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> ... notion of the government acting as it's own prime contactor for something like the Tomahawk program is just absurd and totally impractical. The small-arm

> ... notion of the government acting as it's own prime contactor for something like the Tomahawk program is just absurd and totally impractical. The small-arms ammo was just their MVP for 1777. By the late 1950's, the government was building stuff like this in it's own (gov't-owned, gov't-operated) shipyard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Hawk-class_aircraft_carrier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Hawk-class_aircraft_carr... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Navy_Yard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooklyn_Navy_Yard I'm thinking that a Tomahawk has rather fewer parts, from fewer subcontractors, than a >60,000-ton aircraft carrier. And doesn't take multiple years of continuous work to build, either.

nradov 1y ago
Nah. The complete Tomahawk weapons system is far more complex than a WWII era aircraft carrier. Beyond the missile itself there's an "iceberg" under the surface. The software alone is huge and requires major ongoing work from several defense contractors covering multiple embedded systems, mission planning, telemetry, launch platform integration (multiple different classes of surface ships and submarines, plus now ground launchers again), testing, etc. Plus customized builds for each of the export customers. You probably have no idea what actually goes into making this all work with an extremely high level of reliability.
- bell-cot 1y ago
  Your line of argument relies on this - Axiom: While, in the past, gov't organizations were quite capable of performing the largest, most complex, and most critical technological tasks that society faced, things are somehow Different Now - and only non-gov't organizations (very preferably for-profit corporations) are now capable of such things. But what is actually Different Now is this: Our ruling classes de facto decided to reduce the gov't's core competency in a part of national security - because outsourcing those capabilities to for-profit org's was far more lucrative for them, and the nation seemed secure enough that they didn't much care about the downsides. Humans are very responsive to their social environments, and its structure and unwritten rules. Setting the "Non-corporate" bit on the org that a human works for does not magically reduce what they are capable of. Linus Torvalds actually is the creator and BDFL of Linux. Even though he is an individual human - not a corporation, nor a secret front for one. The mathematicians who completed the classification of finite simple groups ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_finite_simple_groups#History_of_the_proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_finite_simpl... ) over decades and centuries completed that massive task while generally working individually or in small groups, for wide array of colleges and universities.
  - nradov 1y ago
    Well that's your opinion. But so far we haven't seen any evidence that governments are able to build complex software as well as private industry. So I think we'll stick with the current approach.
- Aeolun 1y ago
  That sounds like every government contract ever.

nradov 1y ago

Nah. The complete Tomahawk weapons system is far more complex than a WWII era aircraft carrier. Beyond the missile itself there's an "iceberg" under the surface. The software alone is huge and requires major ongoing work from several defense contractors covering multiple embedded systems, mission planning, telemetry, launch platform integration (multiple different classes of surface ships and submarines, plus now ground launchers again), testing, etc. Plus customized builds for each of the export customers. You probably have no idea what actually goes into making this all work with an extremely high level of reliability.

bell-cot 1y ago
Your line of argument relies on this - Axiom: While, in the past, gov't organizations were quite capable of performing the largest, most complex, and most critical technological tasks that society faced, things are somehow Different Now - and only non-gov't organizations (very preferably for-profit corporations) are now capable of such things. But what is actually Different Now is this: Our ruling classes de facto decided to reduce the gov't's core competency in a part of national security - because outsourcing those capabilities to for-profit org's was far more lucrative for them, and the nation seemed secure enough that they didn't much care about the downsides. Humans are very responsive to their social environments, and its structure and unwritten rules. Setting the "Non-corporate" bit on the org that a human works for does not magically reduce what they are capable of. Linus Torvalds actually is the creator and BDFL of Linux. Even though he is an individual human - not a corporation, nor a secret front for one. The mathematicians who completed the classification of finite simple groups ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_finite_simple_groups#History_of_the_proof https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_finite_simpl... ) over decades and centuries completed that massive task while generally working individually or in small groups, for wide array of colleges and universities.
- nradov 1y ago
  Well that's your opinion. But so far we haven't seen any evidence that governments are able to build complex software as well as private industry. So I think we'll stick with the current approach.
Aeolun 1y ago
That sounds like every government contract ever.