How the US military is responsible for almost everything in your iPhone

[twilyth]

Nearly all of the technology in many of the world's most ubiquitous electronic devices can be traced to a single, taxpayer-funded source: the US Department of Defense.

In an article promoted by the European Commission today, Italian economist Mariana Mazzucato wrote that sparking the world's economies after a long recession will require greater and riskier investment from government. She used Apple's wildly popular handheld devices as a present-day example.

The world's biggest company may have more cash on hand than many actual governments. But the technological breakthroughs behind its iconic iPods, iPhones, and iPads were funded almost exclusively by government agencies — and by one particular segment of one particular country's government.

As the chart below demonstrates, there's little in these devices that doesn't owe its existence to the US Department of Defense in some form or another.

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[Vario]

Yeah the government invents everything and no one comes up with this stuff on their own.

 

[AsRock]

And were do you think they get their money from . If only America could manage money as well as America manages American Football stats.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

DARPA and NASA are both responsible for a lot of breakthroughs. Relative to the larger federal budget, they get practically nothing (DARPA gets under $3 billion, NASA $18.4 billion out of $3,400 billion or 0.62% of federal spending).

 

[a_ump]

And were do you think they get their money from . If only America could manage money as well as America manages American Football stats.

Word

 

[patrico]

its a shame,, but war is one of the (if not the) biggest drivers of tech .. :/

and yep USA biggest war machine...... cash cow .......