[justin66]

The more subtle thing to consider is that the amazing tech stuff whose development we tend to think of as being paid for by defense funds was developed prior to ARPA becoming DARPA in 1972, and more importantly, prior to the Mansfield Amendment's passage in 1973. This limited funds appropriated for defense research to projects with a direct and obvious military application.

[eindiran]

ARPA always was funded by the DoD: https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/dod-establishes-arpa

[justin66]

Nothing in my comment above was meant to imply otherwise.

The trouble with the Mansfield Amendment (there are some on hn infinitely more qualified to comment on this) was that generally cool, but not necessarily defense-oriented, stuff falling out of defense spending directed towards basic research went from being considered a good thing to being considered a bad thing, or more precisely, a wasteful thing. The idea was that the NSF would pick up the slack after DoD tightened up the requirements for what sorts of research they would fund, which for a variety of reasons never really happened.