Comment by cjbgkagh
11 hours ago
That is asinine, what do you think happens to those institutions when incompetence is what gets rewarded. The real threat to the US military is not the lack of weapons, or that the F35 is not as good or as cheap as it could have been, it's because it is a lumbering bureaucracy full of people who couldn't get better jobs elsewhere.
> it's because it is a lumbering bureaucracy full of people who couldn't get better jobs elsewhere
So, raise the amount of money paid to the military so the most qualified candidates apply?
The most qualified candidates for what? 100% of people in the military have passed the ASVAB. And the most capable people in the military are EXTREMELY intelligent.
The problem is unlocking that brilliance in an organization which has LOTS of office politics, cross currents, uncoordinated long term goals, too many interests who get to requirements to every project, etc.
And the biggest problem is that everything the US military decides long term needs sign off by Congress, so there is always a political dimension to every project approval. Congress laughs at the F35 as the “world’s largest jobs program” with components built in just about every member’s district. The A10 is unlikable because Congress wants to keep it around, even though the AirForce thinks it’s cheaper (logistically) and safer to use other aircraft for the role. Not everybody is thinking about the same factors.
Sounds like boiling the ocean, a cultural overhaul is probably in order.
These capabilities don't stick around for free. A corporation isn't going to keep around design staff doing nothing. Even if you move the design staff to the military stuff, you still need to give them work or their skills atrophy.
Incentives matter and incentivizing bugs in software is a very bad idea, it’s how you forget how to write software without so many bugs. And what was the point of it all, it was obvious even back then that the future was cheap missiles / drones.
> it's because it is a lumbering bureaucracy full of people who couldn't get better jobs elsewhere.
I don’t think that they exploit the military industrial complex for personal job security and fortune makes it likely that they’re incompetent. In fact, as a society we seem to praise those who are exceedingly successful at such exploitation, and even elect them to the highest levels of government and hang onto every word they say.