Bezos says 'country in trouble' if big tech turns its back on the Pentagon | Hacker News Reader

Bezos says 'country in trouble' if big tech turns its back on the Pentagon

cnbc.com

9 pointskjhughes9 comments

It's hard to believe his want for big tech to support the Pentagon is genuine when he's actively fighting to steal a Pentagon business deal away from Microsoft. If he really cares about national defense he can put his money where his mouth is and just undercut Microsoft's costs by making up the difference with a donation of his own.

Amazon is complaining that they were denied a contract for political reasons, because Trump dislikes the Washington Post, owned by Bezos. This does sound like something Trump and his appointees might do.

Broken clock.

He has a point. If Chinese computer scientists work with the Chinese military and Americans do not, the U.S. military will be disadvantaged. It should be noted that "smart" U.S. weapons may kill fewer civilians than the weapons they replaced, because they are better targeted.

The problem with smart weapons is that we only seem to use them against goat herders. Hardly a pressing need for a big tech and Pentagon meetup.

Not just the Pentagon though. Other government agencies that get the shaft from big tech run the risk of outsourcing their needs to other countries. I don’t understand how contracts for other government agencies work or what rules/limits they have. But if a Palantir type company decides to back out of helping DHS for moral reasons, would it be feasible for DHS to turn to a Palantir based out of Eastern Europe or India if such a company existed? I think that’s a bigger risk to outsource tech to foreign nations to manage our nations government agencies.

would it be feasible for DHS to turn to a Palantir based out of Eastern Europe or India if such a company existed?

The answer is almost always no.

The Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation, along with executive orders and other lower level orders, places explicit limitations on the source of technologies that will be used in Defense.

The mundane result of modern tech companies not working with the DoD, or other federal agencies, is simply that the average serviceman or woman will continue to have to use terrible software and generally default to the "Microsoft Weapons System" (Powerpoint, Excel, Word, Sharepoint). You wouldn't believe some of the amazing Macros built by innovative Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines.

There are efforts to remedy this by building modern software natively by service members, but we're still in early days.

A lot of surveillance tech seems to find its way from Israel to the US.

Businesses have gotten larger and more powerful than the governments that are supposed to regulate them. Moreover, infested the relevant regulatory agencies.

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