Silicon Valley learned to love America, drones, and glory | Hacker News Reader

Silicon Valley learned to love America, drones, and glory

washingtonpost.com

18 pointsjseliger19 comments

Cheap billions for commercial products gone. There's always money in the banana stand for defense.

Weren't the bulk of the original SV tech companies largely funded by the military? and haven't many (most?) or the not directly consumer oriented ones always had massive military contracts?

This isn't new.

> Weren't the bulk of the original SV tech companies largely funded by the military?

It depends who you mean by 'original'. One narrative about the 1980s-90s boom was it was laid off people from the defense industry. Maybe all the laid off SV people will now reverse that flow.

> haven't many (most?) or the not directly consumer oriented ones always had massive military contracts?

Who? Not Google, etc.

> This isn't new.

Why do people love to say that?

There were tech companies in Silicon Valley long before the 1980s-90s boom. The original companies largely grew out of WW2 military contracts for radar and electronics.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTC_RxWN_xo

> Who? Not Google, etc.

First, I said "not directly consumer oriented ones", which are the minority of SV companies.

That said: Digital, HP, Intel, Honeywell, AMD, etc (e.g I'd argue Xerox PARC was largely funded via Xerox's government contracts).

You also have a lot of the funding Stanford received coming from defense programs.

While Google may not have started that way - hell, it started as a search engine and now it's an spyware and advertising company - it has started taking DARPA research contracts. But plenty of this era's SV companies are military contractors first (Palantir might be the biggest of this generation, but plenty of drone, ai, etc startups are targeting governments).

> > This isn't new.

> Why do people love to say that?

Because it's not? One of the reasons people will say true statements, is because they prefer honesty to idealized mythology.

I could have sworn I read somewhere (maybe NDGT science and war history) that Stanford was founded from war profits. But I can’t find any history of that so maybe I misunderstood?

Yes. They saw that Anduril's raking it in and want a piece of the pie.

Can't shake the feeling that we might be in a permanent war economy.

This shouldn't be a new feeling. It hasn't stopped since Pearl Harbor.

Most of 1941 was spent rearming. People had “war jobs” as early as 1938.

What is meant by a "war economy"? It is nothing at all like WWII, if that's what you mean.

The proportion of GDP spent on the military is high relative to other contemporary peaceful countries, but it's tiny relative to countries involved in significant wars.

I wonder what it is relative to the Cold War.

Or is this a dramatic way of expressing something else? Are we looking for drama, caught up in it? That the mechanism of unnecessary wars.

> I wonder what it is relative to the Cold War.

According to this chart[0], US military spending as a percentage of GDP is pretty close to an all-time low. Sadly doesn't seem to include data covering WWII or Korea, though.

I imagine the notable peaks might be related to:

* '62 Cuban missile crisis (cold war)

* '67 Vietnam (cold war)

* '82, '86 "New Cold War"[1]

* '05, '11 Post-9/11 wars

But mostly downward after '91.

Sadly this chart (Military expenditure (% of general government expenditure)) seems to be empty, but I'm sure there's data on it somewhere.

[0]: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War#US_and_USSR_military_... [2]: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.ZS?location...

We have been that way since the end off WWII/start of Cold War.

> To some among this new crop of tech workers and start-up founders, defense contracting is a higher calling to extend American ideals into the next century. This group of (mostly) men believes in hard work, real innovation, and family values. They’re eager to accelerate progress for America. And a growing number of investors can’t wait to back them.

The first three sentences made me laugh, the last one reveals the real motivation. They aren't answering to a higher calling around "hard work, real innovation, and family values". They're answering to the higher calling of VC funds and the potential to become the next (or be acquired by) Raytheon, LM, NG, and others. Grifters aiming for US tax dollars knowing the government will not cut defense spending.

A lot of defense people really do care.

You can make money on climate tech, helping animals, or whatever mission you want.

There’s often a Tony Stark element to it, but if you want to make big bucks, there are nicer ways to do it.

People, yes. And the corporate leaders will try and shame you if you call them out, but they don't steward tax payer dollars effectively, and don't attend to the mission effectively. They do just enough to maintain their contracts, and cut costs enough that it's hard for others who may actually care to get involved (because they can't afford to go that low).

You really think that The Boeing "Oops, we did it again" Company really cares about the military and the tax payers when you get to the top? And you think any of the others are any less profit-driven? These are not principled companies, and not principled people at the top. The ones at the lower levels, yeah, many of them are. But they aren't driving the company.

Reminds me of the Requests for Startups from Y Combinator this week:

...

3. New defense technology

4. Bring manufacturing back to America

...

https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39371805

I wonder about the loyalty of some of these business leaders; it shouldn't be assumed.

Some have bunkers in other countries, at least one has dual citizenship. It's the 'smart' thing to advertise your unlimited aggression for money, with no moral or other constraints, willing to work with anyone; that's not a good signal for protecting the welfare of others and the principles of freedom and democracy. Some openly argue against democracy. One prominent person likes to support all sorts of enemies, and goes out of their way to show a close relationship with China.

If push comes to shove, if Taiwan is under seige and they decide it's not really their problem; will they take the cash from China and help, even through a back door? What about some foreign dictator that someone supports, like Putin?

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