You are low. You need to also include Homeland Security, parts of the FBI that do surveillance and para-military operations [i.e. HRT], as well, in my opinion, the VA. This number is discussed often. For example here. Additionally, it does not include any "black" off budget operations, including a big part of the NSA and CIA budgets, perhaps $50B. You simply can't look at only the defense industry.

The fact that it is declining in terms of GDP percentage doesn't mean that defense is shrinking, it means it's not growing as fast the overall budget or the economy. Which is to say, it's still growing in real dollars in most years.

Thanks for correct on Medical GDP. I apparently have not updated that number in my head since the last 1990's. Healthcare is another huge topic.

The bottom line is that it is ridiculous to think that the US would go to war based on the advocacy of any single company, or even the defense industry.
And this is because it's not the single biggest sector in the US economy? It is a huge boondoggle, with millions flowing through the government to private industries. And it's highly political. The defense industry has outsized influence.

Whinny!

You seem upset. Sheep got a headache?

The problem is that you were a small part of an evil system. You didn't create it, you didn't make it, and you weren't responsible for it.

I mean it's not an unfair criticism. They are doing the job that the Administration asked of them.

The problem is that not enough people resigned. That is how you show the world you are unhappy. From the top to bottom, when Pres. Obama or anyone else asked them to do something that was illegal, or lied about it during routine oversight, there should have been waves of resignations. Waves.

When the order goes out to do something illegal, or without appropriate authority, then it should be met with cold silence and the sound of thousands of keyboards typing out letters of resignations.

c.f. - yes, but not all of those operations would be illegal. There are all sorts of intelligence gathering operations that are perfectly legal that states conduct against each other all the time.

And the same is true for the other direction, the BND (Bundesnachrichtendienst) spying on U.S. politicians is illegal in the U.S..

Not necessarily. If the BND is using open sources, and having it's official diplomats observe and report what they see, they aren't doing anything illegal at all. Instead, that is the privilege of a soveign state credential for diplomacy in the United States (and all civilized states).

The US is breaking the law by intercepting communications. As far as you know the BND is not doing so. For example, imagine the response in the US if it was revealed that BND was listening to Michelle Obama and Barrack Obama's personal phone calls. There is a non-zero chance that we would nuke Berlin.

The truth is you don't know what the national security state is costing us. It's too secret to disclose.

But the broad strokes are that it has direct budged and non-budgeted costs in the range of $1T a year. On top of those expenditures are the revenues that are generated by selling weapons systems overseas. In some years that's tens of billions more. That's on an economy of ~$15 trillion. So that's on the order of 6.5% of the entire economy is directly involved in this sector.

That is not small. It is not tiny. There are few sectors that are as big and probably none that are bigger. The entire auto sector - manufacturing, sales, advertising, exports, imports, repair shops, parts shops, the whole supply line, shipping, trucking, etc is 5-6%. The entire healthcare sector including every doctor, every nurse, every insurance agency, R&D, the drug industry, every drug store, all the drugs, the pharmacy items in the drug store, that entire supply chain, heavy medical equipment, home health care, hospice, hospitals, hospital construction, medical tourism, advertising, medical lawsuits, lab services, medical schools and everything else lightly related to the medical business is about 11% of GDP.

Put it this way. If the national security industry was it's own country, based on GDP, it would be the 15th biggest in the world. Bigger than all of the entire South Korean economy, put together.

Humans are a non-native species to NA. Judging by the buffalo, condor, dodo, and bald eagle population (among others), the animals native to NA haven't had the time to adapt.

What's your point?

Oh, yeah, you're just a douchebag wanting to justify wanton killing of cats.

Are you the one to blame for that 'think about your breathing' meme from a few years back?

Ugh, thanks for the link, I'm dumber for having read it.

Half the time, I wonder if that's really apk, or just a troll(s) with some apk inspired copypasta.

To make the men in black stop hitting you with hammers?

We already know the coordinates of the Three Gorges Dam.

I saw the posters at my kids school and I am was unconvinced this is a good idea.

Programming / coding is a lot of things, and it's different to a lot of people. But the idea of teaching it by discussing game design really strikes me as a bad idea, for a lot of reasons:

1. Game design is inherently difficult. I mean, it's an art and science, and it is multi-discipline. After an hour, or ten hours, or whatever, you aren't going to have a lot to show for your efforts. Games designed and built by large teams of skilled programmers often fail to complete. Even a simple game requires substantial

2. Most programmers are not going to be doing game development. Or even game development. It's like trying to educate you on medicine by bringing in a surgeon to talk about remote micro-surgery. Sure, you could be the 1/100th of all doctors who are involved in that field. But chances are if you become a doctor it will be a GP.

3. The goal of getting more kids into programming, I would imagine, is to get kids to become programmers to do useful things. Games are a nice slice of entertainment, but in the big picture, except for the individuals, no one is really better off because of a new game being developed. If we as a country/specifies/whatever want more programmers, it should be to be more productive, to have a better economy, etc. We don't want/need more programmers for the next Candy Crush. That's a side benefit. Not a purpose.