[Noisebridge-discuss] Sigh -- I'm not helping with Maker Faires this year.

Jacob Appelbaum jacob at appelbaum.net
Wed Apr 4 09:10:26 UTC 2012


On 04/03/2012 09:42 AM, Matt Joyce wrote:
> 
> And I want to remind you.  DARPA isn't in the business of killing people.
> It's in the business of engineering peace where there is none.  War and
> chaos do not achieve the objectives of DARPA or the US military.  Their
> goal is to END conflict.  They don't start it.  They get tasked to "end it"
> usually on favorable terms.  You want to equate defense work with "murder"
> I'd point the finger at the ambassadors, senators, and other political
> entities that allow war to happen.  Some of them will own that
> responsibility and some of them will shirk it.  But to place blame on DARPA
> for it is somewhat absurd.
> 
> Just some thoughts.
> 

Hi Matt,

I just wanted to quote Darpa's home page[0] for you:

"The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was established
in 1958 to prevent strategic surprise from negatively impacting U.S.
national security and create strategic surprise for U.S. adversaries by
maintaining the technological superiority of the U.S. military.

"To fulfill its mission, the Agency relies on diverse performers to
apply multi-disciplinary approaches to both advance knowledge through
basic research and create innovative technologies that address current
practical problems through applied research.  DARPA’s scientific
investigations span the gamut from laboratory efforts to the creation of
full-scale technology demonstrations in the fields of biology, medicine,
computer science, chemistry, physics, engineering, mathematics, material
sciences, social sciences, neurosciences and more.  As the DoD’s primary
innovation engine, DARPA undertakes projects that are finite in duration
but that create lasting revolutionary change.

So when you say they're not in the business of killing people, you're
almost right - they sub-contract it out. It's a distinction without a
difference for most people.

( I wrote a lot of other stuff but then I realized I originally just
wanted to correct your misstatement for the record of other
noisebridge-discuss readers and not to argue with you.)

All the best,
Jake

[0] http://www.darpa.mil/our_work/



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