Headline should read "after funding cut, scientists look for new funding". Not quite as clickbaity though...<p>ETA: I used to work at a government lab. I've <i>never</i> heard a contractor say "they made the right choice. My work is obsolete/irrelevant/a waste of money." At the end of the day, people have livelihoods to maintain. Their work is always "needed now more than ever". Some of it actually is. Some of it isn't.
This seems shortsighted... they'll probably find more funding, but what a bunch of nonsense to have to deal with in the interim. This bit of the article makes it seem like it could be as petty as a clash of personalities:<p>> "The department remains committed to seeking independent technical advice and review," Pentagon spokesperson Heather Babb said. But Aftergood sees another reason for the end of the relationship. He says that the Jasons are a blunt bunch. If they think an idea is dumb or won't work, they aren't afraid to say so.<p>> "They were offering the opposite of cheerleading," he says. "And DOD decided that maybe they didn't want to pay for that any longer."<p>An interesting bit of trivia from the wiki page shows they lost funding before in 2002 for something perhaps just as petty, them not relenting on having exclusive control over who they let join:<p>> In 2002, DARPA decided to cut its ties with JASON. DARPA had not only been one of JASON's primary sponsors, it was also the channel through which JASON received funding from other sponsors. DARPA's decision came after JASON's refusal to allow DARPA to select three new JASON members. Since JASON's inception, new members have always been selected by its existing members. After much negotiation and letter-writing—including a letter by Congressman Rush Holt of New Jersey[26]—funding was subsequently secured from an office higher in the defense hierarchy, the office of the Director, Defense Research & Engineering, name changed to Assistant Secretary of Defense (Research & Engineering) (ASD (R&E)) in 2011.[27]<p>I'm hesitant to blindly take the scientists' side however. I'm reminded of a remark from a Feynman interview (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f61KMw5zVhg" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f61KMw5zVhg</a>):<p>> Honors, and from that day to this, always bothered me. I had trouble when I became a member of the National Academy of Science, and I had ultimately to resign. Because there was another organization, most of whose time was spent in choosing who was illustrious enough to be allowed to join us in our organization. Including such questions as: ‘we physicists have to stick together because there’s a very good chemist that they’re trying to get in and we haven’t got enough room…’. What’s the matter with chemists? The whole thing was rotten. Because the purpose was mostly to decide who could have this honor. OK? I don’t like honors.
On a tangent, the group is part of Mitre Corp which maintains the CVE: <a href="https://cve.mitre.org/" rel="nofollow">https://cve.mitre.org/</a> amongst many other security related publications.<p>Their SEG is a must read for anyone who wants to dive in or understand a systematic approach to System Engineering.
<a href="https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/publications/se-guide-book-interactive.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/publications/se-gu...</a>
The United States military-industrial complex is the world's largest jobs program. Paying sixty scientists for research means five hundred fewer people in a congressional district building tanks we don't need and can't use.
A good book about the history of the Jasons (and everything in and around DARPA) is The Pentagon's Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA (2016) by Annie Jacobsen. Recommended read!<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain-Uncensored-Americas-Top-Secret/dp/0316371661" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain-Uncensored-Americas-T...</a><p><a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/09/25/443334499/pulling-back-the-curtain-on-darpa-the-pentagons-brain" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/2015/09/25/443334499/pulling-back-the-cu...</a>
> The Jasons' solution was to develop a system of remote sensors that could be airdropped into the jungle and provide intelligence on the enemy. The program, like much to do with Vietnam, was controversial and didn't work perfectly<p>LOL so a bunch of ivory tower academics who have never left the cushy confines of campus let alone entered a battlefield come up with impractical and useless inventions that got dumped within a day. What's the bet men on the ground hated them! And the real solution came from some comms officer who knows a bit about soldering and sensors (and the reality of jungle warfare) probably.<p>Im surprised the DOD put up with them for so long.