I mean if you look at the astronomical levels of defense spending the US greatly resembles the USSR even in terms of the "tanks & steel". Broadly this kind of waste and stratification is characteristic of just about every fading empire.
Plus seriously, if you think spending 4% of GDP will cause a country or "empire" to collapse you need to read some history books.
Source:
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?locat...
What are we getting via VC-led industrial policy? More jobs in selling advertising?
Oh, its much worse than that, it exposes the hyporacy of hustle culture, and entrepreneur porn entirely if you're paying close enough attention with things FTX.
The covertness of ivy leagues parents leaning on the VC heavy hitters (Sequoia et al) and making this Sam and his girlfriend to be a super genius' while operating like 2-bit clowns with almost no oversight or due diligence and bribing politicians to get favourable legislation in place for them to corner the market.
I wish it were just crumby ad jobs, but it goes way deeper.
DARPA is the agency that funded ARPANET, and other defense research.