on which the United States was founded, do so. But do it honestly. Democracy? — Vera Mont

I most definitely see women, people of color, and people who fit differently in the gender spectrum have a very different reality today than in the past and we wouldn't be here without the education to get here. And we wouldn't be here if military and industrial technology needs had not changed education. I know the federal government had very little to do with education before 1958 and that since WWII the federal government has had much more power to affect education. I know in the past few people stayed in school beyond the 8th grade. There is a lot to talk about but what is the point if one of us is going to ignore information?

If you want to delve into the philosophy on which the United States was founded, do so. But do it honestly. Democracy? — Vera Mont

I will overlook that you inferred I am not being honest, and react to the possibility that there is some sincerity in your invitation to discuss the philosophy that made democracy different from despotic nations and made our education about manifesting individual power and authority. Which is it? Do you want to ignore the information or are you sincerely interested? I don't think many people know what Athens and philosophy had to do with education in the US before the National Defense demand for education for philosophy became the priority. I think a new thread might be in order.

By the way, before the war to save the union, the North attempted to bring about peace by using education to end slavery, but the South caught on and began producing its own textbooks to transmit a culture supportive of slavery. Our nation has had culture wars from the beginning and education was used by opposing sides to manifest opposing cultures. But we could also point out Athens was not perfect and had slavery and sexism and economic disparity. Reality is all yin and yang opposites. Our materialism is an evil from the beginning of dividing the world into this or that, good or evil, true of false, black or white. Not seeing the interactions of life.

I could be wrong but it appears to me no one posting is literate in classical philosophy. That means the consciousness here is limited to a place, the US or a compatible country, and the poster's lifetime. That is a very limited perspective. Please correct me if I am wrong.

If we can one day create general AI, we would for sure need to reconsider what it is to be human - a can of worms but you already knew that. — Agent Smith

That statement does not go well with democracy, rule by reason. I have complete faith that human beings can be well educated and refined and a pleasure to be with. I have worked with congnitively challenged people who can not learn as well as those who attend college, but can be socialized to be a pleaure to be with. They just lack the ability to make reasonable arguments, so they are not intellectually stimulating.

I think the biggest human failure is lack of caring about education and what is possible, and not being well informed about what makes a person pleasant or unpleasant. I don't think AI will ever have human motivations and I am totally shocked by the people who are willing to give up our liberty to be ruled by AI.

In that case, I'm with Pink Floyd. — Vera Mont

I am sorry. I don't know enough about Pink Floyd to know what you mean.

Of course they are. How it works is: from 2-6 years old, you tell a kid that if he's a good little boy and eats all his beef, Santa will bring him nice, expensive presents - and he can hear what his lawyer daddy thinks of the Black janitor whose kid doesn't get such nice presents from Santa. Evidently, Santa, who is a fat old white man, only likes the children of successful people. After age 6, you tell him that success depends on good grades. Get into a good college (all except twelve being not-so-good colleges) and that success is a corner office and a six-figure salary. And all around him, he can see that it's true. Then you tell him that all those people in the parentheses want to take away his nice stuff. — Vera Mont

That is not what happened in my home and I don't think it is what happens in many homes. You are also speaking of people's private lives, not public education. It sure does not come up in the school books I have collected.

I didn't miss it. I ignored it. The 'philosophy' that a nation practices, and on which it bases its daily commercial transactions, political activities, law-enforcement, social organization, housing arrangements, employment practices, health-care delivery and child-raising is not the same philosophy it carves into the lintels of officious buildings and the plinths of statues. — Vera Mont

If you are intentionally ignoring all the philosophies behind our education and the foundation of democracy, there is no point in continuing this discussion because your reasoning is lacking too much information. When we intentionally ignore someone, isn't the ignore- ance?

I also like Pantagruel's answer. Gets right to the point and succinctly.

Speaking for myself, machines & humans can be symbiotically integrated (cyborgs) for, well, mutual benefit. It doesn't have to be a competitive, our relationship, it can be cooperative. — Agent Smith

Star Trek's Borg.

The Borg are an alien group that appear as recurring antagonists in the Star Trek fictional universe. The Borg are cybernetic organisms (cyborgs) linked in a hive mind called "the Collective". The Borg co-opt the technology and knowledge of other alien species to the Collective through the process of "assimilation": forcibly transforming individual beings into "drones" by injecting nanoprobes into their bodies and surgically augmenting them with cybernetic components. The Borg's ultimate goal is "achieving perfection".[1][2] — Wikipedia

Employers are now using their computers to monitor their employees. China uses cell phones to monitor their citizens. The technology is just as much bureaucratic technology as it is a mechanical technological advancement. The US adopted the German model of bureaucracy that shifts power away from individuals to the collective, our governmental bureaucracy. At present China is more authoritarian but if we stay on our present technology path, the US may be as controlled as the Chinese.

Star Trek also repeated the theme of computer-controlled societies and plenty of people today will gladly give up our liberty for the more perfect computer control of us imperfect humans. Our present bureaucratic order is very close to a computer-controlled society like the Borg. Just because it is humans working on computers, it does not mean what we are creating is not a mechanical control of our society.

Has anyone read "PowerShift" by Alvin Toffler, Today's technology gives a whole new meaning to knowledge is power.

You choose to limit it to the city states, and exclude Alexander? — Vera Mont

Yes. Alexander was not representative of Athens and the city-states around Athens.

Throughout history, nothing has been more powerful than education.
— Athena

Except religion, nationalism, ambition, greed, paranoia and pride. The chiefest among these is greed, most especially greed for territory - more land! their land! and all the black and gold stuff stuff under it! It's all for us. — Vera Mont

I count religion as education and I see all beliefs in the gods as religion. It is what Athens defended when they killed Socrates and what Rome defended when it persecuted Christians and later what Christians defended when they destroyed the pagan temples. Mythology is essential to large unites of humans and it is transmitted from generation to generation. That is education.

I don't know if nationalism was part of education. That just doesn't sit right with me. I believe people had a sense of us and them, but I would not call that learned nationalism. How do you think nationalism was taught? Ambition, greed, and paranoia are taught? How does that work? That sure was not being taught in the old-school books I have, however, I do see those problems as an unintended consequence of the 1958 change in education.

Just so. And where do these ideals of education originate? — Vera Mont

Did you miss the explanation that education comes from philosophy? Maybe we should go back and cover that more carefully?

No, that got the christians thrown into Roman prisons. Much later, Constantine imposed Christianity - or some Romanized form thereof - onto Europe. That still didn't bring on the dark age. The dissolution of the Roman empire did. — Vera Mont

I don't think you're chronology is correct. Christians did not attack anyone until after Constantine legitimaized their religion and then they started killing each other because Romans lacked a word to express the concept of a god having 3 aspects, so worshipping the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost was seen as worshipping 3 gods, not 1 god. This subject is so important perhaps we should tackle it separately. It looks like my thread about how the Greeks and Romans were different must be in a history forum, not this one. We have a couple of disagreements because of not recognize the important differences between Athens and Rome. I will gladly open a thread for examining the differences between the Greeks and the Romans.

Yes, the Roman Christians did bring on the Dark Age. This will become more obvious when examing the differences between Athens and Rome. Did you know Greek Jews wrote the first Bible and they had very different words and concepts than the Romans? Jesus is the word, or logos, is a Greek concept and it goes with seeking universal truth. Christianity is Hellenized Judaism. Rome's quest for power and glory was a different thing. Constantine was interested in winning wars and he saw Christianity as helpful to that goal. He also moved his empire east where gold was more accessible and trade routes were better. He needed military strength to do that. That had nothing to do with the Greek Jew's acceptance of Jesus as the word. Rome was not the intellectual leader that Athens was and Athens was not an empire.

No, it's a result of all the history that went before, of the condition of the world today and of the general craziness of our race. Education has a little part in what happens in the big world; it's not pivotal. — Vera Mont

You and I strongly disagree on this point. Throughout history, nothing has been more powerful than education. That education may be Homer or the Bible or the classics of Schalsticiam, or intentionally transmitting a secular culture for democracy and liberty coming out of the Age of Enlightenment, or the education can be focused on technology for military and industrial purposes as was so for Prussian-led Germany. Whatever the purpose of education that is what a nation will manifest.

Or to quote John Dewey "If we reflect upon the various ideals of education that are prevalent in the different countries, we see that what they all aim at is to organize capacities for conduct." This was so since the earliest civilization but back in the day, it was stories of the gods that manifested the various cultures. Greeks moved away from that and Christians brought us back to education for a culture.

In all the Greek city-states, except for Sparta, the purpose of education was to produce good citizens. Children were trained in music, art, literature, science, math, and politics. — mrdonn

Homer and the stories of the gods were essential reading like the Bible is essential to Christians.

In Rome, Christians destroyed the pagan temples that were places of learning. That threw the West into the Dark Age, leaving only Christianity to provide an education and guilds that taught a trade. While in the East, ongoing learning gave Islam a golden age of growth and prosperity.

I want to point out the argument about education and the Greeks having city-states not an empire, are the same argument. This is about power and authority and liberty or the lack of all three.

The Greeks also had an empire - a big one - that fell. And the Romans also left behind a sizeable cultural legacy. Plus some amazing roads. Why cherry-pick? They were both admirable and abominable. — Vera Mont

After you check out this link we can discuss why the Greek city-states were not an empire equal to the Roman empire. https://www.britannica.com/topic/city-state . Surely this difference and the history weighed heavily on Lincoln's mind when he determined to enter a war to save the union. Ever since the civil war, the federal government has become more and more powerful, diminishing the power of sovereign states. I am not sure this movement toward a military empire like Rome is desirable. Nor am I sure it is not desirable. But I think the glory of Rome is not exactly what the United States set out to manifest.

What the Greeks had was more like what the Iroquois had than an empire like Rome.

The Iroquois (/ˈɪrəkwɔɪ/ or /ˈɪrəkwɑː/), officially the Haudenosaunee (/ˌhoʊdinoʊˈʃoʊniː/[3][4] meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to the French as the Iroquois League, and later as the Iroquois Confederacy. The English called them the Five Nations, comprising the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca (listed geographically from east to west). After 1722, the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora people from the southeast were accepted into the confederacy, which became known as the Six Nations. — Wikipedia

I think what the colonist had in mind was a confederation of sovereign states. For darn sure not all states are pleased with the laws and influence the federal government is imposing on them.

