Newman.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA (03/20/84)
From: Ron Newman <Newman.es@PARC-MAXC.ARPA>
The March 15, 1984 issue of The New York Review of Books contains an
article entitled "The Costs of Reaganism", which mentions DARPA's
Strategic Computing Program as an example of misdirected U.S. economic
and budgetary policy. The article is by Emma Rothschild, who teaches in
the Science, Technology, and Society program at MIT and is the author of
"Paradise Lost: The Decline of the Auto-Industrial Age".
...What does it mean for America's future economic growth that
69 percent of federally supported research and development is
for military purposes, an increase since 1981 of $18.1 billion
in the military function and of $0.6 billion in non-military
functions? [21]
Does it matter for the character of America's scientific
institutions that the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency's new "strategic computing" program is in the process
of transforming academic computer science?[22] Does it
matter for American competitiveness that Japan's ten-year
program on the cognitive, linguistic, and engineering
foundations of computing will be civilian, while America's
will be concerned with robot reconnaissance vehicles,
radiation-resistant wafers, and missile defenses, with
"speech recognition" in the "high-noise, high-stress environment
[of] the fighter cockpit," and with "voice distortions due
to the helmet and face mask"? [23] Mr. Reagan's principal
opponents are not asking these questions; they are questions
about the militarization of the political life, the scientific
potential, and the economic society of the richest country in
the world.
[21] "Special Analyses", Budget of the United States Government,
FY 1985, p. K-30.
[22] The program is described in Weinberger's Annual Report, p. 263,
and also in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's
own study "Strategic Computing" (DARPA, October 28, 1983).
In this study DARPA explains that it intends to use contract
personnel from industry as well as university researchers, in
order to "avoid a dangerous depletion of the university
computer science community": "The magnitude of this national
effort could represent a very large perturbation to the
university community" (p. 64)
[23] DARPA, "Strategic Computing", pp. 34-35.