U.S. priorities favor investing in wartime technology to develop better killing machines

Once again, the United States has proven itself to be rather ingenious when it comes to war machine technology. There's nobody in the world better at dreaming up ways to fight technology-assisted wars than the United States. We have Pentagon-sponsored robotics competitions, remote-controlled recon aircraft, and guided missiles that broadcast video right up to the moment of impact with civilian targets. We are, indeed, a nation of war mongering gadget freaks.

But where is all this heading? While other countries focus on peacetime technologies -- like Japan's research into household robots -- the U.S. spends money on developing technology that makes it easier to kill people. Japan makes smart cars. We make smart bombs. Japan wants its robots to assist the elderly. The U.S. wants to build battlefield terminators so it can wage wars all over the world without having to send humans to do the job.

It's a stark contrast in political philosophy. Over the last few years, the U.S. has become a war machine: we've upped investment in wartime industry, we've encouraged inventors to create better war machines, and we're spending unprecedented funds on missiles and bullets. As always, you get what you pay for: we are now a nation of war, and the only way the U.S. knows how to get anything done in the international arena is to launch an invasion. In a throwback to the 20th century, diplomacy has apparently been abandoned in favor of violence.

With all the smart engineers available in the U.S., it's a shame to see their talents wasted on building exoskeletons for use by U.S. soldiers. Sure, they say the same technology could be used by firefighters, but that's just an afterthought. The mission is clearly to build superhuman soldiers: the fighting elite, the superior killing machine. Hitler would have been proud. Heck, this stuff is better than the V-2 rocket!