Good. The fabled Athenians, Pericles' vaunted Athens, engaged in war, international trade, slavery, patriarchy, money-lending, Saturday night pub brawls, political infighting and hypocrisy with as much gusto as every other nation-state on the face of the Earth. So did the fabled young American Republic. When you idealize a shining moment as if it were a sustained condition, you fail to see the grubby century in which it was a moment of importance. — Vera Mont

We have come a long way. I speak against the 1958 National Defense Education Act, but the shift to a focus on technology did increase equality. Women gained rights that western culture never before gave them. People of color are more protected by the law than they ever have been and we have extended this protection to people who are homosexual or fall in different places in the gender spectrum. In Oregon, everyone is fed and we are going for providing medical care for everyone as well. Instead of arresting homeless people and driving them away, we are making serious efforts to shelter everyone. Before these efforts to be better human beings, we educated everyone, and with vocational training in 1917 that meant the masses had far more opportunities for upward economic mobility than ever before. These are the result of technology and also the result of democracy and the notion that education can improve the human and the improved humans can lead to an improved society, lifting the human potential.

Pointing to what you believe are faults, seems to blind you and those who have the same perspective, from seeing the good of our democracy and the hope of the future that democracy will continue to lift the human potential. I see huge improvement in how we live and this is the result of the characteristics of democracy being taught. At the same time, I see social chaos and mass murders, and the development of a police state, that is what we defended our democracy against. I say this unfortunate turn is also the result of education for a technological society with unknown values, and intensionally ending the transmission of our culture to our children through our education system. This is a conflict between Christians and secular people and a battle for a national future between those who have faith in humans and those who do not.

Fortunately, we have this forum and the opportunity to examine what is and what can be.

As I see it, morals mostly express human values, not facts. Morals are not true or false, they work or they don't. Where do those values come from? I think some are inborn and some are learned. — T Clark

Agreed - I think that just because something is illegal doesn't mean it cannot be moral in certain circumstances, and that some things that are legal can be immoral in certain circumstances.

But it is different when considering the existence of moral facts. Moral facts could be vague, or very specific, and could be applied by a virtuous person in novel ways. There would be room for creativity, even, when considering the application of moral facts in a way that we don't have when considering the application of some of the very specific laws we have. — ToothyMaw

I like Clark's statement that a moral statement expresses a value, not a fact, but our moral judgment is better with science. Time and again civilizations have fallen because they could not provide enough for their unnaturally large populations, usually, the final blow being a climate change that led to famine. I think somewhere in that statement of fact there is a moral but the moral is something we can learn from history, not an inborn morality. I think our destruction of rivers, lakes, and now the oceans, and other environments, is very immoral. The harm we have done to our planet is causing conditions that are deadly and should we be held accountable for that, given we were ignorant of the damage we were causing?

I think much of our behavior is controlled the same as other animals' behaviors are controlled by hormones and survival needs. Native Americans are known to learn what we might call morals from animals. The book "The Science of Good and Evil" by Michael Shermer, explains why people cheat, gossip, care, share, and follow the golden rule by explaining animal behaviors. That is in agreement with Clark and the notion of inborn morality. But I have read taking care of children for 20 years is not normal and in one tribe 3-year-old children were left to fend for themselves when there was a serious food scarcity. We know today that in places like Afghanistan daughters can be sold, and in England, at the beginning of industrialization, starving people sold their children to factories. What we think of as only decent human behavior is the luxury of having full stomachs. I don't know how to word that moral but we would be very foolish to ignore the importance of feeling physically and emotionally safe. Hunger can revert us back to a less kind, less civilized struggle for survival.

I have a different perspective, and use - as you have seen - different source material.
Matters won't get worse from argument; they won't get better from refusal to engage; odds are, they won't change at all. I'm open to any of those eventualities. — Vera Mont

Yes, you have a different perspective and think it is the perspective of your cohort which is different from the perspective my cohort, A cohort being a period of history that shapes our consciousness. You remind me of the introduction to a very old textbook that explains people in a democracy can be very critical of democracy and then the book goes on to explain democracy and how our criticism is about resolving problems, not a desire to destroy our democracy and replace it with something else. I am just not sure your cohort has the rest of the explanation of democracy.

You sure do not know the military might we have today is not what we had in the past. We did not always feel responsible for supporting democracy around the world and we were very resistant to giving tax dollars to the military. When Eisenhower first served the Defense Department, his wages were so low he rode the bus to work.

Joseph Campbell said mythology is about teaching the young how to be good citizens and that we need to share a mythology for psychological, social, and political reasons. The US created its own mythology and passed it on to its young until 1958. Then education for technology destroyed that mythology and the national heroes that went with it. Technology has drastically changed the benefits of those serving in the military.

Joseph Campbell said Star Trek is the closest thing we have to a helpful mythology. The social organization of Star Trek is more like Plato's Republic than the family of gods and the mythology of the gods, which did organize Athens when Socrates was poking holes into what people believed.

You and I disagreed about the changing role of technology and war, and I want to point out that the Greeks and Romans both had war gods, but they had different ideas about the good or bad of a war god. The Greeks spread a culture that has endured. The Romans spread an empire that fell. We might admire Roman accomplishments, but the Romans depended on Athens for their technology, like the Borg takes technology. The US is becoming like the Borg but in the past, it did stand for God, family, and Country. Forgetting what we stood for means we have fought every war for nothing.

