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0 pointsptero6y ago0 comments

Real work is (comparably) cheap. With F35 budget well over a trillion dollars this is 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than needed to fund maximum number of projects Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. My 2c.

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wolfgke6y ago

> Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. My 2c.

Isn't the idea of skunkwork projects exactly to avoid bureaucratic waste for the sake of radical innovation?! Let me give three quotes from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Skunkworks_projec...:

"A skunkworks project is a project developed by a relatively small and loosely structured group of people who research and develop a project primarily for the sake of radical innovation."

"Everett Rogers defined skunkworks as an "enriched environment that is intended to help a small group of individuals design a new idea by escaping routine organizational procedures.""

"[T]he term [skunkworks] was generalized to apply to similar high-priority R&D projects at other large organizations which feature a small elite team removed from the normal working environment and given freedom from management constraints.".

In this sense, the projects you are talking about surely cannot be skunkwork projects, but are just ordinary cooperate projects with a huge conservative cooperate-bureaucratic structure.

stan_rogers6y ago

Yes, and that's exactly what the post you are responding to said. Read it again: it says that the money is far more than skunkworks could possibly spend, so it's far more likely that the evaporating money is being boiled away by ordinary bureaucratic waste with nothing to show for it.

wolfgke6y ago

I am no native speaker of English, but at

> Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output.

to me, "it" seems to refer to "[s]kunk work" and referring to skunk work with respect to "max manpower" does not sound like skunk work to me, but throwing lots of cooperate ressources (instead of a small elite team) at the project.

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chiefalchemist6y ago

Isn't the idea of skunkwork projects exactly to avoid bureaucratic waste for the sake of radical innovation?

In the true sense of the word, yes. However, the MIC and the budgets that support it have their own working definition. It's not about the ends/results, It's about the means (swallowing more and more budget).

chipsa6y ago

Pay attention to the time frame for that trillion dollars: 55 years.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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wolfgke6y ago

> Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output. My 2c.

"A skunkworks project is a project developed by a relatively small and loosely structured group of people who research and develop a project primarily for the sake of radical innovation."

"Everett Rogers defined skunkworks as an "enriched environment that is intended to help a small group of individuals design a new idea by escaping routine organizational procedures.""

In this sense, the projects you are talking about surely cannot be skunkwork projects, but are just ordinary cooperate projects with a huge conservative cooperate-bureaucratic structure.

stan_rogers6y ago

wolfgke6y ago

I am no native speaker of English, but at

> Skunk works can sustain, at max manpower. It is bureaucratic waste with minimum productive output.

3 more replies

chiefalchemist6y ago

Isn't the idea of skunkwork projects exactly to avoid bureaucratic waste for the sake of radical innovation?

chipsa6y ago

Pay attention to the time frame for that trillion dollars: 55 years.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse