It is so easy to make fun of the failed ones and try to predict the past, but once there were other government projects which ended up working and now we see as

It is so easy to make fun of the failed ones and try to predict the past, but once there were other government projects which ended up working and now we see as obvious right just because we know how history has gone, see for example ARPANET. If the fifth generation would have worked in some degree now it would have some status and if ARPANET would have failed it would have been forgotten.This is how anglosaxon culture often works, making fun and parodies of competitor failures, etc. In other aspects of history the same historical rhetorical approach is often seen.