Should we refuse grants from institutions in service to empire?

The Center for a Stateless Society advises us not to worry about DARPA’s involvement in what are otherwise projects with wholesome bottom-up implications.

The Internet itself was spawned in the dark corridors of DARPA. I’m still undecided as to whether I consider the Internet itself to be a Trojan horse upon society. I’m not especially worried, but there’s a remnant of worry in the back of my head. In any case, I always take the most interest in those activities that can be pursued on a micro-budget (if not yocto-budget) as where I come from, even if DARPA (or some other spook) is on the ropes and not positioned to claim a controlling interest in whatever it bankrolls, there’s the (perhaps not purely) emotional matter of “not having so-and-so to thank” for such-and-such.

Academia, for example, is utterly economically dependent on outside parties. In this place and times, this is a mixture of business, government, fees for services rendered (tuition, etc.) and individual donors. Assuming business and government are the lion’s share, it would appear that academia has historically been adept enough to “play mommy against daddy” well enough to retain a semblance of independence, which can in turn be invested in institutions such as tenure, academic freedom and the Pursuit of Knowledge for its Own Sake. These traditions (in the western world, anyway) date back to the Middle Ages, when mommy and daddy were church and state, and may still be a factor for some sectarian institutions. It’s looking more and more like the jig is almost up for academia. Most of those in the anarchist movements deride academia as a source of social control and favor autodidactics and unschooling. I’m not affiliated with academia, but am openly supportive of it, because it’s become a de facto sanctuary where non-conservatives can be both out and employed. We civilian supporters are finding ourselves more and more in the uncomfortable position of defending the indefensible, as the ways of academia begin looking more and more to us outsiders like either frank credentialism or frank surrender to the business model.

Then there’s my pet project, pubwan, which has noncommercial in its definition. Perhaps this (and this alone) is why pubwan-as-defined has not been implemented.