Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex. Hell, Fascism at times has meant the merging of corporations and the state*. This is the same thing. The important thing to recognize is its groups of power making an alliance - not that its an true economic or military strategy.
* although that's useless as a definition of fascism
And the MIC is totally powerless . A rainmaking fata mogana like the CIA.
If they had power they would have prevented Trump from devaluaing the us as an reliable ally. Get new material, all you conspirators out there.
That's only because the military is the only institution that get's all the funding it asks for and then it get even more on top of that. Too bad we can't fund civilian science that way.
Yes. And the "militarization" has always been active in Silicon Valley. There has never been a time when tech wasn't heavily involved with the DoD. The only thing that changes is how publicly they talk about it. Currently it is fashionable to talk about it again.
There has been an article like this every few years since at least the 1990s where someone (re-)discovers that Silicon Valley works closely with DoD. Almost every startup delivering genuinely novel technology will have a relationship with some part of the DoD whether they talk about it or not, it has always worked that way. People who think startups are not working with DoD are deluding themselves.
The government has generally taken a "buy one of everything" approach to evaluating new technology. They are actually an interesting early customer to work with, which is why so many startups do.
This is a good thing. The traditional big defense contractors have largely become incompetent. We need software companies with actual expertise in software, machine learning, ai, computer vision, etc. to make these next generation technologies. Couple this with the willingness of SV to pay employees, we might see some actual engineering being done. Palantir, SpaceX, Anduril, etc. have already shown they are capable of creating new products below budget, and ahead of schedule, something that Boeing, Lockheed, and friends have been unable to do since the soviet union fell.
I don't see Anduril producing anything like the B2 or the F22 or nuclear submarines, all of which are the really important technologies. Oculus VR isn't really successful, VR is shoehorned into Army applications "because high tech". Given that the army is unliklely to be deployed and soldiers probably hate the VR headsets this is just more waste.
The pendulum of mil-tech has moved solidly to "many & cheap" and away from "few & expensive", so I personally hope that Anduril isn't stupid enough to produce "anything like the B2, etc"
The F22 was first flown in 97, it started development in the 80s. I don't think Lockheed or Boeing would be able to make another generational step like that. The F-35 went drastically over budget and schedule.
It's strange that people in SV pretend like if they refuse to build software then nobody else will. Palantir exists (and has been so successful) because the government was trying to build this software (either themselves or through defense contractors) and ended up spending WAY too much money and only delivering a product that put US soldiers at risk.
>This is a good thing. The traditional big defense contractors have largely become incompetent.
Say that no incompetence, or at least indifference to usability, exists among the tech companies after using many Alphabet and Microsoft products. Aside from it decidedly not being the best thing in the world to cheer for tech expertise being leveraged towards the refinement of killing people and destroying things, said tech expertise is grossly self-serving enough for one to seriously worry about wedding it to the military industrial and state surveillance apparatus of the world's most powerful government. Sure, pragmatic reality dictates that much of this will happen anyhow, but i'd hardly call it a joyful thing.
not a very useful comment, respond to the claims on their merit, whether NYT sees SV as adversarially really has limited bearing on determining if their critiques are valid, especially given that they are reporting on real phenomenon
People will generally approach information differently if they know the source of that information has a financial interest in pushing a certain narrative.
E.g. hedge funds or short sellers publishing financial advice is seen as "talking their book" rather than high quality analysis.
If the NYT was journalistic, your point would be valid. They are now activist, so their motives should factor into the weight you ascribe to their analysis.
SV does not have the institutional knowledge, reporters on the ground or the kind of determination for thankless work that makes a newspaper great.
The NYT should do more investigative journalism, but it is better than nothing. SV pundits just recycle and comment on news stories that the mainstream press has reported.
SV outlets will never go after the "deep state" apart from performative complaining because they are in it and get the money from it.
I wish the NYT/WaPo were as good as in the 1980s in terms of investigative reporting, but that is what we have.
NYT competes with SV in the news and entertainment domains, but not in the military domain (to my knowledge). So I do not think this comment is meaningful.
It used to be that the propaganda needed to launch a war (Iraq) would be published by the NYTs of the world, but even that is no longer needed thanks to social media.
There is a paradigm shift that has occurred with the realization of the impending war drums beating for Blocs in East (China+allies) vs West (US+allies) and how it relates to our technocratic centers in SV & other key locations.
In the West if you run afoul of political elites in the worst case:
you get imprisoned & cancelled, potentially bankrupted.