Oh I disagree. I think you're doing a very good job of explaining your qualms to the forum contributors. Philosophy is for everyone, it's a discussion, the minute we think it is a speciality, elite subject or something that requires some certificate or qualification then true organic philosophy does on that table.

And thank you for throwing me into this quandary by leaving me the argument against the ideal.
— Athena

"An" ideal to be sure. Nobody knows exactly what ought to be the true ideal to pursue. Hence the existence of such forums no? To explore eachothers thoughts, experiences and personal input into the great argument so that we may gather the facts, beliefs and interactions neccesary to hopefully see the wood from the trees.

Yes and certainty is a very difficult thing to capture. Just when one things they have ultimate certainty someone throws a wrench in the cogs and we are left to consider the exceptions to such a case. I hope thanksgiving goes well for you and your family. Have a great celebration :) — Benj96

I just criticized Socrates for being defiant and foolish when his life was on the line, but being defiant can make a person deserving of being treated like a hero. You are so gracious to say we all need to be heard in our struggle to know truth and I certainly believe that is true of hearing the woman's voice. I think Socrates pushed for that and that we may owe him that daily meal given to heroes. I have always thought he stood for freedom of speech in the goal to know truth and he gave his life for that.

However, I am not sure if Socrates' and Plato's relationships with women were something I could value? This ties in directly with the women's liberation we have had, which to me, is more oppressive of the feminine element than what we had. I loved the Hippy period that raised our consciousness of the Gia, Earth, Mother goddess. My life and my children's lives would have been totally different if my husband at the time had also been caught up in that cohort's fascination with love and peace and valuing the mother as I did. Women being anything else may be masculine, not feminine? However, I did hear a leading woman in the space program use domestic terms to explain what is important about our space program. That is, just because a woman does what men do, she does not have to think totally as a man does but to be competitive she needs to think as men think. Plato's republic and the city being everyone's parent, while those in power are not organized by families, scares me because I think that is the path to tyranny.

I could be so wrong but I fear men bring us to tyranny and on the other hand women may retard technological progress? Those nations that advanced technology were patriarchies and I do not know of any matriarchy that advanced technology?

However, now I think of how age changes us. I wanted to be devoted to family but as my children aged and I aged, I wanted to be more active in the community, and like many women in my cohort, we thought we would return to college and have careers when the children were old enough. To our horror, our husbands were not supportive of that. Later in life, I regret I did not embrace math and science when I was young. But I also think my human experience would not have been complete without going through the mother stage. What do I mean by a human experience? A well-rounded emotional trip with changing relationships as we all age and in time become our parent's caregivers. I have concerns that technology and materialism are disconnecting us from the human experience? And maybe that concern is more on topic.

The tyrants were forced from power before they could punish Socrates, but in 399 he was indicted for failing to honor the Athenian gods and for corrupting the young. Although some historians suggest that there may have been political machinations behind the trial, he was condemned on the basis of his thought and teaching.

So what is your point? Socrates' father was a sculptor and Socrates followed his father's profession. Having to work for a living is not as good as being wealthy because of owning property. As a sculptor, Socrates faced hazards to his health and the problem would have increased with age. Socrates could have avoided death, but I think his ego and old age problems saw his immortality rested in being put to death. Had he been a younger man, I think he would have chosen to save his life rather than his ego.

His trial was about being an offensive person, and his punishment was up to arbitration. He was voted guilty by a very narrow margin, but his suggestion that he be treated like a hero instead of punished resulted in increasing the number of people who voted against him in favor of the death penalty. I think his ego got the best of him, but that is what made him famous. Had he been less annoying, we may never have heard about him. The young would not have admired him. Sort of like Trump, he thrived on everyone talking about him and his act of defiance turned people against him.

It is said his philosophy career was begun by a desire to prove the oracles wrong. Perhaps that annoyed the gods who then used men to end Socrates' life. That is not a serious statement, but I think Socrates was foolish at the moment and I don't think he cared if he died because old age is not nice to us.

This thread is about how technology changes our lives, and it was political technology that was changing the lives of Athenians. In the past, Socrates' would have been judged by the Oligarchy, but in Pericles' democracy, it is likely the majority of those who judged Socrates were farmers who would have stronger feelings about people knowing their place and staying in it, being conservative instead of a progressive out to change things, and even worse, acting as though he was entitled to the honor given a hero!

Whatever, I have totally enjoyed looking for more information and coming to new conclusions.

I have come across the claim in another thread that no moral claims are true because all extrinsic moral claims rely on unverifiable or untrue moral axioms and, thus, that the only truth moral claims are subject to is relational to other claims and the axioms those claims are based on; extrinsic justifications for moral claims just pass the buck until a(n) (incorrect) moral axiom is reached.

Therefore, if we cannot produce correct axioms, then we must have no objectively correct moral claims. — ToothyMaw

Your statement reminds me of an explanation of "ignorance of law is no excuse". That ancient consideration was about being a decent person and if someone did something really terrible, ignorance of a law did not excuse what the person did. It was an unforgivable violation of decent behavior that everyone should know.

Morality limited to "the law" is a very low morality. A higher morality is a good understanding of virtuous thinking and action. A moral is a matter of cause and effect and when a person does not have such reasoning, the person's mind is inadequate and the person needs to be under the authority of someone with better reasoning. Our liberty is protected with education to develop virtuous people with good reasoning.

