# There are DARPA-style ideas that DARPA doesn’t pursue # There are DARPA-style ideas that DARPA doesn’t pursue A major reason DARPA wouldn’t pursue a program is because it’s insufficiently related to defense priorities. Almost any piece of technology can be tied into defense priorities somehow. For (real) example: human computer interfaces are for command and control, medicine is for helping wounded soldiers and disabled veterans, improved learning techniques can help train military personnel, new materials and energy generation technology can be deployed on the battlefield and make our military more energy-secure, and fundamental physics could enable warp drive-powered battlecruisers! Therefore, it’s actually reasonable to conclude that DARPA would already have tried any potentially impactful DARPA-style technology program. If this were true, trying to run similar programs with less resources and clout would be idiotic. It’s perhaps a cheap analogy but assuming that DARPA will undertake every potentially-awesome technology program is the same line of thinking as assuming that Google will go after any potentially-valuable software product. It would be lovely to have a list of “good ideas DARPA rejected” but unfortunately we have to defend the assertion through indirect evidence. One piece of evidence is simply testimony from former PMs that they had program ideas rejected because they were insufficiently military focus. Unfortunately, DARPA is still a part of the US military so it’s hard to just ask about those directly.[^1] Another piece of evidence are stories of how many of the programs with tenuous connection to military applications scraped into existence by the skin of their teeth. Their stories often involve a dedicated PM doggedly arguing for them through several rejections or impending budget cuts. It could be that DARPA’s selection process is actually amazing at supporting almost every eventually-viable idea but puts them all through the ringer first. This seems unlikely. It seems far more likely that if many of the DARPA programs that we’re most excited about outside of the military barely made it over a line, there are as many or more that didn’t make it over that line. While it notoriously has fewer constraints than other government agencies, DARPA still has a number of constraints besides military relevance that may outline the shape of viable programs that it doesn’t pursue. [[DARPA does not do any research in house]], so it cannot pursue programs that would require spinning up an entirely new organization. It still needs to use government procurement, hiring, and salary practices, all of which could end up ruling out programs. Obviously, the only hard evidence to support the claim that there are DARPA-style ideas that DARPA doesn’t pursue is to successfully design and run them. ### Related * [[What do I mean by program design?]] * [[Can the ARPA model exist outside of the government?]] [^1]: Former PMs are still (understandably) hesitant to talk about could-have-been program ideas <!-- #evergreen #project/spectech --> [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/There+are+DARPA-style+ideas+that+DARPA+doesn’t+pursue) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/There+are+DARPA-style+ideas+that+DARPA+doesn’t+pursue)