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1714alpha t1_jcu54zu wrote

Any time a federal agency starts to receive an avalanche of funding, my first thought is that it's starting to get tied into "defense" spending (ie, militarized). The very first point they make is about information technology being 'critical', which I take to mean that the NSF is becoming the R&D department in the cyber war with China, Russia, etc.

Someone please help a jaded elder millennial to see this as anything other than a cynical ploy to leverage resources in an ongoing political/economic/technological conflict.

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noobtastic31373 t1_jcwkq27 wrote

>please help a jaded elder millennial to see this as anything other than a cynical ploy

... mind if I sit and wait with you?

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vasya349 t1_jcx005d wrote

I agree, but is it such a bad thing if competing looks like building better computers? Just like national laboratories, a lot of things they do are justified by defense but ultimately have huge positive externalities for related fields. Plenty of industrial and infrastructure investments are justified for defense but are really more useful for other things.

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-OnlinePerson- t1_jcz8oks wrote

Fertilizer was made at the same time as some chemical warfare products

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roguetk422 t1_jcwti4w wrote

The internet was started by the DOD to streamline data sharing primarily for the purpose of intelligence gathering on the USSR, then expanded by the NSF when its developmental implications became more clear.

This expansion in funding is primarily motivated by chip manufacturing and industrial competition with China so yeah its leveraging resources in a conflict but a shit load of our steps forward as a species have come out of such circumstances

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