In the 60s science fiction we had all those advanced aliens who had artifacts that were nearly indestructible, worked forever and could output tons of energy. That was our vision of "high-tech". In the 80s we got the idea that maybe advanced aliens would have "smart" devices that could adapt to their environment, repair themselves and be incredibly versatile.
In those decades SF technology has one thing in common, regardless of the specific narrative: it granted incredible agency to the person who wielded it.
We also constantly tell ourselves that out technology advances forward, sometimes outpacing science fiction... Except the actual properties of our technology "evolve" in the opposite direction. We now have devices that are low-power, utterly fragile and dependent on tons of external services.
Our real technology today takes our agency away. As the article points out, it's often deliberate.
I sometimes entertain the idea of making a web comic where people have science fiction tech (spaceships, tasers, AI) with all our current problems: glitches, constant updates, loss of functionality due to poor connectivity, DRM, incomprehensible setup procedures, etc.
Nothing stopping you from making your own brickish phone thingy that connects to lte, runs a powerful processor and has a huge battery. You could do it from commodity parts and it would be trivially reparable by slapping in bits you cheaply order off Amazon/New Egg. And compared to 1980, it would still be mind bogglingly sci-fi - it just wouldn't be as sleek and svelte as your new iPhone.
But I do get your point. I do miss the days when my iPhone 4s would get horribly damaged, I'd order a part online, and a day later I have fixed it myself.
>> Nothing stopping you from making your own brickish phone thingy that connects to lte, runs a powerful processor and has a huge battery
But the real issue is what does it run? Android? Seems contrary to the point of building your own device.
There has yet to be a serious Mobile OS in the FOSS world that’s not tied in to the evils of Google, and still has e.g. baseband or phone call support.
"I was watching Disney movies on my HUD yesterday and now the right arm of my nanotech exoskeleton is stuck in a boot loop. I knew installing the Disney+ application was a bad idea."
That's true of a lot of sci fi, but the more imaginative authors foresaw many of the tensions and trade-offs between technology, commercialism and government.
I have vague memories of Philip K Dick short stories in which consumers are egged on to never fix but repeatedly buy new versions of technologies, because the old ones are built with limited lifespans, or the new versions have some superficially attractive feature with dubious actual value.
The story "Foster, you're dead!" springs to mind. Consumers are pressured into buying newer and newer bomb shelters in order to protect themselves from an imaginary enemy with constantly improving imaginary capabilities.
The more general idea that advances in technology would remove agency from the masses feels quite old, you can see the seeds of it in Brave New World for example.
I think that it made sense to do make the contract changes back in the 90s, as technology was moving super-fast on the hardware side.
It's time to reconsider. Fundamental technology advancement has slowed down considerably, and most vendors are transitioning to rent-seeking models as their ability to get revenue through organic replacement is gone.
I always wonder what they will do if there is a big war (maybe one that affects the homeland which is something the US is not used to) and the contractors decide fighting in this war is not good for business or they just want more money? Are they going to suspend IP laws and other contracts? It seems really weird that to have a military that’s dependent on other parties they can’t control.
This structure works ok if you have wars in other countries with weak enemies and you are just wasting money. But what about a big war where the nation has to put all resources into the war effort?
> Are they going to suspend IP laws and other contracts?
"Welcome to the Army, and congratulations on being drafted. Here's what you'll be working on - the good news is that you're already well trained in the area."
But what about a big war where the nation has to put all resources into the war effort?
USA will lose that war. Let's hope it doesn't happen.
The only "big" wars we've fought (Revolutionary, 1812, Civil, WWII, arguably WWI) have seen us build up a military from among the citizenry, for wars in which citizens mostly believed. There was always initially huge turnover among the officer class, as large numbers of colonels and generals selected by wealth, seniority, and politicking were replaced by men of broader experience who could lead soldiers to win in battle. There was steady improvement in munitions over the course of those wars, as general techniques of American craft and industry were focused on the requirements of war. Perhaps most importantly, soldiers and sailors came from every American family at every level of society. Also, those armies won those wars.
The standing army we have now has none of those characteristics. It spends vast sums in opaque fashion on increasingly specialized and fragile "weapons systems". It is saddled with an immense sclerotic immovable officer class. It shamelessly markets in misleading fashion to ensnare young people with limited options for its rank and file. Also, though it occasionally accomplishes a police action, the permanent American military loses all the "small" wars in which it engages, while slaughtering millions of innocents.
