nytimes article on military money for hackerspaces
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Chris Shannon
Oct 6, 2012, 7:55:31 PM10/6/12
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Benjamin Davis
Oct 6, 2012, 8:07:59 PM10/6/12
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<3 darpa
On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 8:55 AM, Chris Shannon <csha...@gmail.com> wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/us/worries-over-defense-dept-money-for-hackerspaces.html?_r=1 --
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MRE
Oct 8, 2012, 7:50:44 PM10/8/12
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Initially we though these school spaces would be to do whatever.
Now it looks like theyll have design challenges to compeat in.
Shady?
Now it looks like theyll have design challenges to compeat in.
Shady?
Torsten Wagner
Oct 8, 2012, 8:50:19 PM10/8/12
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I believe the discussion is not really right.
1. Organisations like DARPA or others are that huge that you can't put
them in general in the evil corner.
There are projects who might do real evil stuff, others are not at all
related to any war or warfare stuff, despite the fact that the money
is coming from the same accounts.
2. Those hackers who dislike it (and I can understand that) should
dislike in the same terms any sponsoring from any other big company.
Google, Microsoft, Apple, Pharma- and Biotech, whatever. I even
believe that those can be even a bigger threat to hackerspace culture.
After all if one of them sees a way to make money out of the movement,
they will do so.
So the general advice would be; Be grateful for sponsoring but always
ask and question the expected back payment.
(something certain people who just run an billion dollar election
might follow too ;) ).
Just my two cents
Totti
1. Organisations like DARPA or others are that huge that you can't put
them in general in the evil corner.
There are projects who might do real evil stuff, others are not at all
related to any war or warfare stuff, despite the fact that the money
is coming from the same accounts.
2. Those hackers who dislike it (and I can understand that) should
dislike in the same terms any sponsoring from any other big company.
Google, Microsoft, Apple, Pharma- and Biotech, whatever. I even
believe that those can be even a bigger threat to hackerspace culture.
After all if one of them sees a way to make money out of the movement,
they will do so.
So the general advice would be; Be grateful for sponsoring but always
ask and question the expected back payment.
(something certain people who just run an billion dollar election
might follow too ;) ).
Just my two cents
Totti
Richard Frankum
Oct 9, 2012, 3:01:10 AM10/9/12
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On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 8:50 AM, MRE <epre...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Initially we though these school spaces would be to do whatever.
> Now it looks like theyll have design challenges to compeat in.
Were you not paying attention when the DARPA program was announced?
> Initially we though these school spaces would be to do whatever.
> Now it looks like theyll have design challenges to compeat in.
"The MENTOR effort is part of the DARPA’s Adaptive Vehicle Make
program portfolio and is aimed at engaging high school students in a
series of collaborative distributed manufacturing and design
experiments."
http://blog.makezine.com/2012/01/19/darpa-mentor-award-to-bring-making-to-education/
> Shady?
I hardly think so. DARPA sponsoring competitions sounds like a good
way to foster low-cost high-quality entries. They've got a purpose,
and it ain't just giving money away.
--
--Richard Frankum
Chris Harrington
Oct 13, 2012, 1:11:38 AM10/13/12
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Like any other organization, the military has cool guys like Dave
Sonntag, normal guys like you and me, and then a minority of shallow
morons who just want to get promoted and have lots of ribbons over
their pockets. My personal experience was that the ratio was somewhat
better in the military then it ever was in any company I ever saw.
Remember, people who have a modicum of talent at something don't join
the military just for the paycheck. Most have at least some sense of
duty, which makes them generally nice people under the right
circumstances.
Civilian controlled militaries in long standing Democracies do not
usually attract "conquer the world" or "big brother" personality
types.
The problem is the double edged sword of civilian control. Absolutely
necessary, but at the same time, the root of most evil when it comes
to military stuff.
Civilian control is what brings about all the outsourcing of basic
services (and even security) that's been going on in the past few
decades. Any good military administrator would much rather do
everything in-house, I'm sure. Civilian control is also responsible
for promoting the occasional psychopathic high ranking officer out of
political expediency.
The picture of the shady military types working in the shadows on
bizarre and dangerous technologies to harm grandmothers is, on the one
hand, a cliche, and on the other hand, those aren't really "military"
types per se, that kind of stuff is usually done by civilian agencies
that are sometimes staffed by military dropouts, or in other words the
real assholes who weren't good enough people to keep their jobs in the
service.
I'd say the trick to dealing with military funding would be to keep it
short. Reason being is that personnel changes are frequent. You may
like the people who bring you the offer, but they will be completely
replaced in three to five years and you may end up working for someone
you can't stand. Ideally, only get funding for short term projects.
Chris Harrington
chris.har...@gmail.com
http://chris.harrington.jp/
http://gplus.to/chrisharrington
090-8812-8911
Sonntag, normal guys like you and me, and then a minority of shallow
morons who just want to get promoted and have lots of ribbons over
their pockets. My personal experience was that the ratio was somewhat
better in the military then it ever was in any company I ever saw.
Remember, people who have a modicum of talent at something don't join
the military just for the paycheck. Most have at least some sense of
duty, which makes them generally nice people under the right
circumstances.
Civilian controlled militaries in long standing Democracies do not
usually attract "conquer the world" or "big brother" personality
types.
The problem is the double edged sword of civilian control. Absolutely
necessary, but at the same time, the root of most evil when it comes
to military stuff.
Civilian control is what brings about all the outsourcing of basic
services (and even security) that's been going on in the past few
decades. Any good military administrator would much rather do
everything in-house, I'm sure. Civilian control is also responsible
for promoting the occasional psychopathic high ranking officer out of
political expediency.
The picture of the shady military types working in the shadows on
bizarre and dangerous technologies to harm grandmothers is, on the one
hand, a cliche, and on the other hand, those aren't really "military"
types per se, that kind of stuff is usually done by civilian agencies
that are sometimes staffed by military dropouts, or in other words the
real assholes who weren't good enough people to keep their jobs in the
service.
I'd say the trick to dealing with military funding would be to keep it
short. Reason being is that personnel changes are frequent. You may
like the people who bring you the offer, but they will be completely
replaced in three to five years and you may end up working for someone
you can't stand. Ideally, only get funding for short term projects.
Chris Harrington
chris.har...@gmail.com
http://chris.harrington.jp/
http://gplus.to/chrisharrington
090-8812-8911
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