4 ms·

Why is this such a persistent meme that governments always have some crazy tech up their sleeves? Highly advanced military tech is mostly about intimidation so

by jcfrei 4y ago

Why is this such a persistent meme that governments always have some crazy tech up their sleeves? Highly advanced military tech is mostly about intimidation so there's little benefit in keeping stuff secret for decades (actual war is mostly a numbers game so having a plane that's 2x better is not very useful if the other side has 10x as many). If anything militaries around the world tend to oversell their capabilities.

y0ungarmanii 4y ago
Lol without outting myself i worked in defense and although it could be mind numbingly slow we deff have tech at least a decade more advance than commercial sector. Mainly for the fact that there isn't a commercial market yet for the advanced stuff yet.
- AustinDev 4y ago
  I was going to comment exactly this... There is a reason Google X and Microsoft R&D hire so many former DARPA PM's.
walls 4y ago
Probably because we get glimpses into how this is still true every once in a while. The gap might not be as large as it has been, but it's definitely still there in certain fields. Some examples that immediately come to mind are the stealth Black Hawks used in the Bin Laden raid, Stuxnet, and the NSA's TAO.
- WillPostForFood 4y ago
  F-117 also comes to mind. Amazingly the first prototypes were complete in 1977, There were rumors about it but details about the plane and program were pretty well guarded for another decade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-117_Nighthawk#Background_and_Have_Blue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-117_Nighthawk#Backg...
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
axg11 4y ago
It’s not a meme, it’s simply following history and reading declassified materials. The US government has a track record of developing advanced aircraft and weaponry in secret.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
Godel_unicode 4y ago
Because of revelations like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-9_Hexagon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-9_Hexagon
- jcfrei 4y ago
  Granted, it's pretty wild that they fixed some film cameras to a rocket and sent it to space. But neither the delivery vehicle (Titan 3) nor the film cameras attached to parachutes was some super secretive ground-breaking tech.
  - boc 4y ago
    The entire existence of the NRO was a secret until an unredacted congressional budget report accidentally was entered into the record in ~1990. The NRO donated two unlaunched, out-of-date satellites to NASA in 2011 and the sensors/mirrors were well ahead of anything NASA had, including the Hubble telescope. And these were the satellites that were operational decades previously some estimates saying the model was launched originally in the mid-70s.[1] Don't underestimate what's up there. It's provably ahead of the civilian world by a long ways. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_Office_space_telescope_donation_to_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_O...
    - google234123 4y ago
      How is the existence of the NRO a counter to "Why is this such a persistent meme that governments always have some crazy tech up their sleeves"? Like why would it matter if it was the Air Force buying satellite or some other agency like the navy or NRO? > the sensors/mirrors were well ahead of anything NASA, including the Hubble telescope. Hubble was designed in the 70s and launched in the 90s. So what if the NRO can spend more money and get something slightly better, how is that surprising?
      - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
        > How is the existence of the NRO a counter to "Why is this such a persistent meme that governments always have some crazy tech up their sleeves"? The NRO had crazy secret tech up its sleeves. It is a part of the U.S. government. It is far from the only such example.
lallysingh 4y ago
Because they'll invest heavily in technical areas nobody cares about commercially. So their stuff will sometimes be surprisingly advanced.
- y0ungarmanii 4y ago
  Very true, the commercial sector has almost no need for things like advanced optics, radiation hard electronics, RF absorbing materials etc.
bigiain 4y ago
> Highly advanced military tech is mostly about intimidation so there's little benefit in keeping stuff secret for decades That's probably true for weapons tech. It's probably very wrong for surveillance tech. I think the Snowden docs make it quite clear that the NSA does not "tend to oversell their capabilities" (at least not externally).

by jcfrei 4y ago

y0ungarmanii 4y ago

Lol without outting myself i worked in defense and although it could be mind numbingly slow we deff have tech at least a decade more advance than commercial sector. Mainly for the fact that there isn't a commercial market yet for the advanced stuff yet.

AustinDev 4y ago
I was going to comment exactly this... There is a reason Google X and Microsoft R&D hire so many former DARPA PM's.

walls 4y ago

Probably because we get glimpses into how this is still true every once in a while. The gap might not be as large as it has been, but it's definitely still there in certain fields. Some examples that immediately come to mind are the stealth Black Hawks used in the Bin Laden raid, Stuxnet, and the NSA's TAO.

WillPostForFood 4y ago
F-117 also comes to mind. Amazingly the first prototypes were complete in 1977, There were rumors about it but details about the plane and program were pretty well guarded for another decade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-117_Nighthawk#Background_and_Have_Blue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-117_Nighthawk#Backg...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

axg11 4y ago

It’s not a meme, it’s simply following history and reading declassified materials. The US government has a track record of developing advanced aircraft and weaponry in secret.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

Godel_unicode 4y ago

Because of revelations like this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-9_Hexagon https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-9_Hexagon

jcfrei 4y ago
Granted, it's pretty wild that they fixed some film cameras to a rocket and sent it to space. But neither the delivery vehicle (Titan 3) nor the film cameras attached to parachutes was some super secretive ground-breaking tech.
- boc 4y ago
  The entire existence of the NRO was a secret until an unredacted congressional budget report accidentally was entered into the record in ~1990. The NRO donated two unlaunched, out-of-date satellites to NASA in 2011 and the sensors/mirrors were well ahead of anything NASA had, including the Hubble telescope. And these were the satellites that were operational decades previously some estimates saying the model was launched originally in the mid-70s.[1] Don't underestimate what's up there. It's provably ahead of the civilian world by a long ways. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_Office_space_telescope_donation_to_NASA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_National_Reconnaissance_O...
  - google234123 4y ago
    How is the existence of the NRO a counter to "Why is this such a persistent meme that governments always have some crazy tech up their sleeves"? Like why would it matter if it was the Air Force buying satellite or some other agency like the navy or NRO? > the sensors/mirrors were well ahead of anything NASA, including the Hubble telescope. Hubble was designed in the 70s and launched in the 90s. So what if the NRO can spend more money and get something slightly better, how is that surprising?
    - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
      > How is the existence of the NRO a counter to "Why is this such a persistent meme that governments always have some crazy tech up their sleeves"? The NRO had crazy secret tech up its sleeves. It is a part of the U.S. government. It is far from the only such example.

lallysingh 4y ago

Because they'll invest heavily in technical areas nobody cares about commercially. So their stuff will sometimes be surprisingly advanced.

y0ungarmanii 4y ago
Very true, the commercial sector has almost no need for things like advanced optics, radiation hard electronics, RF absorbing materials etc.

bigiain 4y ago

> Highly advanced military tech is mostly about intimidation so there's little benefit in keeping stuff secret for decades That's probably true for weapons tech. It's probably very wrong for surveillance tech. I think the Snowden docs make it quite clear that the NSA does not "tend to oversell their capabilities" (at least not externally).