Not just existing military factories - civilian infrastructure will be converted where possible. E.g. a car factory changes to making military vehicles.
If necessary, guys with guns will arrive to ensure that production continues.
Lots of historical references on this sort of thing from the WW2 era.
Exactly. That's what happened in the WWII. This nice tesla factory? Well, we need some nice silent patrol vehicles mr Musk, but we need you to come out with some kind of composite armor for it in 60 days. If you can't do it, don't worry, we will take care of your factory for the duration, and when this is over you can have it again.
IP laws were partially suspended/taken over (with after the war compensations) during WWI. I'm thinking for example of Marconi's patents for wireless communication or also a few weapons design.
As for the contractors, the story of hms Prince of Wales against Bismarck comes to mind, with contractors sailing into battle to help mitigate reliability with its guns.
So there are precedents, in case of a dire need a state will enforce a deeper control over what is required to fight a war.
What would you do if your boss showed up and said he wasn't going to do anything to protect your family, home, and country from invaders because he wasn't going to make enough money doing it? They'd be lucky if the military showed up and took direct control before their own employees lynched them.
But that would n ever happen because they'll make plenty of money and if the U.S. is ever invaded, pretty much everyone will become a nationalist.
In the heat of battle, even the can openers stop working.
All the wiz-bang equipment that is too delicate will quickly be abandoned, only the rugged and simple stuff will be useful. Tremendous amounts of money will be squandered, but war itself is an ecstasy of waste.
Not sure how much it matters, Historically more equipment tends to win vs. better equipment.
It's disgusting how a prestigious military force has been reduced to a pitiful size reliant on contractors to install airconditioning units, weekend warriors who fly in and out on short tours and vehicles that have had "extended life" programs instead of making new ones.
Meanwhile the Russians and Chinese have been building next generation ground, air and sea units. The UK have two aircraft carriers which were designed in the early 2000s.
Sure we have our own innovative equipment but as the article says, they are operated and maintained by civilian technicians.
Are the technicians going to fly in to a warzone or if push comes to shove pickup a M4/SA80/G36/FAL/Famas and fight when the Russians come rolling through the Fulda gap.
The fundamental problem is that it's not actually required to work because it's not a defensive war, it's an overseas adventure.
If you want to see the most amazing military innovation on zero budget, it's being done in Syrian garages or on the streets of Hong Kong. If they fail, the innovators themselves are in physical danger.
The lesson of the Iraq war was that it's possible to throw a trillion dollars into an overseas disaster and all the comfortable profiteers back home remain fine. Why should they change without a gun pointed at them?
(There was definitely a phase of WW2, the first year or so, where all the inadequate British kit got replaced at urgent speed)
> Are the technicians going to fly in to a warzone or if push comes to shove pickup a M4/SA80/G36/FAL/Famas and fight when the Russians come rolling through the Fulda gap
At the rate things are going, the technicians will simply be bought out by the Russians.
All the yammering about "reduced to a pitiful size" aside, the world's navies are basically the USN, the RN, and everyone else sitting in the Honorable Mentions section.
Your comment doesn't seem very grounded. Those two British aircraft carriers were designed in the 2000s and are substantially more powerful than the brand new Chinese one which is a copy of the Russian one that was designed in the 80's. They operate F35's on them which are more modern and advanced than anything in the Russian or Chinese inventories. The closest Russian equivalent, the SU-57 was rejected by the Indian Air force for poor performance and the Chinese one doesn't have good domestic engines. The UK's has been investing in modernizing it's forces even under the budgetary constraints it works with.
> M4/SA80/G36/FAL/Famas and fight when the Russians come rolling through the Fulda gap.
Not to be a downer, but judging by the most recent European land war (the one in Ukraine) just picking up a "M4/SA80/G36/FAL/Famas" won't do that much in terms of stopping the enemy, you need kick-ass artillery and a kick-ass air-force, otherwise you're just sending those men into a meat grinder. That, of course, if we don't engage in a nuclear war, in which case the discussion is totally different.
Yeah, I know that, just wanted to point out that war between two comparable armies hasn’t changed that much between the 1980s and now, hell, hasn’t changed that much since WW2 and now (even though now I have the slight impression that tanks are not as well seen as during WW2, though I might be wrong on that). OP was suggesting going into battle War of Crimea-style, which would be a recipe for pointless slaughter.
