[jMyles]

Wow, I thought this was satire for a second. This is a level of shamelessness that I'm really surprised Stanford (or anyone involved) can tolerate being associated with.

> Department of War Directory – This year the students had access to a Department of War Directory – essentially a phonebook of ~5,700 names of “Who buys in the Dept of War?” The directory includes a tutorial on how the DoW buys and the various acquisition and funding processes and programs that exist for startups. It provides details on how to sell to the DoW and where the Program Acquistion Officers (PAEs) fit into that process.

Literally teaching people how to make money selling misery and violence. No mention of how the tech involved can be used to constrain states, stop wars, establish justice, identify war crimes and restore victims, nothing. I thought we were beyond this in 2026.

[jenniferhooley]

"I thought we were beyond this by 2026."

Have you been asleep for the last 4–8 years? We aren't even 'beyond this' compared to where we were 15 years ago. In case you haven't noticed, the US has been going backward for years: Americans fundamentally don't give a shit about anything except maximizing GDP, regardless of cost - and in fact, some sectors thrive on that externalized 'cost.' I've noticed your sentiment a few times on HN lately and I'm befuddled every time, like what in your life makes you think we are beyond this kind of thing?

[jMyles]

> I've noticed your sentiment a few times on HN lately and I'm befuddled every time, like what in your life makes you think we are beyond this kind of thing?

I've been thinking about this question for a couple of days.

I think that, for the purposes of your analysis - that "the US has been going backward for years", it's important to make two observations:

a) This sentiment is precisely what has fueled Trumpism in the first place. If we just change which things we long for in the good old days, but keep the same timeline pessimism about what we've lost and why, it seems to me that we're likely to cycle around the fear/greed/predation we see, objection to which enjoys consensus (albeit with tribal labels perhaps). I don't have a strong sense of whether the US has been going backward, because I'm not sure it's possible for it to have (or to have had) a particular discrete direction in the first place. I don't long for what we've lost.

b) Let's look at POTUS approval. Of the single simple (perhaps oversimple, I don't know) metrics we might use to assess the narrative that "Americans fundamentally don't give a shit", it's a pretty good one. At some future point, the US government will wash away into history as they all eventually do, and the POTUS approval rating will be (and likely will already have been approximately) zero. The historic lows we're seeing in this area now are, to me, cause for enormous optimism. We have more and more inroads toward consensus regarding the illegitimacy of this institution. We are finding ourselves in agreement that the power vested in this office is invested poorly.

None of this is to deny that I'm nonplussed about the status quo. The murder of over a hundred children with a single tomahawk missile is probably the most horrific of any crime committed by an American in my lifetime, and it's not at all obvious how even to stand in the service of justice in its regard.

But what I do see, and what I do observe that everyone around me seems to see, is that we are accelerating toward novelty, leaving the lifeboats that brought us from the great ships of the industry and agriculture to these shores, and figuring out who we are.

In the past six months or so, I have begun to feel, for the first time since our fiddler Kuba Hejhal - one of the best on earth IMO, and I know some HNers had the privilege to see him on stage and perhaps have their lives changed in some small way for it - left this world by his own hand, that I can write and play optimistically about the evolution I see.

So I can't say that I have a single answer that can satisfy your critique, let alone convert your position to mine, but I thank you for noticing my sentiment, and I hope that we are all open to our minds changing as the records and shows and codebases flow.

[chadgpt3]

I believe the quip associated with this is "don't hate the player, hate the game."

War is where the money is. The government of this country has decided that you make money by going to war and you don't make money by not going to war. It's also decided that having money is mandatory. So if you want to succeed you'll go to war.

[AndrewKemendo]

This is extremely well put and precisely accurate

you may not even appreciate how accurate this is because it seems so simple but it’s exactly true

The moment you say “I’m not going to spend my time doing war” (in my case anymore) you are persona non grata to capitalism

[mhb]

> “I’m not going to spend my time doing war” (in my case anymore)

It's less convenient to indulge that opinion without the protection of the most powerful military in the world.

[AndrewKemendo]

Ah yes this old chestnut

Come back to me after you serve in combat. The dod doesn’t protect anything but investors’ returns.

I’ll have two time Medal of Honor winner explain it to you:

https://archive.org/details/WarIsARacket

[mhb]

I don't need a 13 page pamphlet to convince me that people are motivated by making money. But that's orthogonal to wanting a powerful military under whose umbrella you are pontificating.

[talon8635]

HN continues to slouch towards emotional outrage, even at the expense of the point.

[graphime]

> I thought we were beyond this in 2026.

You must be new to tech.

[jMyles]

> You must be new to tech.

Feel free to peruse my profile and websites to get a sense of my contributions and career trajectory over the past few decades, in software and in bluegrass music, if you for whatever reason seriously think that's germane to the discussion.

[leoqa]

He’s calling you naive, not asking for your resume.

[AndrewKemendo]

Steve Blank has been doing H4D for a decade now

[jMyles]

Of course, and it's been discussed on HN several times, but I can't recall seeing that students were being taught "how to sell to the [DoD/DoW]"; I'm pretty sure that's new (whether it was part of the course I have no idea, but I don't recall it being part of any materials or discussions).

[e28eta]

From this article, it does sound like it’s a newer development:

> Goals for Hacking for Defense

> A decade ago, our goal for the class was to teach students Lean Innovation methods while they engaged in national public service. We wanted to familiarize students with the military as a profession and help them better understand its expertise, and its role in society. We also hoped the class would show our sponsors a methodology that builds problem understanding before writing requirements.

> The class still does all this, but now that the DoW is buying from startups and defense venture capital is abundant, the class has turned into a national security incubator. Most of our teams form defense companies.

[chadgpt3]

Every tech company that can is selling war machines to the DoW because that's where most of the country's money is - that and stock markets.

[AndrewKemendo]

That’s literally the whole point of the course if you read the original intent of the course it was to change the acquisitions approach of Silicon Valley to match or influence the way the Department of defense does acquisitions and they’ve been extremely successful in capturing the Department of defense as you can see

[mhb]

You don't think the US military should have the best technology?

[jMyles]

I don't mind it having the latest technology; I just don't want it to exist. How long do we think the US military will persist in the universe? 5,000 years? 1,000? 500? 100? Surely it's closer to the last among these answers than the first.

What we need is peaceful, sober deprecation of this institution, and in particular, decommissioning of the nuclear arsenal. And there's no good reason that can't start today.

[phendrenad2]

Lesson learned: California, and all the universities within, are liberal on the surface, but deeply right-wing in the halls of power. Once you understand this, the whole state and its lack of progress on progressive issues makes sense.

[ungreased0675]

Even though progressives control nearly every state and local office, it’s the right-wing’s fault California has so many problems? Shirley, you can’t be serious.