From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.8 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_50 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 16 Aug 93 15:21:53 GMT From: sdd.hp.com!apollo.hp.com!netnews@hplabs.hpl.hp.com Subject: Re: How microeconomically insignificant is Defense R&D? Message-ID: List-Id: In article , srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian ) writes: |> |> For some time I have been arguing that many DoD software initiatives |> are a waste of money and should be no longer funded, for the following |> reasons - they seem to have little impact outside the DoD (STARS), they |> waste money on extravagant services (ASSET), or they duplicate services |> the private sector can more cheaply offer (SEI). I think the poster may be conflating two different problems. The first one, which is indicated by the Subject: line, above discusses DoD spending from an *economic* standpoint. This being sci.econ, that's perfectly legitimate. But the second one, i.e, whether DoD R&D "*should* no longer be funded represents a logical leap from the first one. The poster seems to be assuming that there's some relationship between whether something *should* be funded and its *economic* viability. DoD's function is to defend the country. While we would certainly hope that this would be done economically efficiently, if a choice has to be made between an economically efficient method and a militarily better, but economically less efficient method then sometimes it makes more sense to do the latter. (of course some- times it doesn't). I don't know anything about Ada, but the dominant programming language in private industry is C, which I do know quite a bit about, and I would submit that it didn't at all meet the list of requirements laid out by DoD at the time of Ada's inception (and still doesn't). While I'm sure that plenty of "$500 toilet seats" are a genuine waste of money, it may also be the case that *some* "$500 toilet seats" cost that much for some very good mission-critical reasons. I don't know anything about SEI, but some services which are "dup- licated" in private industry may offer the same functionality, but not be as secure or redundant as what the military might require. As to whether something has "economic impact outside of DoD", since when is this a criterion? As I noted above, DoD's mission is national defense. It's a bit dismaying seeing people from all over the political spectrum using economic factors (e.g., the impact of a base closing on the local economy) to make decisions that should mainly be determined by military considerations. ---peter