> My, the world has changed.

No. Your tech experience was an aberration.

For almost all of history, including recent history, tech and military went together. Whether compound bows, or spears or metallurgy.

Euler used his math to develop artillery tables for the Prussian army.

von Neumann helped develop the atom bomb.

The military played a huge role in creating Silicon Valley.

However, to people who grew up in the mid to late 90s, it is easy to miss that that period was a major aberration. You had serious people talking about the end of history. You had John Perry Barlow's utterly naive Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace which looks more and more naive every year.