The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 14 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Schimpf: Government grants to Intel are the worst form of industrial subsidy
“Grants are, in my opinion, the worst possible form of this. It's like, you know, giving Intel an outrageous amount of money to build a facility that they didn't believe they had demand for. It's like, why would they not take the money to build a facility? They…”
Schimpf: Refusing to apply AI to military decisions is unethical
“Is like, to me, it is unethical to not apply these technologies to these problems.”
Schimpf: Defense prime contractor cartel refuses fixed-price government contracts
“So you have a relatively small cartel of these companies who sort of all say we won't do fixed price programs anymore. They won't do things on a fixed cost basis.”
F-35 fighters are merely incremental improvements compared to autonomous systems
“The ability to use autonomous systems is, in effect, like a new way of operating, whereas, you know, F-thirty-five and all these were sort of Incremental improvements to, like, a conventional way we've been fighting for quite a long time.”
Schimpf: China holds far greater industrial independence than the US
“China has definitively more industrial independence and the ability to continue production absent, you know, kind of like their choke points are quite a bit more, more mineral minimal, right?”
Schimpf: Government grants to save uncompetitive legacy industrial giants will fail
“And that, that I think is where the US policy is, is landed on, where it's like, let's give grants to these industrial giants that everyone agrees are no longer Competitive, and we'll try to save them. And you're like, it is obviously not gonna work.”
Schimpf: Xi Jinping prioritizes CCP preservation over economic growth
“The, he has demonstrated that he does not care if he harms the economy, if he believes it is in the interest of national security and preservation.”
Schimpf: US capital market structure is thousands of times better than competitors
“The US capital market structure is, it's not like it's 10% better than anyone else. It's a, it's like several thousand times better than anyone else. Like it is just wildly better.”
Schimpf: Traditional defense industry technology is outdated, slow, and lacks competition
“The tech is old. It is not moving fast. It is very lethargic. There are relatively few competitors at this point.”
Schimpf: Selling to the Pentagon is only 30% harder than commercial sales
“Is it much worse than selling to a bank or an oil and gas company? It's like, I don't know, maybe like, 30% worse, but like, probably not five X worse.”
Schimpf: Defense Department needs Project Warp Speed for autonomous weapons
“I think there's, I think you have to do both, right? So you've got to say, like, look, like, yeah, we need a warp speed for autonomous systems or weapons. Like, we need that, right? Like, that's a no brainer that we need to have. And in doing that, you can tea…”
Schimpf: Ukraine invasion was biggest global wake-up call on bad actors
“Turns out invading Ukraine was probably the single biggest shift I've seen in terms of people recognizing that, look, like, there are still bad actors in the world.”
Schimpf: Defense Innovation Succeeds Only When DoD Bets Big on Startups
“I think if we are in a position where we're working on top tier defense programs at scale, I'll feel like we've started to move the needle. And we are actually making a dent in, you know, both how the department buys, but also the types of technology it's buyi…”
The DoD Replicator program is achieving unprecedented procurement speed
“They are moving at a wildly faster pace than they have before. They're using the power of, you know, senior leadership to mobilize and force change into the department that otherwise would kind of move and incrementally adopt these new things over a very slow …”