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That the Internet exists directly refutes what looks like common reasoning. It never would have happened without DARPA (because telecoms never would have let it

by MR4D 4y ago

That the Internet exists directly refutes what looks like common reasoning. It never would have happened without DARPA (because telecoms never would have let it happen).

margalabargala 4y ago
That's a fair point; there's something to be said for novel technology being developed by industries/organizations adjacent to but not directly involved in the industry of that technology. This seems to tend to yield better results than funding the industry directly. My guess at why, would be that occupants of the industry have an interest in maintaining the status quo, while players adjacent to the industry have an interest in novel, disruptive technologies in adjacent industries. For example, over a decade ago, the US paid hundreds of billions directly to telcos to fund the buildout of a nationwide fiber network. Perhaps if that money had gone to a different group, then a nationwide fiber network would exist.
- MR4D 4y ago
  You make a great point about "adjacent" players. However, in the case of the military, it's even moreso. . . Most companies (regardless of industry) seek profit. Whether that's Microsoft or AT&T, or anyone else, they seek profit, and will do just about anything to get it. The military, however, is not at all motivated by profit, but rather by winning wars. That has a very different profile than "profit", and being an existential sort of issue, prompts some very different outcomes. The internet is one outcome, as I mentioned before, but also things like depleted uranium, which are a byproduct of enriching uranium.[0] Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be much of a civilian use for the material, but there sure is for war! Anytime you can get different motivations, you get a more diverse set of outcomes. Teflon and Tang are probably the best known ones from NASA efforts. NASA is of course interested in rockets and scientific research, which have some overlap with commercial and some overlap with the military. [0] - https://www.iaea.org/topics/spent-fuel-management/depleted-uranium https://www.iaea.org/topics/spent-fuel-management/depleted-u...
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  I think it’s just lack of imagination—no one in the 80s could see what the Internet could become—it would have been a huge gamble with little predictable value (of course, we have the benefit of hindsight).
wing-_-nuts 4y ago
You act like the basic research that darpa funded could not have been otherwise funded by a nation that didn't spend a large chunk of its budget on military spending.
- MR4D 4y ago
  Why else would you design & fund a computer network to survive nuclear war?
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    I’m also having a hard time imagining some hypothetical peaceful country spending billions on a computer network without the benefit of hindsight regarding its potential value. In other words, without knowing the commercial, social, etc potential of the Internet in advance and without a military pretext, what country would have committed to spending on its development?
welterde 4y ago
Many networks were being developed in parallel, so I am not sure how you can say that the idea of interconnecting them would never have come up. And most of the initial network designs (including ARPANET btw) were very much inspired by a design coming from the NPL in the UK (a metrology institute.. very much not military). So what you meant to say was that without basic research institutes like NPL or CERN the internet as we know it today would not exist. However there are things that just evolve on their own once the time is right and all the necessary ingredients (computers, networks and already existing backbone service to use) are around. Just like the computer you have parallel evolution with multiple different seeds. So I think even without NPL or CERN we would have something like the internet today, but the underlying protocols and formats might look completely different. And don't forget about Bulletin Boards (BBS) that happened slightly later somewhat independent of all those academic efforts (and not forming packet-switched networks at all initially, but with high-latency packet forwarding being added later on for email and sending binaries between different sites). This could also have served as a seed to whatever we would be using today.

by MR4D 4y ago

That the Internet exists directly refutes what looks like common reasoning. It never would have happened without DARPA (because telecoms never would have let it happen).

margalabargala 4y ago

That's a fair point; there's something to be said for novel technology being developed by industries/organizations adjacent to but not directly involved in the industry of that technology. This seems to tend to yield better results than funding the industry directly. My guess at why, would be that occupants of the industry have an interest in maintaining the status quo, while players adjacent to the industry have an interest in novel, disruptive technologies in adjacent industries. For example, over a decade ago, the US paid hundreds of billions directly to telcos to fund the buildout of a nationwide fiber network. Perhaps if that money had gone to a different group, then a nationwide fiber network would exist.

MR4D 4y ago
You make a great point about "adjacent" players. However, in the case of the military, it's even moreso. . . Most companies (regardless of industry) seek profit. Whether that's Microsoft or AT&T, or anyone else, they seek profit, and will do just about anything to get it. The military, however, is not at all motivated by profit, but rather by winning wars. That has a very different profile than "profit", and being an existential sort of issue, prompts some very different outcomes. The internet is one outcome, as I mentioned before, but also things like depleted uranium, which are a byproduct of enriching uranium.[0] Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be much of a civilian use for the material, but there sure is for war! Anytime you can get different motivations, you get a more diverse set of outcomes. Teflon and Tang are probably the best known ones from NASA efforts. NASA is of course interested in rockets and scientific research, which have some overlap with commercial and some overlap with the military. [0] - https://www.iaea.org/topics/spent-fuel-management/depleted-uranium https://www.iaea.org/topics/spent-fuel-management/depleted-u...
throwaway894345 4y ago
I think it’s just lack of imagination—no one in the 80s could see what the Internet could become—it would have been a huge gamble with little predictable value (of course, we have the benefit of hindsight).

wing-_-nuts 4y ago

You act like the basic research that darpa funded could not have been otherwise funded by a nation that didn't spend a large chunk of its budget on military spending.

MR4D 4y ago
Why else would you design & fund a computer network to survive nuclear war?
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  I’m also having a hard time imagining some hypothetical peaceful country spending billions on a computer network without the benefit of hindsight regarding its potential value. In other words, without knowing the commercial, social, etc potential of the Internet in advance and without a military pretext, what country would have committed to spending on its development?

welterde 4y ago

Many networks were being developed in parallel, so I am not sure how you can say that the idea of interconnecting them would never have come up. And most of the initial network designs (including ARPANET btw) were very much inspired by a design coming from the NPL in the UK (a metrology institute.. very much not military). So what you meant to say was that without basic research institutes like NPL or CERN the internet as we know it today would not exist. However there are things that just evolve on their own once the time is right and all the necessary ingredients (computers, networks and already existing backbone service to use) are around. Just like the computer you have parallel evolution with multiple different seeds. So I think even without NPL or CERN we would have something like the internet today, but the underlying protocols and formats might look completely different. And don't forget about Bulletin Boards (BBS) that happened slightly later somewhat independent of all those academic efforts (and not forming packet-switched networks at all initially, but with high-latency packet forwarding being added later on for email and sending binaries between different sites). This could also have served as a seed to whatever we would be using today.