
After Pentagon Ends Contract, Top-Secret Scientists Group Vows To Carry On - Meerax
https://www.npr.org/2019/04/25/717225118/after-pentagon-ends-contract-top-secret-scientists-group-vows-to-carry-on
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ARandomerDude
Headline should read "after funding cut, scientists look for new funding". Not
quite as clickbaity though...

ETA: I used to work at a government lab. I've _never_ 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 My work is obsolete/irrelevant/a waste of money."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.

~~~
notbob
_> I used to work at a government lab._

Most JASON scientists haven't worked at a government lab for decades. How is
this relevant?

 _> ...I've never heard a contractor..._

These aren't contractors, they are scientists. And not just any scientists. In
most cases, they aren't even the scientists employed by a national lab.
They're scientists employed by all manner of institutions, including
universities who will pay their paychecks regardless of whether this funding
comes in. Usually senior and well-respected.

Many of those scientists have, if not "fuck you money", at least "fuck you
reputations" that translate into "fuck you money". E.g., the current
chairperson is fucking _Russell Hemley_... he's not putting up with federal
background checks because he needs the extra pennies...

JASON members work on JASON projects because they think those projects are
important. Nobel laureates and other top scientists don't work on grant funded
projects for the money... if all they cared about was feeding their families,
they would just retire. And if all they cared about was money, they would pimp
their reputations to private industry labs.

~~~
cm2187
I don't know about these specific scientists but often professors only get
paid for the school terms and must rely on externally funded research grants
for the rest of the year.

~~~
AlexCoventry
If you don't bring in grant money, you'll end up with a lab roughly the size
and utility of a shoebox.

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Jach
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:

> "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.

> "They were offering the opposite of cheerleading," he says. "And DOD decided
> that maybe they didn't want to pay for that any longer."

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:

> 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]

I'm hesitant to blindly take the scientists' side however. I'm reminded of a
remark from a Feynman interview
([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f61KMw5zVhg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f61KMw5zVhg)):

> 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.

~~~
derstander
The remark from Feynman may have been fair at the time, but JASON has
nominated and has been joined by scientists who aren’t physicists for quite
some time: certainly predating the dust-up with DARPA.

I know it probably wasn’t intended, but the proximity of those two things 1)
DARPA issues and 2) Feynman on honors could be uncharitably read that DARPA
wanted a broader set of disciplines that JASON refused. That’s not true.

I would trust membership of JASON to themselves vs DARPA, but that may just be
my own prejudices: I think of the current DARPA as a shadow of its former
(great) self without the expertise to pick JASON members without succumbing to
various political pressures.

~~~
Jach
Yeah, my prior is also weighted towards thinking JASON itself is going to be a
better group than the NAS was when Feynman made his comment and is able to
make fair membership decisions. I didn't intend to accuse just to bring it up
as one of several reasons why I have meta-uncertainty about my prior since
reading about those interesting bits (and another quip of membership being
"predominated by theoretical physicists") reminded me of Feynman's story, and
also I like sharing Feynman stories. :)

I would agree too that DARPA is a shadow of its former self, though on the
other hand that position adds its own uncertainties for me since I hold at
minimum the strong possibility of the same being true for the likes of JASON,
the NSA's crypto groups, NASA, Lockheed's Skunk Works, or any other US-
government-intertwined entities that nevertheless had or still have great
respect. Decline is everywhere if you look for it.

~~~
ENOTTY
You see evidence of decline everywhere, but I'm curious where you might see
evidence of ascent.

------
neilv
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JASON_(advisory_group)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JASON_\(advisory_group\))

------
omeid2
On a tangent, the group is part of Mitre Corp which maintains the CVE:
[https://cve.mitre.org/](https://cve.mitre.org/) amongst many other security
related publications.

Their SEG is a must read for anyone who wants to dive in or understand a
systematic approach to System Engineering.
[https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/publications/se-
gu...](https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/publications/se-guide-book-
interactive.pdf)

------
Causality1
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.

~~~
mcherm
I agree with everything you say here. But I can't tell whether this is an
argument for, or against, funding The Jasons.

~~~
Causality1
I don't know whether the Jasons are necessary. I would wager they're a better
use of money than half of the stuff the pentagon does spend money on.

------
rendx
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!

[https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain-Uncensored-
Americas-T...](https://www.amazon.com/Pentagons-Brain-Uncensored-Americas-Top-
Secret/dp/0316371661)

[https://www.npr.org/2015/09/25/443334499/pulling-back-the-
cu...](https://www.npr.org/2015/09/25/443334499/pulling-back-the-curtain-on-
darpa-the-pentagons-brain)

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bashwizard
So much for that "top secret".

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xorand
Which mathematicians or CS are (were) members of this group after 2000?

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JulianMorrison
Do you want supervillains? Because this is how you create supervillains.

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tus87
> 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

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.

Im surprised the DOD put up with them for so long.

~~~
learc83
Who do you think designs aircraft, ground vehicles, radar, and weapons
systems? The vast majority of that work is done by people who have never seen
combat, and that includes technology that the troops on the ground do love.

