> Why is it that we can dream up more conflict but not peaceful scenarios?

Sadly, war is often a driver of economic growth. WWII pulled the US economy out the Great Depression and transformed it into one of the most prosperous in human history. I'd argue that the proxy wars the US has been waging largely exist to satiate a military industrial complex that is focused on growth. Hard to grow when your business is war if there are no wars to fight.

And I'll wade into political waters. The US government has no problem waging war because it's not unpopular enough of an issue to threaten an administration. We're spending $1B a day now to fight Iran but we somehow can't find the political courage to improve healthcare or hunger here at home.

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ACCount37 6 hours ago | parent [-]

That's a property shared by any large scale government spending.

The difference between pouring 80B into a war and pouring the same into infrastructure is that one gives you a more developed MIC and a lot of munitions and a lot of explosions (exported), and the other gives you... infrastructure, and construction industry.

	▲	lotsofpulp 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		A big part of this is that apparently, any president can unilaterally decide to go to war and spend $1B per day destroying things, but building infrastructure for Americans requires the agreement of 60 US Senators. Pre-emptive strikes are “national security”, but ensuring nutritional food for children in schools, safe bridges and potable water, and healthcare are not “national security”. Look what Biden had to do to try and get Americans a piddling amount of paid sick leave and paid parental leave. And still 60 votes couldn’t be mustered. But if he wanted to bomb another country to the stone age, that was well within his capacity.