Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets • Hacker News Board

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#41

Post by throwup238 » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 3:58 AM UTC

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #32

Dalewyn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They are also yet another defense incumbent that needs to be disrupted. The first and arguably only mission of the Department of Defense is to win wars. Diversifying the economy is none of their concern beyond having a economy with which to fuel their war machines. If you want diversification of the economy, look towards the Department of Commerce. Or to put it another way: Thumping your diversity drum doesn't win y…

Diversifying the economy is a pathway to winning wars. Limiting themselves to a few expensive and stagnant vendors is a way to lose in the future. Other countries make these things much more efficiently because they don’t have lazy governments captured by old companies. Also I have no idea what this has to do with “diversity” or what you even mean by that.

> Other countries make these things much more efficiently because they don’t have regulatory capture by old companies.

This contract is for cutting edge unmanned fighter jets. Other countries don't make them at all!

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#42

Post by Dalewyn » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 3:59 AM UTC

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #32

Dalewyn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They are also yet another defense incumbent that needs to be disrupted. The first and arguably only mission of the Department of Defense is to win wars. Diversifying the economy is none of their concern beyond having a economy with which to fuel their war machines. If you want diversification of the economy, look towards the Department of Commerce. Or to put it another way: Thumping your diversity drum doesn't win y…

Diversifying the economy is a pathway to winning wars. Limiting themselves to a few expensive and stagnant vendors is a way to lose in the future. Other countries make these things much more efficiently because they don’t have lazy governments captured by old companies. Also I have no idea what this has to do with “diversity” or what you even mean by that.

>Also I have no idea what this has to do with “diversity” or what you even mean by that.

Diversity, or "the condition of having or being composed of differing elements"[1], in this case a wide variety of suppliers.

I assume most of us are speaking English here.

[1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diversity

>Limiting themselves to a few expensive and stagnant vendors is a way to lose in the future.

You win wars by buying your equipment from the most capable suppliers. If that happens to be a centralized cabal of suppliers (this stuff is expensive, after all), then it is what it is. It's not the mission of the DoD to diversify the economy, its mission is to win wars as effectively as possible at any cost.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#43

Post by justrealist » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 4:06 AM UTC

SushiHippie wrote: post #29

Even though I never heard about Anduril before, this is now the second time in a day that I 'hear' about it. The first time was a post about the latest Mark Rober video 'promoting' Anduril/military technology to a child/teen audience. https://lemmy.ca/post/19761360 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrGENEXocJU

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Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#44

Post by modeless » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 4:08 AM UTC

throwup238 wrote: post #41

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diversifying the economy is a pathway to winning wars. Limiting themselves to a few expensive and stagnant vendors is a way to lose in the future. Other countries make these things much more efficiently because they don’t have lazy governments captured by old companies. Also I have no idea what this has to do with “diversity” or what you even mean by that.

> Other countries make these things much more efficiently because they don’t have regulatory capture by old companies. This contract is for cutting edge unmanned fighter jets. Other countries don't make them at all!

Probably because it's way better to make swarms of dirt cheap drones

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#45

Post by yinser » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 4:11 AM UTC

anyfactor wrote: post #40

Is Anduril really that good? I am trying to figure out what is the potential of Anduril is. Their first phase product was in observability towers for border protection, then they made drone-ramming drones and now unmanned fighter jets. I am genuinely curious. I was in the whole retail investor space since early 2010s which saw the EV hype. Workhorse was supposed to supply vans for federal postal vans, Nikola had that…

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Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#46

Post by torginus » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 4:18 AM UTC

anyfactor wrote: post #40

Is Anduril really that good? I am trying to figure out what is the potential of Anduril is. Their first phase product was in observability towers for border protection, then they made drone-ramming drones and now unmanned fighter jets. I am genuinely curious. I was in the whole retail investor space since early 2010s which saw the EV hype. Workhorse was supposed to supply vans for federal postal vans, Nikola had that…

The problem in the US defense industry is, that since the end of the cold war, defense companies have consolidated into just 5 huge conglomerates and the lack of competition wasn't great for the pace of innovation, affordability or timely development.

And the Cold War ended more than three decades ago, about the time we went from piston aircraft to the teen series jets making up the bulk of US inventory even today. Imagine that there isn't a single engineer today at Boeing who has gone through a clean sheet fighter aircraft development cycle throughout his career.

Boeing and LM, 2 of the biggest manufacturers of aircraft, have spotty reputations.

I'm pretty sure the US gov. is absolutely eager to create more competition of the space.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#47

Post by throwup238 » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 4:20 AM UTC

modeless wrote: post #44

throwup238 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Other countries make these things much more efficiently because they don’t have regulatory capture by old companies. This contract is for cutting edge unmanned fighter jets. Other countries don't make them at all!

Probably because it's way better to make swarms of dirt cheap drones

No one makes swarms in any real sense of the word, either.

These unmanned Wingman jets will be the first in the world to do that too.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#48

Post by vkou » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 4:32 AM UTC

relativ575 wrote: post #23

vkou wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if their warhawk counterparts hold their next shindig somewhere in Gaza (So they can see first-hand what the consequences of their work and advocacy look like).

Kyiv would still be the right location. Russia want anything that may distract the world's attention from the crimes they commit everyday in Ukraine.

Russia's aggression against Ukraine, started a decade ago, the war on Palestinians has been going on for ~55 years.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#49

Post by blackeyeblitzar » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 4:36 AM UTC

throwup238 wrote: post #41

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diversifying the economy is a pathway to winning wars. Limiting themselves to a few expensive and stagnant vendors is a way to lose in the future. Other countries make these things much more efficiently because they don’t have lazy governments captured by old companies. Also I have no idea what this has to do with “diversity” or what you even mean by that.

> Other countries make these things much more efficiently because they don’t have regulatory capture by old companies. This contract is for cutting edge unmanned fighter jets. Other countries don't make them at all!

I meant other countries make the plane portion (not Anduril’s unmanned controls) that General Atomics is responsible for. Predators and Reapers are very expensive.

Re: Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets

#50

Post by ordinaryradical » Thu, Apr 25, 2024, 4:51 AM UTC

vkou wrote: post #20

CamperBob2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should hold the next conference in Kyiv.

Only if their warhawk counterparts hold their next shindig somewhere in Gaza (So they can see first-hand what the consequences of their work and advocacy look like).

If you don’t want to build weapons because you don’t like the variety of ways they may be wielded, that’s a valid and reasonable ethical stance.

If you don’t want to build anything that could ever potentially be used in the manufacture of those weapons, you probably shouldn’t be building open source software or contributing anything to do with any programming language at all.