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The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

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Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#61

Post by supportengineer »

andrewmutz wrote: post #20
giraffe_lady wrote: post #4

Embarrassing regurgitation of propaganda. This is basically the military DOGE. Are these systems dysfunctional in some ways, could well-intended sweeping reforms improve them? Sure, maybe, I don't know much about it. Is that what's happening here? No, this a way to get the existing functions out from under the oversight and constraints of acquisition laws to reduce friction for corruption and war profiteering. If you…

Steven Blank (the author) is a respected member of the startup community and is not partisan. He's been working with the defense department for 10 years (across both administrations) to modernize the way the military buys technology. His work to create the "hacking for defense" project to modernize things is not at all like DOGE and preceeds it by many years https://www.h4d.us/

And he has a huge house which can be seen at the top of each page.

"Got Mine!"

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#62

Post by SpicyUme »

ACCount37 wrote: post #49
NickC25 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also allowing for "good enough" solutions to enter the field of battle. Which is fucking frightening. We don't want "good enough", we want weapons that are fully capable and best-in-class. After all, that's why the Department's budget is nearly a trillion dollars a year. We aren't paying for good enough, we're paying for the best of the best of the best. We should first solve for why we've allowed massive scope…

Is an off the shelf FPV drone with a grenade strapped to it a "best in class" weapon? No. By now, its battlefield lethality exceeds that of small arms and artillery shells. Take that as a lesson on "best in class" systems. The "best" system is often one that's barely "good enough", but can be manufactured at scale. And, what can US manufacture at scale today? Oh.

>By now, its battlefield lethality exceeds that of small arms and artillery shells.

The war in Ukraine seems to be showing this to not be true. Drones are used as much as they are because they do not have enough artillery. Are they useful, yes. But they do not replace artillery. Maybe in another type of war, but that is another issue, what is the next war we expect to find ourselves in? For all the talk of China deterrence, we're seeing a pivot away from China now.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#63

Post by navbaker »

sebmellen wrote: post #3

Out of all of the hires of this new administration, Hegseth is the most surprisingly competent.

A competent person does not summon every senior leader in his worldwide organization to be physically present for an hour in an auditorium while he blusters and attempts to deliver TV-ready one-liners. A competent person also does not take over a massive organization that relies on these senior executives’ decades of experience and immediately fire a non-trivial number of them because of their gender or skin color.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#64

Post by chasd00 »

NickC25 wrote: post #15
sd9 wrote: post #2

More weapons more quickly. This is what I want. I'm sure they will be used for good. /s I'm sure there are good reasons for this, and the approach doesn't seem totally unreasonable, to be fair. I'm just personally woefully unequipped to understand how to deploy weapons humanely and morally, and naively think less weapons is better. Thankfully there are adults in the room making these decisions for me...

>deploy weapons humanely and morally A bit of an oxymoron there wouldn't you say? >naively think less weapons is better This I agree with. We should really only have a few dozen nuclear weapons, and nothing more. The whole point is to have a clear line of "DO NOT FUCKING CROSS AT ALL", and that's it. You cross us? We nuke you. We don't bother you, you don't bother us unless you want to face nuclear annihilation. Seem…

The threat only works in an existential crisis. As in, if you legitimately attempt to destroy our government then we will nuke you. Using nuclear weapons successfully in a war that doesn't result in a full exchange between all super powers demonstrates the feasibility of limited nuclear war which is just nuclear armageddon in slow motion. Nations (and the earth) want to avoid that just as much as a full nuclear exchange.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#65

Post by mindslight »

andrewmutz wrote: post #20
giraffe_lady wrote: post #4

Embarrassing regurgitation of propaganda. This is basically the military DOGE. Are these systems dysfunctional in some ways, could well-intended sweeping reforms improve them? Sure, maybe, I don't know much about it. Is that what's happening here? No, this a way to get the existing functions out from under the oversight and constraints of acquisition laws to reduce friction for corruption and war profiteering. If you…

Steven Blank (the author) is a respected member of the startup community and is not partisan. He's been working with the defense department for 10 years (across both administrations) to modernize the way the military buys technology. His work to create the "hacking for defense" project to modernize things is not at all like DOGE and preceeds it by many years https://www.h4d.us/

I think the setup is that our society needs a lot of reforms, and everyone has their pet reforms they've focused on the need for. But rather than have any sort of coherent constructive plan, the fascists will shamelessly say multiple contradictory things that each sound good in isolation. So then people get drawn into playing "4d chess" trying to pick out signal from the noise, assuming that there must be some kind of higher goals in there beyond embezzlement and deprecation of the Constitutional government in favor of some corporate oligarchy.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#66

Post by IT4MD »

stackskipton wrote: post #47

As someone who has some familiarity with this process, just like safety regulations are written in blood, Federal Acquisition rules are written in misuse of money, sometimes criminally. Yes, we have swung too much towards the bureaucrats but I'm not sure throwing out everything is solution to the issue. Move fast works great when it's B2B software and failures means stock price does not go up. It's not so great when…

[dead]

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#69

Post by Hizonner »

andrewmutz wrote: post #20
giraffe_lady wrote: post #4

Embarrassing regurgitation of propaganda. This is basically the military DOGE. Are these systems dysfunctional in some ways, could well-intended sweeping reforms improve them? Sure, maybe, I don't know much about it. Is that what's happening here? No, this a way to get the existing functions out from under the oversight and constraints of acquisition laws to reduce friction for corruption and war profiteering. If you…

Steven Blank (the author) is a respected member of the startup community and is not partisan. He's been working with the defense department for 10 years (across both administrations) to modernize the way the military buys technology. His work to create the "hacking for defense" project to modernize things is not at all like DOGE and preceeds it by many years https://www.h4d.us/

1. If you've been in business for 10 years, you're not a "startup". 2. The "startup community", such as it is, is loaded with hucksters and not particularly respectable. 3. What he wrote is partisan. 4. Putting "Department of War" in the title is heavily partisan.

Re: The Department of War just shot the accountants and opted for speed

#70

Post by themafia »

stackskipton wrote: post #47

As someone who has some familiarity with this process, just like safety regulations are written in blood, Federal Acquisition rules are written in misuse of money, sometimes criminally. Yes, we have swung too much towards the bureaucrats but I'm not sure throwing out everything is solution to the issue. Move fast works great when it's B2B software and failures means stock price does not go up. It's not so great when…

> but it looks like whole "We will fix busted models later" might have been more expensive. Time will tell.

Time has already told us. Historically it means it was more expensive. If it wasn't, it would be such a rare an interesting case, that it would deserve a documentary on the surprising result.

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