3 ms·

Eh it's a lot more complicated than just "gov bad private good" The goals of the F35 were to be the fighter for all the branches of the military. The problem i

by atonse 10y ago

Eh it's a lot more complicated than just "gov bad private good" The goals of the F35 were to be the fighter for all the branches of the military. The problem is that they all have very different requirements. Marry that with a tech-fixes-everything attitude and you have a Frankenstein of an aircraft with so much "technology" that it gets in the way of the human pilot's instincts. And lastly, the project has been strategically split up by contractors in a way that it creates jobs in so many congressional districts, so congress members are loathe to shut down a program that brings jobs in their district. All this is done by PRIVATE sector contractors.

Aeolun 10y ago
You'd expect someone at the top to say something like 'You know, that sounds like a spectacularly terrible idea' though.
Arizhel 10y ago
It doesn't matter that much that they're "PRIVATE sector contractors". Defense contractors do not operate like normal private-sector companies. In normal companies, they try to keep costs limited, so that they can maximize profit. They can normally only charge so much money to customers, so the less they have to pay in costs, the more they keep as profit. In defense companies these days, they usually do what are called "cost plus" contracts. That means the government pays them whatever it costs to do the job, plus a profit margin. So, the incentive is to bloat the project beyond all belief, because that increases the costs. Then the profit is multiplied, since the profit margin is fixed. Splitting the project up among a ridiculous number of contractors to cover as many congressional districts as possible doesn't help the situation. Basically, the F-35 is a huge make-work program for the US.
raspasov 10y ago
Yea, of course private sector will rationally benefit when government is running around like a chicken without a head throwing money around. I don't want to get into the reasons why the incentives are setup like they are - that's a very broad discussion. I agree (without being a fighter jet expert) that F-35 seems like a terrible idea of near-infinite complexity that no amount of money will make right.
- dafash 10y ago
  Near infinite complexity has no meaning as a descriptor of complexity. Infinity isn't something you can describe approaching without convergence.
  - raspasov 10y ago
    It was a figure of speech :) Here's a great paper about the topic of complexity http://shaffner.us/cs/papers/tarpit.pdf http://shaffner.us/cs/papers/tarpit.pdf if you feel like digging deeper.

by atonse 10y ago

Aeolun 10y ago

You'd expect someone at the top to say something like 'You know, that sounds like a spectacularly terrible idea' though.

Arizhel 10y ago

It doesn't matter that much that they're "PRIVATE sector contractors". Defense contractors do not operate like normal private-sector companies. In normal companies, they try to keep costs limited, so that they can maximize profit. They can normally only charge so much money to customers, so the less they have to pay in costs, the more they keep as profit. In defense companies these days, they usually do what are called "cost plus" contracts. That means the government pays them whatever it costs to do the job, plus a profit margin. So, the incentive is to bloat the project beyond all belief, because that increases the costs. Then the profit is multiplied, since the profit margin is fixed. Splitting the project up among a ridiculous number of contractors to cover as many congressional districts as possible doesn't help the situation. Basically, the F-35 is a huge make-work program for the US.

raspasov 10y ago

Yea, of course private sector will rationally benefit when government is running around like a chicken without a head throwing money around. I don't want to get into the reasons why the incentives are setup like they are - that's a very broad discussion. I agree (without being a fighter jet expert) that F-35 seems like a terrible idea of near-infinite complexity that no amount of money will make right.

dafash 10y ago
Near infinite complexity has no meaning as a descriptor of complexity. Infinity isn't something you can describe approaching without convergence.
- raspasov 10y ago
  It was a figure of speech :) Here's a great paper about the topic of complexity http://shaffner.us/cs/papers/tarpit.pdf http://shaffner.us/cs/papers/tarpit.pdf if you feel like digging deeper.