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tonyhart7 parent
US literally have 1 trillion military budget, if you think 200 mil its a waste for prototyping a next gen weapon then I would have a bad news for you
hansvm
It's something like $3 straight out of my pocket, and it's going to be a flop. That trillion dollar military budget has a lot of semi-unavoidable costs (pensions, salaries, etc), but it has a lot of bullshit like this too.

Your argument feels something like the heap paradox [0], "the budget is big, so this thing doesn't matter." The budget is made of things this size though, and all it takes to fix it is to start taking grains of sand out of the pile instead of stacking the pile higher.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorites_paradox

tonyhart7 OP
200 million is 0.02 percent of 1 trillion.

does 30 cent matters to you??? because its not 3 dollar as a comparison but 30 cent is

hansvm
> 30 cent is

Not everyone pays the same amount in taxes.

> does 30 cents (or the actual value, $3) matter?

Not hugely, but the other point is still important. If somebody takes $3 out of my back pocket a few times each hour it adds up, and when the net effect is nearly guaranteed to be a transfer of funds to OpenAI with no benefit to the taxpayer (likely a negative benefit given our usual stance on letting monopolies run amuck) I'm especially salty about it.

NHQ
The entire Trillion is wasted. The entire trillion could be used for public benefit, or simply never "taxed" in the first place.

Very few people would willingly pay for military spending if for example when they buy food they are prompted with the option "do you want to give 30 cents to the military industrial complex?" And that "very few people" would not in sum render 1 Trillion.

imtringued
The cost of the Indian space program is roughly $1 per Indian. You're getting nothing for a third of the per capita cost of ISRO.
tonyhart7 OP
Indian space program don't have armed forces that cover 80% entire planet
potato3732842
The nickels and dimes add the F up. Stop acting like they don't.

Save perhaps the most extreme "I spend 70% of my six figure income on rent because I want to live alone somewhere trendy" of household budgets this is true for literally everything from the smallest business in the smalles of small towns to the federal government.

tonyhart7 OP
200 million is 0.02 percent of 1 trillion.

if you don't mind having 1 trillion military then you are not mind for 200 mill contract

potato3732842
Now add up all the other 2/20/200mil nickels and dimes across the DOD and what do you get?

The budget isn't all aircraft carriers and stealth bombers.

Maybe this is a good buy, maybe it's a bad buy. I don't know and I have no way of ever knowing. Just because the budget is big and the money is other peoples does not mean decision makers can be wishy washy about a hundred or two mil here and there. Everyone needs to care all the time. People like you and who share your "it's all pennies in the grand scheme" thought process at scale is the problem and why we're even having this discussion.

tonyhart7 OP
My point is if you worry about waste taxpayer money, you would not have 1 trillion budget in the first place

this is not on top of the list of "waste" things to worry about there are 20+ another reason and you pick this budget size its a weird hill to die on

potato3732842
That attitude is exactly how we got to a 1-trilling military budget in the first place.
tonyhart7 OP
then you can start with project that eat the money most
chgs
You don’t know. You don’t have the time or knowledge to know.

You delegate that to people whose job it is to know.

But you keep delegating it to people who want to spend more.

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