Speaking against such education is immoral because there is a bad effect when such education is neglected.

You're absolutely correct. I agree. I was referring to how modern society pits the bread against the home. Which is a terrible shame as bread is made at home too. Whoever holds down the Fort enables others to go beyond it to fetch additional resources knowing the home is not going to fall into disarray without them. Again i do apologise if it came across as sexist it was not what I meant so I'm doing my best to clarify the context on which I meant the description — Benj96

Ah, now I love you. :heart: And thank you for leaving the argument against women staying home to care for the family to me.

When my children were teenagers during the 1970 recession, Dad walked out leaving me to take care of the home and support the family. I would have loved to have had a wife! It would have been wonderful to be able to focus on my job and how to maneuver into a career instead of trying to do it all. I would have loved to come home to a clean house and a meal and have someone else to resolve all the problems young people have. Old books advised women about taking care of everything so the man would be free to focus on his business or career.

When I was a member of the Cicero Society, I watched the older men coach a young man to assure his success. These men had wives who never left the home and their wives were like helpless children when it came to knowledge of the greater world. Fortunately for their wives, these men had stocks and their wives were well taken of when they died but I would not want to be one of them.

I have known older women who absolutely hated their husbands and were very thankful when their controlling and possibly abusive husbands dies. I have read a journalist's record of pioneer women who were passionate about the injustice they suffered when we went to war because of slavery but did nothing about the slavery they endured because we called their slavery marriage. Some of them could have been married off at age 14 to an older man who wanted someone to do his laundry and cook for him, and back in the day rape and abuse of a wife were sanctioned by law.

I was raised by a divorced mother and when I say women have the freedom of barbarians, I do not mean that as a good thing, because they can be forced by circumstances to work for very low wages and deal with all the problems of poverty when raising their children. Today that means more of them are homeless with their children and the assistance programs can not take care of all of them even though the lucky few needing help can receive much more assistance than in the past.

Something I regret about philosophy is the lack of women's voices. Many philosophers dealt with the education of children, but the mothers' perspective is missing. I think I have more words and experiences to say what is wrong with being a full-time homemaker than I have for the Dick and Jane or Leave it to Beaver models of the good family life.

I am struggling here, I do not know how to philosophically express the injustice of patriarchy and the value of matriarchy. The injustice of autocracy and the value of democracy. And thank you for throwing me into this quandary by leaving me the argument against the ideal.

:lol: And now I must rush out and buy the rest of the Thanksgiving Dinner that I must make for the helpless men in my life. No matter how hard we try, it seems nothing is that easy to explain with absolute certainty. :chin:

Oh I'm sorry Athena! :( I didn't intend it as an insult, honestly. Perhaps I need to reconsider how I explain myself.

I meant bread winner in the purely capitalist capacity which doesn't consider bread winning to involve raising a family (which ofc it ought to). It only uses sums (of money) as the "bread" for which I spoke in this case.
As in generating income for the family unit. As we know it's very difficult to stay at home and raise children while also having a full time job. Time is limited and we cannot do everything at once sadly. We must delegate responsibility for a family. — Benj96

No worry, I know you had no intention of offending and you get gold stars for your explanation of why you said what you did. :heart: Yes, it is today's capitalism that has our values really screwed up. But we should remember Adam Smith. He understood the importance of morality to economics and just assumed educated people would also be moral people and that it would be the educated people who ran the show.

By the time my second child was ready for kindergarten, I thought I was losing my mind and I absolutely had to get involved in the world outside of my home! I totally expected to complete my college education and have a career and help pay for children's educations. I found out too late I did not choose my husband as well as I thought I had. And so goes life. I will just leave this subject by saying someone needs to care for the children and there are sooo many good things a homemaker does, but we should not be limited to domestic responsibilities. Unfortunately, not all men are secure enough to allow their wives the freedom to actualize themselves outside of the home. At least that was so in the past. When men supported the family and women stayed home to care for them.

As you express the wisdom is not this or that, but this and that.

Benj96 — Benj96

Benj your input is essential to a better exchange of thought with @Vera Mont. Socrates was a poor man not one of the elite. People are not paid to think about how to raise human potential and yet we know of Socrates not many of the elites of Athens. Democracy is about education such as education for good moral judgment that Adams Smith assumed educated people would have and everyone becoming better human beings. This is not exactly a capitalist value.

I prefer something a little more up-to-date. It's fine that both the Greeks and Americans taught their upper-class boys patriotism, citizenship and Hellenistic and Christian values respectively. Sometimes, in Athens and New England... All I'm saying is that the pink rear-view mirror does not show the whole landscape in its true colours. As for militarism, there were boys of 12 in the Civil War and 14-year-olds enlisted in WWI. That's one side-effect of patriotic fervour I consider unfortunate. Maybe I have a few issues with your characterization of all public education since 1958, but there is no point going into that here.
Suffice it to say, no slant on education could ever have been evenly applied to all states, and whatever way the curriculum was tweaked, it would not have altered the course of technological development. — Vera Mont

You appear to have a very closed mind on this subject and I am afraid arguing with you will only make matters worse. I hope someday you are enlightened by the philosophy behind democracy and what education has to do with that.

