Futurismo: Zoltan Istvan & Bernie Sanders by Medium (Usa)
The U.S. military budget devours more than $700 billion annually. To many on the left, this figure is symbolic of what's wrong with America. Each dollar spent by the military is a dollar that could have gone to combat America's failing infrastructure, the student debt problem, the health care debacle, chronic homelessness… In other words, we have our priorities all wrong.
While Republicans glibly embrace endless military expansion, the Democratic Party is generally against increased military spending of any sort. Tulsi Gabbard, for example, structured her entire 2020 presidential campaign around getting the U.S. out of regime change wars. Many other prominent Democrats running for president have long track records of working to cut defense spending.
The most radical proposal for curbing the military budget, however, comes from outside the Democratic Party. In 2016, libertarian and Transhumanist candidate Zoltan Istvan championed a novel proposal to transform the military-industrial complex into a science-industrial complex. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this policy proposal never attracted much attention. It's an unbelievably ambitious proposal from a fringe candidate. But the spirit of Istvan's proposal is becoming increasingly mainstream. Bernie Sanders, in particular, has gotten close to articulating Istvan's basic idea. For example, Bernie recently tweeted: