The Truth About Investors’ Money and the Startup Scene

Over the years I have had many an occasion to remark the terrible job the media generally does keeping the public apprised of developments in science and technology. One failing I have had particular occasion to remark has been their tendency to treat technologies as much further along in development than they really are (to the point of, in terms of NASA’s system of evaluation, treating technologies on Level 1 as if they were all the way up on Level 9). Their superficiality on this level interacts with superficiality on others, not least the fact that following up stories, and putting together "the big picture," has never been a priority for the media, subjecting the news reader, listener and viewer to a hard rain of disconnecting details that can be so overwhelming as to leave them knowing less the more they tried to follow along (studies have literally documented this). Thus some technology story tells us something big is around the corner. We never hear about it again, in part because it never actually happens, another story telling us about something else that never happens. People forget the second part--the nothing happened part--and remember the dramatic announcement, the hype sticking, forming the general mood of expectation that endures even in a context which may be one of technological stasis.

Going along with this has been the coverage of the R & D side of things itself. We are always hearing about "startups," while the media hangs on every act, every pronouncement, of the "tech billionaires." All of that gives the impression that there is thus no end of money pouring into the research and development bringing "new things to life." Yet anyone who studies the actual flow of money through the arteries of the global economy knows full well that the picture is very different, with a new report from McKinsey & Co. showing that for the last two decades the game has mostly been speculative, and mostly centered on buying and selling that old commodity, real estate, in the hope of extracting profits from price changes, not grand new technological endeavors.

The pattern of investment (a reminder of the enormous media bias where financial news is concerned, ever selling the narrative of finance, globalization and the rest turbo-charging "INNOVATION!") would seem to correspond to the fact that, in actuality, the past two decades have not been terribly dynamic technologically, with obvious reflections in the slowness of the energy transition, in spite of the enormous potentials consistently revealed in the advances that have happened; and how, even in that scene supposed to epitomize the progress of our era, information technology, disappointment has been so commonplace. (Consider how many of its promises fizzle out, especially at the practical level. Artificial intelligence beating Go champions is all very well--but the AI that can take over your morning drive is a more significant test of practical efficacy, and we all know how that has been going.) However, we are still left with the question--is this because we live in an era where the technological possibilities are simply not all that promising (as Robert Gordon, for example, gives us cause to think), or because the potentials are there but, in this investment climate, not the incentives?

That question I put to you, reader.

F-35s and Aircraft Carriers for Germany?

As I remarked previously while certain details of Olaf Scholz's policy statement of last Sunday were widely reported the reporting was generally fragmentary and lacking in context. Simply put, few seemed to process that he was talking about a tripling of the defense budget this year (to $150-200 billion, making Germany the world's third-biggest defense spender by a long way), and maintaining a much elevated defense budget in the years ahead at or above NATO's 2 percent target.

When they missed even that it was unsurprising that they also missed the smaller, more ambiguous details, as when Scholz was discussing some of what the money was to be used for. In discussing the air force specifically Scholz made reference to Germany's continuing to "build the next generation of combat aircraft . . . here in Europe together with European partners, and particularly France," and in the meantime "continu[ing] to develop the Eurofighter [Typhoon] together," making specific reference to how the "Eurofighter is set to be equipped with electronic warfare capabilities." However, he also made reference to "a modern replacement for the outdated Tornado jets in good time" for the sake of NATO's "nuclear sharing" arrangement, which sounded oddly ambiguous given the prior talk of procuring F-18s (even if that decision had seemed to be dragging out endlessly), while he also mentioned, in a way that feels "random" at least when read in the transcript, that "[t]he F-35 fighter jet has the potential to be used as a carrier aircraft."

Germany has not previously been a partner in the F-35 project, or a customer for the aircraft. Does this statement then imply that Germany might purchase F-35s? Additionally the reference to its "potential to be used as a carrier aircraft" is confusing. The plane does not have the "potential" to be a carrier aircraft. The "C" version of the F-35 was specifically designed for carrier operations, and the U.S. Navy has been using it in that role operationally for many years now.

Considering the fact I responded by doing what all interested persons with any knowledge of the German language whatsoever, or even sufficient mental adroitness to properly use Google Translate properly (admittedly, probably not many of those in the English-language press, for all the idiot Hollywood propaganda about "elites" like journalists all being polyglot geniuses) should have done when coming upon that statement, namely lookg at the transcript of the statement in the original language. The relevant portion of the text reads as follows: "Das Kampfflugzeug F-35 kommt als Trägerflugzeug in Betracht"--does not mean that the "F-35 fighter jet has the potential to be used as a carrier aircraft," but that the "fighter jet comes into consideration as a carrier aircraft" (emphasis added). Thus the statement concerns not what the plane might be able to do, but what the German government might want to do with it--as a carrier aircraft. (Moreover, lest one think that Scholz must have meant something other than ship-based combat aircraft, rest assured that "Träger" is indeed the German word for aircraft carrier, "flugzeug" means plane, and that "Trägerflugzeug" means carrier plane, just as "kampfflugzeug" means warplane.)

Of course, even assuming that I have not missed some subtlety of the language (anyone who knows better than I do may feel free to explain where I have gone wrong) and in fact succeeded in clearing up one confusing point I find myself faced with another, namely why Germany, a country without any aircraft carriers, and which has not announced the intent of procuring aircraft carriers, is considering the F-35 or anything else as specifically a carrier aircraft? One possible explanation would seem that the author of the statement had in mind the 2019 German proposal for a joint "European Union" carrier (which I must admit had seemed to me unlikely--I know of no such arrangement in the past and the European Union has never impressed me as likely to break this particular ground). Another is that a German government now spending so much more on defense than it was then, looking at its bigger budget, is thinking of acquiring its own carriers outright--and that this has been let slip as a subtle clue that went over the heads of, well, pretty much the whole press in the English-speaking press so far as I can tell. Regardless of what exactly this was about I suspect the matter will be made clear one way or the other soon enough.