If speaking out mildly:
you may have some dueling op-eds or lose a contract/customer. Big whoop
In the best case:
you'll make tons of money and have great quality of life provided you don't become an overt monopoly, but even if you get broken up you'll make even more money.
***********************
In the East if you run afoul of political elites in the worst case:
you & your family will be disappeared, executed or harvested for body parts
If speaking out mildly:
you may get sent to a re-education camp and lose control of your company & assets, or eat a negative social credit score
In the best case:
you'll make tons of money and have great quality of life provided the Nation does not choose to nationalize you.
***********************
While I may be broadly grouped on the nuanced Paleo-Libertarian R faction, I've been pretty content to work with my very L colleagues, that is the influential in our industry.
But let us not mistake the best case, likely case, and worst cases for the very different world views of East vs West.
As much as I have an anti-Color Revolution approach, I think much of the L has been very conscious of Ukraine / Chinese Nationalization, and State-Owned Enterprise organized theft of IP and lack of a rule of law.
If it comes down to a question of institutions, and outcomes, most of us vastly prefer those of the West bloc to the East bloc.
Military drones have a lot of cross pollination with civilian drones, each advance the other. Its inevitable and expected. I think that the fake separation of Military and Civilian technology facade is just ending, nothing really changed except the language of press releases.
Readit News
* although that's useless as a definition of fascism
Yes, discussed in the article, too.
There has been an article like this every few years since at least the 1990s where someone (re-)discovers that Silicon Valley works closely with DoD. Almost every startup delivering genuinely novel technology will have a relationship with some part of the DoD whether they talk about it or not, it has always worked that way. People who think startups are not working with DoD are deluding themselves.
The government has generally taken a "buy one of everything" approach to evaluating new technology. They are actually an interesting early customer to work with, which is why so many startups do.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/1/24259369/microsoft-holole...
I don't see Anduril producing anything like the B2 or the F22 or nuclear submarines, all of which are the really important technologies. Oculus VR isn't really successful, VR is shoehorned into Army applications "because high tech". Given that the army is unliklely to be deployed and soldiers probably hate the VR headsets this is just more waste.
That said, they are definitely competing against nuclear subs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgNCHZBJxsM
It's strange that people in SV pretend like if they refuse to build software then nobody else will. Palantir exists (and has been so successful) because the government was trying to build this software (either themselves or through defense contractors) and ended up spending WAY too much money and only delivering a product that put US soldiers at risk.
Say that no incompetence, or at least indifference to usability, exists among the tech companies after using many Alphabet and Microsoft products. Aside from it decidedly not being the best thing in the world to cheer for tech expertise being leveraged towards the refinement of killing people and destroying things, said tech expertise is grossly self-serving enough for one to seriously worry about wedding it to the military industrial and state surveillance apparatus of the world's most powerful government. Sure, pragmatic reality dictates that much of this will happen anyhow, but i'd hardly call it a joyful thing.
E.g. hedge funds or short sellers publishing financial advice is seen as "talking their book" rather than high quality analysis.
The NYT should do more investigative journalism, but it is better than nothing. SV pundits just recycle and comment on news stories that the mainstream press has reported.
SV outlets will never go after the "deep state" apart from performative complaining because they are in it and get the money from it.
I wish the NYT/WaPo were as good as in the 1980s in terms of investigative reporting, but that is what we have.
In the West if you run afoul of political elites in the worst case: you get imprisoned & cancelled, potentially bankrupted.
If speaking out mildly: you may have some dueling op-eds or lose a contract/customer. Big whoop
In the best case: you'll make tons of money and have great quality of life provided you don't become an overt monopoly, but even if you get broken up you'll make even more money.
***********************
In the East if you run afoul of political elites in the worst case: you & your family will be disappeared, executed or harvested for body parts
If speaking out mildly: you may get sent to a re-education camp and lose control of your company & assets, or eat a negative social credit score
In the best case: you'll make tons of money and have great quality of life provided the Nation does not choose to nationalize you.
***********************
While I may be broadly grouped on the nuanced Paleo-Libertarian R faction, I've been pretty content to work with my very L colleagues, that is the influential in our industry.
But let us not mistake the best case, likely case, and worst cases for the very different world views of East vs West.
As much as I have an anti-Color Revolution approach, I think much of the L has been very conscious of Ukraine / Chinese Nationalization, and State-Owned Enterprise organized theft of IP and lack of a rule of law.
If it comes down to a question of institutions, and outcomes, most of us vastly prefer those of the West bloc to the East bloc.