Government Role in Tech

The US government (via DARPA, NASA, University grants etc.) invented the internet, stealth fighters and MANY MANY other leading edge technologies that private companies then took advantage of. In other words, companies that you might admire (Google, Boing etc.) would not exist without the government investing in blue sky research.

Happened anyway? You have any idea of the value that was created by having it happen many years earlier? Modern integrated computers let alone the Internet were brought into being because of defense investment by the government. These things rarely happen entirely organically in free markets. You think SpaceX would exist without heavy early investment by NASA, or later money from the commercial crew program? Unlikely.

Didn't military funding accelerate US tech development?

The problem with your comparison is that IT took tens of years of investment before it produced anything truly useful. It is very hard to imagine that research being funded for years and years without financial return by anything other than a state-level actor. And in most capitalist democracies, especially in the US, the only politically-viable way for the state to massively invest in an endeavor is to do so through military spending, which is what happened with IT.

origin_path is correct. US government money (i.e., defense spending) postwar largely went into directly military-applicable areas like aircraft and missiles. Bell Labs didn't create the transistor using defense money. TI and Intel didn't create the microprocessor using defense money. In turn, the major postwar defense advances—hydrogen bomb, nuclear submarine, ICBMs, satellite recon—were all developed pre-microprocessor; only stealth technology is a post-1970 development that would pro

Still true today. Except the original capitalists in the case of the computer industry was the government, not VCs. Almost every major technology you use everyday in your computer originated with a government grant or program. Those HD LCD screens? They were originally developed for the Abrams XM-1 tank in the First Gulf War. Google was first funded by a DARPA grant. The Internet itself was a large DARPA project. The integrated circuit, you name it.First world nations become that way by gover

Putting aside the fact that the minicomputers that ran the early CompuServe came out of a multi-decade period of government-supported development and procurement, and also ignoring that CompuServe, Prodigy et al ultimately failed while the DARPA-spawned open Internet succeeded... the Internet is only one of a long list of technologies developed by DARPA or other government agencies over many decades and many billions of dollars. I mentioned just two in the headlines right now: Siri and self-driv

Automation and IT in the US has little to do with free markets and a whole lot to do with enormous government expenditure, often war related. The internet is the obvious one. But if you go to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, you can see the first integrated circuit, which so happened to be built by Fairchild for the USAF, and the first computers, which were built in Silicon Valley for the Army. The same story is everywhere: About all the tech we take for granted owes its existence t

Nearly all the technology in front of you right now (your computer) came from military programs paid for by the US taxpayer. Google itself was initially funded via a DARPA grant, just like Boston Dynamics. It's public investment for private profit. This is no exception. Not to turn the conversation, but Libertarians (of which there are no few of on HN) need to get a grip on this fundamental aspect of the water they're swimming in here.

And it kills me every time someone makes a silly comment like this. Someone has to spend the large amount of money for the R&D. Your model of how the world works is flawed.We went to the moon because of the Cold War. The military paid for the development of the Internet. GPS? Supersonic flight? Nuclear energy? Autonomous vehicles?I wish private industry would do more. Every company should have a Bell Labs.