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These famous US government investments are more precisely described as military investments, which they were. Almost all effective government investment was clo

These famous US government investments are more precisely described as military investments, which they were. Almost all effective government investment was closely connected to a specific military objective, and measured against delivery on that objective. The US has been unusually effective at keeping these projects from turning into pure jobs programs, which is the default outcome in virtually every country. It is an interesting question as to why the US defense institutions are so consistently effective at producing advanced R&D when that is not the outcome of almost any government program in the world, including most other parts of the US government. Even most modern trauma medicine was pioneered by the US military. These programs usually manufacture sinecures in most countries. The US has somehow, in this one narrow area, largely avoided that trap. It would be interesting to know if it is cultural and/or an artifact of how the programs are structured.

lovich 3y ago
My brother in Christ, do you not think the government invests in any sort of infrastructure or medical R&D? This was a single infrastructure project that pioneered new techniques like ground freezing to let tunnels be dug bigger than before or through less stable soil[1] or any sort of grant money given to university researchers on various drugs that then get spun out into products or brand new companies. For all its faults the US government is still the greatest producer of scientific research and advancements as far as we know in the history of the universe and that includes far more than just military related projects [1] https://appel.nasa.gov/2020/07/23/the-big-dig-learning-from-a-mega-project-2/ https://appel.nasa.gov/2020/07/23/the-big-dig-learning-from-...
nitwit005 3y ago
It feels like the flow of useful research out of US military spending has slowed down considerably. You notice people are still pointing at the internet here. The main advantage the US has had historically is just a much larger budget. If you can throw ten times as many darts, you'll hit the bulls eye ten times as often.
- ahepp 3y ago
  The Mansfield amendment in the 70s banned military funding for research that was not tied to specific military stuff, that might be a factor here
  - musicale 3y ago
    DARPA still has a budget though, even if it is much smaller than NSF's. And there is still a lot of DoD funded research.
nvm0n2 3y ago
Almost all government R&D spending is via small(ish) grants to academia for entirely unfocused "blue sky" research. Once you accept the premise that research should have no specific application in mind, it becomes impossible to determine if it's actually doing anything legitimae or is just fraud, which is why there's so much non-replicable crap coming out of universities. Military R&D is done with a specific, achievable goal in mind. It's not blue sky, it's more like "we need a better missile, how do we do that". Most of the real impactful innovations out there came as a side effect of trying to achieve some other goal, with only rare exceptions (ChatGPT?). As for why other countries don't, their military spending is too small to catch up and then exceed the state of the art. All the money gets spent on buying stuff the US developed.
- musicale 3y ago
  For projects I am familiar with, usually you have to propose actual deliverables, and there are project reviews and reports that have to be delivered to program managers. But given the nature of research, it is kind of unpredictable. One trick is to propose research that you've already completed or at least gotten into a prototype phase.

lovich 3y ago

My brother in Christ, do you not think the government invests in any sort of infrastructure or medical R&D? This was a single infrastructure project that pioneered new techniques like ground freezing to let tunnels be dug bigger than before or through less stable soil[1] or any sort of grant money given to university researchers on various drugs that then get spun out into products or brand new companies. For all its faults the US government is still the greatest producer of scientific research and advancements as far as we know in the history of the universe and that includes far more than just military related projects [1] https://appel.nasa.gov/2020/07/23/the-big-dig-learning-from-a-mega-project-2/ https://appel.nasa.gov/2020/07/23/the-big-dig-learning-from-...

nitwit005 3y ago

It feels like the flow of useful research out of US military spending has slowed down considerably. You notice people are still pointing at the internet here. The main advantage the US has had historically is just a much larger budget. If you can throw ten times as many darts, you'll hit the bulls eye ten times as often.

ahepp 3y ago
The Mansfield amendment in the 70s banned military funding for research that was not tied to specific military stuff, that might be a factor here
- musicale 3y ago
  DARPA still has a budget though, even if it is much smaller than NSF's. And there is still a lot of DoD funded research.

nvm0n2 3y ago

Almost all government R&D spending is via small(ish) grants to academia for entirely unfocused "blue sky" research. Once you accept the premise that research should have no specific application in mind, it becomes impossible to determine if it's actually doing anything legitimae or is just fraud, which is why there's so much non-replicable crap coming out of universities. Military R&D is done with a specific, achievable goal in mind. It's not blue sky, it's more like "we need a better missile, how do we do that". Most of the real impactful innovations out there came as a side effect of trying to achieve some other goal, with only rare exceptions (ChatGPT?). As for why other countries don't, their military spending is too small to catch up and then exceed the state of the art. All the money gets spent on buying stuff the US developed.

musicale 3y ago
For projects I am familiar with, usually you have to propose actual deliverables, and there are project reviews and reports that have to be delivered to program managers. But given the nature of research, it is kind of unpredictable. One trick is to propose research that you've already completed or at least gotten into a prototype phase.