response to Justin Gabbard and Christopher Csikszentmihalyi's post Engineering Politics
Fear of Dystopia is not good R&D policy
Commented on September 10, 2007 by - xdarpa
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The author of this article is out of touch with what makes the DoD and its army of contractors tick.
Innovations coming out of military R&D are viewed as engineering eclipsing the frontiers of science. Solutions based on warfare driven problems have a "good vs. evil" societal impact depending on how you look at it. Mainframe computing, the M16, the helicopter, the A-bomb, radar... and the list goes on. These technologies, and others, define the world we now live in and are designed to kill more accurately or in mass numbers or to save more lives. (The helicopter got over 300,000 Vietnam soldiers to immediate wound care).
If the value on human warfighting life continues to be, "no man left behind," and "how can casualties be minimized?" then robotic automation for transport, combat, and medical intervention will continue to be funded no matter what the dystopic effect.
However, questions the author brings up persist: should defense policy leaders be held accountable for long-term societal impact of the R&D? Is this a job for Congress or the conscience of an engineer? Good questions, but right now there are no good answers.