Its almost a 1000km from the Fulda Gap to the Western border of NATO - so if the Russians did invade through Belarus/Ukraine there would be a problem a bit before they got to the middle of Germany.
And anyway, the North German Plain was just as likely an assault route for the Warsaw Pact forces as through the Fulda Gap.
The Russians already invaded Ukraine and tried to subvert Belarus.
As a Russian expat I am pretty sure they wont invade NATO because every high ranking Russian official has Millions/Billions of dollars in Cayman Islands and a vast portfolio of real estate in the west. Most of their children also live in the west. Also if they invade, then no one will buy their oil and gas and they will go bust as Soviet Union did before and they understand this fact very well.
Russia Government as of now is not an Empire like the Soviet Union, but is an organized crime group and should be treated as such.
It talks about the exact transition that caused them to go towards not doing that a few paragraphs in... Corporate consolidation and an move away from developing their own equipment meant the DoD had to become a better customer and accept terms from a corporate supplier.
> In alignment with this new paradigm, policymakers simplified the Federal Acquisition Regulation in 1994 and 1995, exempting “commercial items” from a large portion of the rules (as well as expanding the definition of what is a commercial item to include goods that could be seen as specialized military goods). Congress also encouraged federal agencies to purchase commercial items “to the maximum extent practicable.” These changes fueled high rates of commercial purchases, which, coupled with consolidation in the defense industry, contributed to the Defense Department’s increased use of commercial technology and the negotiation of single-source contracts.
> Ultimately, the power dynamics shifted between the Defense Department and commercial industry, forcing the department to accept warranties, contracts or prices that it could previously avoid — all thanks to changes in research and development funding, regulations and a lack of competition.
Either way I'm glad it's become an issue for the military. Makes me more hopeful it'll be adopted since it can be framed with some good ol' flag waving jingoistic military worship along side the other issues like e-Waste and consumer rights.
Known in government circles as Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS). It's the military's attempt to avoid redesigning the wheel when they need something that the civilian market also needs.
I know from my interactions with the DOD supply chain that few, if any, people think about the warranty implications of COTS hardware beyond making sure there is support from the manufacturer. This isn't too bad when the COTS hardware is a smallish component of a larger system that a unit can replace from spares if there is a failure (which is where the COTS movement started). It's a much bigger deal when the entire larger system is itself a COTS bundle, as is the case in this article.
What I'm a little afraid of is the congress will just carve out a warranty exception for the military as a bandaid to fix this specific issue without addressing right to repair on the whole. I could easily see them passing a law that basically says 'warranties shall not be considered void due to repairs made as part of a military mission' or something similar (wrapped in way more legalese) and leaving it at that or giving the full right to repair, ie: suppliers must provide CAD, board schematics, and make available replacement parts, but only for the military.
I wish I had your optimism. They usually do have those. But when they blow then off, there's usually very little recourse the government can do.
There is usually very little in a contract language for what happens when they get blown off, so the person with the broken Humvee (as an example) has to contact the appropriate government entity (contracting officer) to contact the company rep. So the company gets a slap on the hand. The government can threaten to end the contract, but that is a nuclear option.
The biggest (realistic) stick the government can have is to threaten to not renew a contract, but when you talk about a Humvee (to continue the example), that sadly is totally unrealistic. So the contractor knows they have a monopoly and have no incentive to work harder.
I'll tell you a story on a very large program I was on. We did developmental testing for a very large platform (Billions of dollars). We had a prime (Company A) who gave specifications for a form factor to Company B. For months, we told Company A that the Line Replaceable unit (LRU) that goes into the platform would not fit, and it took us eight months for Company A to admit there was even a problem. We only got them to admit there was a problem because we literally had a general officer come out to the test site and try to fit in the LRU himself.
What ended up being the issue? Company A gave the wrong size specifications to Company B. Guess what happened? The government had to pay to retrofit the design so the LRU would fit. We simply had no stick to make them pay for their mistake. The company said if they had to pay for it, they wouldn't have enough money for the rest of testing. And also guess what? no one in the government wants to be in charge of a failed program.