Well I think it's a wonderful thing that mothers can now participate as true bread winners for the family, it must be incredibly empowering, almost on a par with the husband if not in some cases exceedingly so depending on their respective professions. But someone has to take care of the childers.
Its a fine balance indeed. I would personally be happy for a wife to succeed in her career while I raise the children. And I think that dynamic is increasing. A long awaited one. — Benj96

Whoo that was insulting! "true bread winners" :rage: Quick let me put on my philosopher's hat and see if I can deal with this like a reasonable person.

Exactly who do you think put food on the table in 1836? The woman was almost every industry needed to meet the family's needs. She likely made all the clothing, all the soaps for laundry and bathing, she of course washed those clothes, hung them on a line, and ironed them. She likely chopped her own wood for the cooking fire and if she was well informed she regulated the heat of her oven by using different woods. She planted and tended to the garden, harvested the food, and preserved it. Then she put the food on the table and people did not have the health concerns we have with processed foods. But speaking of health concerns, a well-informed woman knew the healing plants in her area and she took care of everyone, often without the help of a doctor. Everyone meaning not only her family and extended family but the sick and elderly people in the community as well. I considered my domestic skills were my contribution to the breadwinning and I enjoyed winning ribbons at the local fair :grin: and sitting on important decision-making committees.

The term "just a housewife" came up with women's liberation and it made me furious! I am not sure how we came to be so disrespected but it was in the air. At the same time, I was thinking other than providing a paycheck our husbands were rather useless because progress had also reduced the need for a man. We were no longer afraid of being attacked by Native Americans, and the only time I held a gun was to protect a friend from her abusive husband, so how did we get through this period of time with men having a hirer status than women?

Throughout history, women held things together when men went to war, and some of them were just as good on the battlefield. Today, I think it is clearly women who are advancing civilization and I think it was the grandmas who got us on the track of civilization.

Money is a part of life, but not the only thing of value.

Are you saying the 1958 National Defense Education Act was not a fundamental change?
— Athena

Yes, I am. It's not the 'after' picture I disagree with, but the 'before'.
Education in the US was modeled after Athens's education for well-rounded individual growth.
— Athena
Where? When? How long? For which children?

Apprenticeships began in America in the 1600's and was an early form of education. Since coming to the New World, the Puritans were needing skilled workers. These apprenticeships were developed to teach young boys a trade that they would continue into adulthood.
Need we mention the vast differences in church-sponsored education, in racially segregated education, in income levels? I think we do need to mention child labour:
Forms of child labor, including indentured servitude and child slavery, have existed throughout American history. As industrialization moved workers from farms and home workshops into urban areas and factory work, children were often preferred, because factory owners viewed them as more manageable, cheaper, and less likely to strike.
The National Child Labor Committee’s work to end child labor was combined with efforts to provide free, compulsory education for all children, and culminated in the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which set federal standards for child labor.
This makes the 1958 reform just another step in 20-year process. — Vera Mont

If you are really interested in the history of education you will love reading Paul Monroe, Ph.D.'s book "A Text Book on the History of Education published in 1910 or James Mulhern's book "A History of Education" copyright in 1946 and 1959. I am sure there are more but these are the ones I have and you should be glad to know how mucheducation is the result of philosophy from ancient times and increasingly so with Descartes, Locke,Spinoza, and Hobbes. Those who know only education for technology, for military and industrial purposes, and totally new and different experiences of education, and therefore a new and different experience of being humans.

You love philosophy so you should love knowing the Greeks debated such things as can a person learn ethics? At what age can they learn? There was a time when the Greeks thought only by age 30 were they ready for such education compared to the pope who said something like "Give me a child until age 6 and we will have him for life", which goes better with the philosophers I mentioned and their focus on education for good ethics. Something I come to appreciate even more, since reading Confucius and his contemporaries who were concerned with training one's self to be highly ethical.

It is very hard to answer you in a post short enough for people to read. Would you like to focus on 1635 and the Latin school, versus religiously controlled schools? That is where things get very interesting. Enlightenment versus Christianity.

How about passages from the 1917 National Education Association Conference? That book makes my heart swell with patriotic feelings. It really gave me a passion for education for democracy.

"The National Child Labor Committee’s work to end child labor was combined with efforts to provide free, compulsory education for all children, and culminated in the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938, which set federal standards for child labor."

Child labor is shocking and that might be a problem because it could throw us in denial of the wrongs of autocratic industry that killed the children's mothers and fathers. The sin is complete disrespect for the well-being of others. We had child labor laws before that. And that sin is devoid of the thousands of years of philosophy that are available to us. :grin:

I think I have to stop working. It is interfering too much with my time for answering you. I really want to discuss the child labor act that kept children out of mines and industries during school hours and how industry tried to close the schools as we mobilized for WWI, claiming the war caused a labor shortage and they were not getting their monies worth from education because they still to train labors and what technology and war had to do with keeping the schools open.

I say it wasn't a fundamental change but a stage. — Vera Mont

Are you saying the 1958 National Defense Education Act was not a fundamental change? Education in the US was modeled after Athens's education for well-rounded individual growth. That is the complete opposite to education that specializes in everyone. I can not think of anything that could change the US more radically than going from education for well-rounded individual growth to specialization.

Pericles of Athens spoke of the importance of being well-rounded in a democracy where the people hold the power to make their own laws or change them as needed. When people are specialized they must rely on the experts instead of trusting their own authority. A democracy needs people interested in many things so they can participate in a government that does many things.

