Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

Comment by krapp | Hacker News Reader

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From what I can tell, there was never any "gay bomb project" to begin with. While the proposed cost of the project was estimated at about 7 million dollars, no taxpayer money ever flowed into gay bomb research, except maybe the cost of printing a three page proposal. It was one of hundreds of speculative projects deemed too problematic to be workable, and never funded or implemented - which the linked article actually points out.

Unfortunately, people see an article about "the US government once considered a 'gay bomb' but dismissed it as ridiculous" and read "the US government has a secret Manhattan Project for gay bombs" and conclude "Alex Jones wasn't entirely wrong because, you know, the government is building gay bombs like he said. And if they're doing that, maybe they are putting something in the water. "

The entire line of reasoning is specious.

I didn't say the project was undertaken, but it was real enough for someone to come up with the idea, ballpark the cost of it, write up the proposal and have a bunch of presumably high-paid decision-makers read it in order to come to the conclusion that it's just a little bit too ridiculous. That's all on the tax dollar.

Of course, of all the egregious military research that has been undertaken, that one is just a whimsical side note. It could serve as a red herring even without any conspiracy theorist. I'd certainly sleep easier believing that the military is busy researching the gay bomb instead of the doomsday device.

>but it was real enough for someone to come up with the idea, ballpark the cost of it, write up the proposal and have a bunch of presumably high-paid decision-makers read it in order to come to the conclusion that it's just a little bit too ridiculous. That's all on the tax dollar.

A research laboratory speculated about possible areas of nonlethal chemical weapons research, and created a three page proposal, among which was a reference to what would be called the "gay bomb." That's their job.

Here is the proposal[0]. That's how "real" the "gay bomb" was - a single brief paragraph on the second page.

This isn't "egregious military research," it's a step above a doodle scribbled onto a napkin that someone else threw into the wastebasket.

[0]https://web.archive.org/web/20060502201217if_/http://www.sun...

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