In addition, while there are fines stipulated in any such contract for breach of SLA, in reality it's almost always cheaper to pay the fine than actually meet the SLA. One would ask "why not increase the fine?". The answer is nobody would sign a contract with you without guaranteed profit. So if the risk outweighs the reward there's no deal.
Couldn't you do something like make (via legislation) any item on commercial sale subject to a minimum 10 year warranty on workmanship [for military purchasers] for repair or replacement, up to a value of X% of company revenue.
When you made a lemon, surely it's then cheaper to replace with a current product than it is to go to court; and being a military supplier would be a high status indication so don't companies (any making products that aren't adjective crap) should still want to make money through creating good products?
You can't be forced to actually work with the government. So if the governmeny makes it too much of a PITA, no one will bid or they will make the contract costs incredibly high.
Actually, yeah you can. Happened in WW2. People can be drafted and stop lossed. Entire factories were taken over, wages were frozen, and product shortages happened due to military need. If people can't make a profit building military units perhaps it's time the military starts building it's own skills again.
Of course you can put many provisions in contract or law but at some point nobody will work with you because the guaranteed ability to make money from every contract is gone. It's exactly why all outsourcing projects seem to have these disastrous conditions. Without them no MSP will even apply for the bid.
Yes, certainly but that isn't the goal. The Military Industrial Complex is nastily organic in the sense that self-perpetuation is what wins out. In this case the graft in both bueracratic overspeccing mazes and profiteering.
If I could pay somehow on a per-article basis, for the articles I stumbled upon - I would. I don’t regularly read NYT and would have no use for a monthly subscription as HN is the only place I see (unfortunately) regularly posting from NYT.
What we need is some kind of universal pass for articles that you pay a monthly fee for, and then as you read the articles from the sites it supports, it pays that publisher.
Additionally, the poster asked for a workaround - not to be lambasted for their choice to do so. :)
They still are doing it - the issue of course is blendle wants me to be the portal from which I read all my news - and I want to read it from wherever, my account bring debited when I read a blendled page.
>> the issue of course is blendle wants me to be the portal from which I read all my news
Bahaha, yeah, no. That’s not what I’m talking about.
Imagine we could also pay a generic monthly fee for e.g. access to Netflix, Disney+, etc, and the profits go to the services we are watching at the time.
All this celebration of Disney+ is honestly sad af, and shows just how out of touch people are.
We are in days worse than cable television, except that it’s on demand.
Yup. This. No, I don’t need yet another company having my info - I’m demanded to sign up on a brand new computer I just set up - I don’t even get a free article anymore.
Tested it on a VPN to make sure, even.
I think ‘quality journalism’ can do without stopping to this level.
I do but I have no idea if this is good journalism. I've been disappointed by the New York Times before, but that's irrelevant. According to the FAQ, you're not supposed to post articles behind a paywall which doesn't have a workaround; I'm just wondering what the workaround is. I see you can create an account but I don't know if that really counts.
So because it's worth it to you it shouldn't be pirated? As if your opinion on what laws are worthwhile to follow are somehow better than the actual law?
The law is a sham that's routinely changed in favor of those who make the most money. Just because something's legal doesn't mean it's right. The law also applies differently based on who you are and how much justice one can afford. I also think you're exaggerating. Someone saying if content is worth something to you, you should be willing to okay for it is a far cry from them labeling themselves the arbiter of copyright like you seem to have done.
That perspective on the law is a non starter. It's just not true. Picking and choosing what is okay to infringe is by definition being an arbiter of copyright law.
As soon as you see the text load, hit the "stop loading" button (usually takes the place of the refresh button). JavaScript doesn't load, so the paywall is never put in place.
Works pretty reliably across the board, unless maybe you have lightning fast Internet. Maybe there's a plugin to selectively disable JS that would make this easier.
In those decades SF technology has one thing in common, regardless of the specific narrative: it granted incredible agency to the person who wielded it.
We also constantly tell ourselves that out technology advances forward, sometimes outpacing science fiction... Except the actual properties of our technology "evolve" in the opposite direction. We now have devices that are low-power, utterly fragile and dependent on tons of external services.
Our real technology today takes our agency away. As the article points out, it's often deliberate.
I sometimes entertain the idea of making a web comic where people have science fiction tech (spaceships, tasers, AI) with all our current problems: glitches, constant updates, loss of functionality due to poor connectivity, DRM, incomprehensible setup procedures, etc.