Right now the US is experiencing culture wars and this is directly related to the change in education and ending the priority purpose of preparing everyone for good citizenship. We went from education for good moral judgment to amoral education, specifically so nothing would slow down our technological progress. We went from preparing everyone for independent thinking to "group think".

This is no longer the democracy we were. A decision that could be made in 15 minutes now takes months because of all the paper involved, and it is totally insane to think this is more efficient. Bureaucrats and teachers are so burdened with paperwork and so controlled by the policy, they have little time for anything else, like actually getting the work done. I would bet 5 years after covid is no longer an issue, we still have empty shelves in stores, and other obvious signs of a system breaking down because we have taken authority away from individuals who are now controlled by policy and paperwork. This is not the democracy we defended but what we defended our democracy against.

Does the technology not get used against civilians though? A drone dropping a bomb on a city may not be a human pilot, but the people the bomb is dropped on are still civilians all the same.

If the drone drops explosives on a purely technological and automated post then that is better in that people were not involved. But sadly tech operations and people (engineers/programmers/installers) are not inseparable. The tech doesn't arise out of thin air, so human victims are always a potential. — Benj96

And that is what is driving the spending on military technology. I should have saved the link I posted for this reply. It starts with air warfare and the nuclear bomb. Before those two things the US felt protected by the two oceans so it did not spend on developing a high-tech military force and it had a domestic education not education for technology.

Our lives did not change as rapidly as they are changing now and this changes everything. Constant rapid change disturbs the stability we need to feel in control of our lives. The whole ball game has been changed and Russia and China are threatening.

China has a much larger population than the US and this will mean many more highly intelligent college graduates. Not only will China have an advantage because of having a larger well-educated population but their eugenics program may assure China has more people born with a superior intelligence potential. With an interest in how technology is changing things, you might want to read this article about China's eugenics program. https://www.edge.org/response-detail/23838

Likewise. — Vera Mont

I am aware that the US has used military force for economic reasons and I have very strong feelings about Roman/Christian behavior that is unacceptable and based on an unjust belief in their superiority and entitlement. However, neither are the same as today's political/military actions. The goals were much smaller than they are today and they involve all of us more than in the past when the military conflicts were very small, compared to world wars and now world domination.

I am thinking the world wars, fundamentally changed the US attitude about war and this change is expressed in the 1958 National Defense Education Act. This is a good subject for a thread about technology changing our lives. I liken what the world wars did to the US with Athens after the Persian wars. Athens started forcing other city-states to continue paying tribute and the other city-states supported Sparta in crushing Athens. Leading Socrates and his followers to find fault with democracy.

United States focuses on military research and development
US military spending amounted to $801 billion in 2021, a drop of 1.4 per cent from 2020. The US military burden decreased slightly from 3.7 per cent of GDP in 2020 to 3.5 per cent in 2021.

US funding for military research and development (R&D) rose by 24 per cent between 2012 and 2021, while arms procurement funding fell by 6.4 per cent over the same period. In 2021 spending on both decreased. However, the drop in R&D spending (–1.2 per cent) was smaller than that in arms procurement spending (–5.4 per cent).

‘The increase in R&D spending over the decade 2012–21 suggests that the United States is focusing more on next-generation technologies,’ said Alexandra Marksteiner, Researcher with SIPRI’s Military Expenditure and Arms Production Programme. ‘The US Government has repeatedly stressed the need to preserve the US military’s technological edge over strategic competitors.’ — STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL PEACE RESEARCH INSTITUTE

The more fundamental truth of things doesnt change with time otherwise it wouldn't be the truth of the matter would it? And wisdom I guess is being able to define those same base values in a system or society that is forever changing. — Benj96

Back to your statement. What is the truth we are talking about? We are in dangerous territory now because what is true in one culture may not be true in another culture. What may be true at one point in history may not be true at another point in history.

In the past wisdom of elders was appreciated but with our technology today, who asks anything of a grandparent instead of going online to get the information? You know a teacher will value online research more than what a grandparent says. Oh, oh and painfully oh, often people do not agree about history. Were we White folk justified in enforcing segregation? In Isreal, you can be sure the Jews do not tell their children history the same way the Palestinians remember that history. These are very touchy things and we come to these truths with our different perspectives.

The challenge is to state a truth that is everyone's truth. You know what I mean? I think that is a huge challenge.

I have checked what I said about culture and grandparents. I was surprised to find so much information and enjoyed reading different reports. I need to check with my library about getting more information from the published papers.

America was never about family and God! It's always been about wealth, power and conflict. — Vera Mont

I think you are speaking of a very small percentage of the US population. I believe 100% that the great majority of US citizens were about family and most of them worked for very low wages, like my grandmother who was a teacher, and my mother who was a keypunch operator. Of course, being a teacher was much more meaningful to my grandmother's generation of teachers who thought they were defending our democracy in the classroom. Being a keypunch operator was just a way of paying rent and putting food on the table. I did not know my father until I was 18 and he 100% stood for the idea that women stay home and care for the family and the man supports the family. He did not get rich but as an engineer, but he certainly earned more than the women.

Not until women's liberation did women have equal rights to education and job opportunities. All economic and social factors assured we stayed home and cared for our families. Some women became teachers or nurses and they were not paid well. The increase in wages for women is amazing when compared to the past. But no one earned that much until after WWII. Fortunately, housing didn't cost that much and one wage was enough to support most families.

