[Ericson2314]

DARPA does lots of good things — I have in fact worked on a DARPA project and enjoyed it. It's well run.

But each of those things has to be contorted to have a military purpose, even if the main benefit we get in the end is not military-related.

We should be able to research those things just because they are good, without laundering their best purpose. And we should open the door to other things that seem just as promising, but are harder to so launder.

The fact I can't tell you the counterfactual is kind of the point — most of us have no idea about the world-changing effects of the development not persued might be, just as the average person on the 1970s did not envision today's internet. The world of possible futures is simply too open ended.