I really wish we still had ARPA rather than DARPA. I'm blown away by the ambition of the projects DARPA does but it's hard for me to rationalize directly working on things that might end up in killing systems. Is there anything akin to ARPA today? Why did ARPA end up becoming DARPA (with the D meaning defense?).

Alan Kay seems to be here commenting; any insights from you Alan on the conversion of ARPA to DARPA and good non-defense alternatives to what DARPA does now?