Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!think!nike!ucbcad!ucbvax!cartan!brahms!weemba
From: weemba@brahms (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: sci.math,sci.misc,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: military funding in mathematics
Message-ID: <48@cartan.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: Wed, 22-Oct-86 17:07:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: cartan.48
Posted: Wed Oct 22 17:07:57 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 22-Oct-86 23:41:57 EDT
References: <2055@princeton.UUCP> <9600044@uiucdcsp>
Sender: daemon@cartan.Berkeley.EDU
Reply-To: weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P Wiener)
Followup-To: sci.misc,talk.politics.misc
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Lines: 127
Xref: mnetor sci.math:45 sci.misc:22 talk.politics.misc:657

Summary:

Expires:

Sender:

Distribution:

Keywords:


Wow.  I am impressed.  I thought in the past year that I have seen it all.
And done a goodly chunk of it.  And now some ignorant dweeb from Illinois
flames William Thurston.  Of all the people in the world.  Wow wow wow.

I thought Tim Maroney set an unbeatable low with his endless articles on
Heinlein.  But you with your single article have Tim and his dogged re-
fusal to comprehend the obvious outclassed by miles.

I'm impressed.

Anyway, on with the show.

For sci.misc and talk.politics.misc readers who did not see the originals
in net.math, William Thurston had a brief article concerning the stated
subject line--"military funding in mathematics".  I am directing all
followups out of sci.math, for obvious reasons.

In article <9600044@uiucdcsp> some dweeb from U Illinois says:

>Why, pray tell, is this trend so "unhealthy and dangerous" for math
>and society.  It really irritates me when people make such outrageous
>and unsubstantiated claims.  The least you could do is provide *some*
>thread of evidence - if such exists.

He did.  He offered to e-mail anyone a copy of his forthcoming paper
on the subject.  Did you take him up on the offer?  Uh, duhuh.

(I have not seen Thurston's article, as I subscribe to the journal it
is due to appear in.)

This trend--the increased presence of the military in the funding of
mathematics (and science, by the by)--is a good way to

 o drive good people away from the field who object to militarization
   in the first place

What's our dweeb's response to that?  Tough toodles, who needs them?
It's a good thing the Nazis took that attitude, or THEY would have had
an atomic bomb.

 o make mathematical/scientific funding subservient to random political
   winds

If our next president cancels SDI, do a lot of researchers who switched
fields for the bucks suddenly find themselves too late in a bloated field?

Why should optics suddenly get flooded with funds, and particle physics
have to beg?

 o introduce spurious and harmful efforts to classify university research

The NSA has tried to do this.  The SDI folks have suggested the same.

 o cut off funding/research for those with outspoken opinions

This has in fact occurred a few times.  The Oppenheimer case stands
out particularly.  A recent researcher at your own school, if I
remember correctly, was threatened with non-access to the Cray there
because he signed an anti-SDI pledge.  That sort of bullying was SOP
for Nazi Germany.  But AMERICA?  For crying out loud, whose side are
you on?

 o reduce international contacts among scientists

Or do you think "their" scientists deserve to be kept uninformed of new
purely scientific discoveries?  Watch out, because it can boomerang.

 o introduce uncertainty to the openness of conferences

Several conferences have in the past years received last minute orders
to keep some talks American/American-friend-only, even though the topics
are in themselves unclassified.

 o increase the bureaucracy for researchers

Does this need to be explained in detail, dweebie?  I wouldn't be sur-
prised, considering how difficult it is for you to see the obvious.  It
is bad enough dealing with OMB/NSF all on their own.

In the end, if the trend continues, the military brass will be happy,
shuffling their paperwork funding approvals, but the best minds of our
generation will be elsewhere.  Surely you heard about the genius at
Livermore who designed the X-ray laser quit when he realized that his
weapon was not really going to be useful defensively, but that it
would make a great offensive weapon.  Actually, he himself is keeping
mum about his exact reasons, but he has not denied these assertions.

So DoD will become bloated with second-rate epigones, and our defense
will suffer for it.

In the immortal words of the late Edward Morgan Blake, "and then Ozzy
here is going to be the smartest man on the cinder."

By the way, do you want to know why the Soviets are so scared of SDI?
Because it's a great offensive weapon: ASAT & anti-CCCI, in less than
a second.  Total destruction ala James Bond "Diamonds are Forever" is
not needed--just a touch and those delicate objects are useless.  It
obviously can't work as a defensive weapon, since if the Soviets do
want to attack us, they first blow up several nuclear bomb satellites,
whose resulting EMP would paralyze SDI instantly, and THEN they launch
their ICBMs.  With enough shovels, they can protect their silos from
the EMP.  And it's dirt cheap for them too.

By the way, Illinois dweeb, I freelance for a certain DoD related
agency now and then.  I'm proud of the classified work done there.
But if our country turns into another Soviet Union from the inside
out, why bother defending it in the first place?  Or is that too
rhetorical for you.

I personally do not object to SOME military funding for the sciences,
or some scientific research done for the military.  Indeed, it is very
easy to point out examples where this has been extremely beneficial in
the long run.  What is so distressing is the extreme excess that is
presently being thrown around, completely distorting all sense of
perspective.

I really should not have used any name-calling in the above, but I am
still so completely astonished/annoyed at the new supreme low in net
intelligence that you have set.  Congratulations.

If you read sci.math and don't know who William Thurston is, I suggest
you unsubscribe and save yourself future embarrassment.  Woof.

ucbvax!brahms!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
 If my answers sound confusing, I think they are confusing because the
 questions are confusing, and the situation is confusing and I'm not in
 a position to clarify it.     -Ron Ziegler, former Disneyland employee