Not really. DARPA is only getting $4.9B of the US's $181.4B research budget this year. For comparison, the NIH is getting nearly 10x what DARPA is getting.

A lot of people have a very weird understanding of what DARPA does.

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

DARPA also gets funding from other, more indirect routes as well though. Most black budget projects go there or split between them and Lockheed, bell, etc. You're just looking at the finance spread sheets, which are known to be completely fucked.

Also I wasn't being entirely serious, but it's not just DARPA either. For instance biological research going into designing new biological/viral and chemical weapons. The point was more that we spend very little taxpayer money to do things that benefit humanity.