Your bias on what is important military information discourages me in discussing the military situation with you. I think it is a mistake to believe things are as they always were for the US.

The people that know us best - our strengths and weaknesses, are family, right? — Benj96

No, unfortunately, other things are happening. It seems the instinctual drive is social acceptance and status with one's peers. Also, it is common for young mothers to want distance from their mothers and heaven's forbid grandmas should give advice about raising children! Our wisdom gained by years of working with children, reevaluating ourselves, and seeing our youthful mistakes, are not appreciated! The research on mother-daughter relationships is new and I like what this one says. https://ct.counseling.org/2020/01/uncovering-the-root-cause-of-mother-daughter-conflict/
"I have concluded that society sets mothers and daughters up for conflict." I think that is especially so with the social changes we have been through.

This thread is about technology and employment but it very much could technology and family relationships and changed social order. I very much blame education for a technological society for the breakdown of the family and parent/child conflicts.

On the other hand, statistically, children who have involved grandparents have an advantage over those who don't. But during the teen years, grandparents tend to be unappreciated. Some of my friends have told me when the young adult gets older the relationship can become a good one again.

A grandchild can be as knowledgeable a book worm as they like in life but if they don't feel cared for, listened to, in this individualistic, materialist society they are growing up in then I'd imagine theyd feel pretty lonely and isolated. — Benj96

Oh yes, I am quite sure that is true. But it is not just the children and grandparents having this problem. Education for technology and what technology has done to our lives is hurting all relationships, and once in a while it has improved relationships! I love to see a father in the park with his children. I am hoping men will become better husbands and fathers. For bloody sure autocratic industrialization that took the father out of the home and held him in a hierarchy of power and exploited the laborer, harmed families as much as slavery did. Technology has taken the mother out of the home too. If the father is an active father, the technological family may do even better than in the past, If the father is not in the home, or is not helping in the home and with the children, things are worse. Our women have the freedom of barbarians and I do not mean that as a compliment.

The more fundamental truth of things doesnt change with time otherwise it wouldn't be the truth of the matter would it? And wisdom I guess is being able to define those same base values in a system or society that is forever changing. — Benj96

Now that is a true philosophical statement. I love it! :heart: I have to go to work. I will ponder what you said and look forward to getting back to you.

Not until after the capitalists broke all their toys and a millions of lives. I don't think they could have nationalized industry - or very much else - given the popular mind-set. Obviously, what call fascism is not quite congruent with my definition. — Vera Mont

How did the capitalists break the system? I think our economy goes up and down in relation to the supply of oil and its demand, the same as Rome's economy went up or down in relation to its supply of gold. Both of these economic swings are tied to military expenses. Advancing technology increases military expenses and that starts to hurt the taxpayers. That is a big problem with standing armies. If your economy depends on having military might, because the source of gold or oil you need is under the control of another nation, you have to have a good economy.

Prussians came to see the economy as a very important part of modern warfare, and for that definition of fascism...

Fascism
In terms of economics, fascism incorporates elements of both capitalism and socialism. Fascist economists advocate for self-sufficiency and individual profit, but promote government subsidies of corporations. Fascist economics thus supports a blend of both private and public ownership over the means of production—there is an emphasis on private profit, but at the same time, the national interest is ultimately more important.
https://home.heinonline.org/blog/2020/07/capitalism-socialism-or-fascism-a-guide-to-economic-systems-and-ideologies/

When was this? In which decades of its existence was the US not engaged in any armed conflict? — Vera Mont

I expected that reaction. Unfortunately, I can not copy and paste the charts of US military spending and I hope people follow the link and take a good look at the US commitment to war and military force. Our past commitment to military spending was nothing compared to what it is now. This is a huge change, huge! Please look at the charts. The US was known for its resistance to war, not the power of its military force.

Big War Spikes
There have been four major spikes in US defense spending since the 1790s.

Big Spikes in Defense Spending

Chart 2.33: Big Spikes in Defense Spending

Viewed across the two centuries of US power, defense spending shows four spikes. It spiked at nearly 12 percent of GDP in the Civil War of the 1860s (not including spending by the rebels). It spiked at 22 percent in World War I. It spiked at 41 percent in World War II, and again at nearly 15 percent of GDP during the Korean War.

Defense spending exceeded 10 percent of GDP for one year in the 19th century and 19 years in the 20th century. The last year in which defense spending hit 10 percent of GDP was 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War.

The peak of defense spending during the Iraq conflict was 5.66 percent GDP in 2010. — Christopher Chantrill

The founding fathers of the US feared standing armies and intentionally made it difficult for the US to go to war and they gave citizens control of the purse strings.
This is part of the US constitution....
Article I, Section 8, Clause 12:

[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; . . .
[/quote]

And I offer this evidence that the US was not interested in being the military power it is today...

https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/news/war-powers-resolution-1973#

War Powers Resolution of 1973

“...to fulfill the intent of the framers of the Constitution...and insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities."

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (also known as the War Powers Act) "is a congressional resolution designed to limit the U.S. president’s ability to initiate or escalate military actions abroad.” As part of our system of governmental “checks and balances,” the law aims to check the executive branch’s power when committing U.S. military forces to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress. It stipulates the president must notify Congress within 48 hours of military action and prohibits armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days.