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This seems shortsighted... they'll probably find more funding, but what a bunch of nonsense to have to deal with in the interim. This bit of the article makes i

by Jach 8y ago

This seems shortsighted... they'll probably find more funding, but what a bunch of nonsense to have to deal with in the interim. This bit of the article makes it seem like it could be as petty as a clash of personalities: > "The department remains committed to seeking independent technical advice and review," Pentagon spokesperson Heather Babb said. But Aftergood sees another reason for the end of the relationship. He says that the Jasons are a blunt bunch. If they think an idea is dumb or won't work, they aren't afraid to say so. > "They were offering the opposite of cheerleading," he says. "And DOD decided that maybe they didn't want to pay for that any longer." An interesting bit of trivia from the wiki page shows they lost funding before in 2002 for something perhaps just as petty, them not relenting on having exclusive control over who they let join: > In 2002, DARPA decided to cut its ties with JASON. DARPA had not only been one of JASON's primary sponsors, it was also the channel through which JASON received funding from other sponsors. DARPA's decision came after JASON's refusal to allow DARPA to select three new JASON members. Since JASON's inception, new members have always been selected by its existing members. After much negotiation and letter-writing—including a letter by Congressman Rush Holt of New Jersey[26]—funding was subsequently secured from an office higher in the defense hierarchy, the office of the Director, Defense Research & Engineering, name changed to Assistant Secretary of Defense (Research & Engineering) (ASD (R&E)) in 2011.[27] I'm hesitant to blindly take the scientists' side however. I'm reminded of a remark from a Feynman interview (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f61KMw5zVhg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f61KMw5zVhg): > Honors, and from that day to this, always bothered me. I had trouble when I became a member of the National Academy of Science, and I had ultimately to resign. Because there was another organization, most of whose time was spent in choosing who was illustrious enough to be allowed to join us in our organization. Including such questions as: ‘we physicists have to stick together because there’s a very good chemist that they’re trying to get in and we haven’t got enough room…’. What’s the matter with chemists? The whole thing was rotten. Because the purpose was mostly to decide who could have this honor. OK? I don’t like honors.

ocschwar 8y ago
> I'm hesitant to blindly take the scientists' side however I'm not. It's not a lot of money, and the Pentagon can think of far worse ways to blow that kind of money.
- mcbits 8y ago
  What I gather from the article, if "a few million" means $3 million, is that we've been paying 60 people $50,000 apiece for a few weeks of meetings each summer. Without knowing the value of the output of those meetings - only that they've lost the funding - "that's a lot of money" is a reasonable default position whether there are even worse ways to spend it or not.
acqq 8y ago
> I don’t like honors. It's not about honors, but about things like: "Probably their most famous study was about trying to stop the infiltration from North Vietnam into the South," ... "The problem was that North Vietnamese troops and supplies were hard to find beneath the dense jungle canopy. The Jasons' solution was to develop a system of remote sensors that could be airdropped into the jungle and provide intelligence on the enemy. The program, like much to do with Vietnam, was controversial and didn't work perfectly. But it laid the groundwork for modern electronic warfare" Compare with, for example: https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell/transcript?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell/transcript?langua... Also, I wouldn't be surprised that there is a connection between "They were offering the opposite of cheerleading" and "JASON also produced early work on the science of global warming and acid rain." (second quote from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JASON_(advisory_group) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JASON_(advisory_group) )
derstander 8y ago
The remark from Feynman may have been fair at the time, but JASON has nominated and has been joined by scientists who aren’t physicists for quite some time: certainly predating the dust-up with DARPA. I know it probably wasn’t intended, but the proximity of those two things 1) DARPA issues and 2) Feynman on honors could be uncharitably read that DARPA wanted a broader set of disciplines that JASON refused. That’s not true. I would trust membership of JASON to themselves vs DARPA, but that may just be my own prejudices: I think of the current DARPA as a shadow of its former (great) self without the expertise to pick JASON members without succumbing to various political pressures.
- Jach 8y ago
  Yeah, my prior is also weighted towards thinking JASON itself is going to be a better group than the NAS was when Feynman made his comment and is able to make fair membership decisions. I didn't intend to accuse just to bring it up as one of several reasons why I have meta-uncertainty about my prior since reading about those interesting bits (and another quip of membership being "predominated by theoretical physicists") reminded me of Feynman's story, and also I like sharing Feynman stories. :) I would agree too that DARPA is a shadow of its former self, though on the other hand that position adds its own uncertainties for me since I hold at minimum the strong possibility of the same being true for the likes of JASON, the NSA's crypto groups, NASA, Lockheed's Skunk Works, or any other US-government-intertwined entities that nevertheless had or still have great respect. Decline is everywhere if you look for it.
  - ENOTTY 8y ago
    You see evidence of decline everywhere, but I'm curious where you might see evidence of ascent.

by Jach 8y ago

ocschwar 8y ago

> I'm hesitant to blindly take the scientists' side however I'm not. It's not a lot of money, and the Pentagon can think of far worse ways to blow that kind of money.

mcbits 8y ago
What I gather from the article, if "a few million" means $3 million, is that we've been paying 60 people $50,000 apiece for a few weeks of meetings each summer. Without knowing the value of the output of those meetings - only that they've lost the funding - "that's a lot of money" is a reasonable default position whether there are even worse ways to spend it or not.

acqq 8y ago

> I don’t like honors. It's not about honors, but about things like: "Probably their most famous study was about trying to stop the infiltration from North Vietnam into the South," ... "The problem was that North Vietnamese troops and supplies were hard to find beneath the dense jungle canopy. The Jasons' solution was to develop a system of remote sensors that could be airdropped into the jungle and provide intelligence on the enemy. The program, like much to do with Vietnam, was controversial and didn't work perfectly. But it laid the groundwork for modern electronic warfare" Compare with, for example: https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell/transcript?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/malcolm_gladwell/transcript?langua... Also, I wouldn't be surprised that there is a connection between "They were offering the opposite of cheerleading" and "JASON also produced early work on the science of global warming and acid rain." (second quote from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JASON_(advisory_group) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JASON_(advisory_group) )

derstander 8y ago

The remark from Feynman may have been fair at the time, but JASON has nominated and has been joined by scientists who aren’t physicists for quite some time: certainly predating the dust-up with DARPA. I know it probably wasn’t intended, but the proximity of those two things 1) DARPA issues and 2) Feynman on honors could be uncharitably read that DARPA wanted a broader set of disciplines that JASON refused. That’s not true. I would trust membership of JASON to themselves vs DARPA, but that may just be my own prejudices: I think of the current DARPA as a shadow of its former (great) self without the expertise to pick JASON members without succumbing to various political pressures.

Jach 8y ago
Yeah, my prior is also weighted towards thinking JASON itself is going to be a better group than the NAS was when Feynman made his comment and is able to make fair membership decisions. I didn't intend to accuse just to bring it up as one of several reasons why I have meta-uncertainty about my prior since reading about those interesting bits (and another quip of membership being "predominated by theoretical physicists") reminded me of Feynman's story, and also I like sharing Feynman stories. :) I would agree too that DARPA is a shadow of its former self, though on the other hand that position adds its own uncertainties for me since I hold at minimum the strong possibility of the same being true for the likes of JASON, the NSA's crypto groups, NASA, Lockheed's Skunk Works, or any other US-government-intertwined entities that nevertheless had or still have great respect. Decline is everywhere if you look for it.
- ENOTTY 8y ago
  You see evidence of decline everywhere, but I'm curious where you might see evidence of ascent.