But here we miss an important point which is that government is natural to human societies. The mistake is to think that government is some artificial construct at odds with human nature. Tribes are governed. Families, the smallest society, are governed. What we call "government" is just a modification of the most basic form of government of the family (kings, for example, were analogically fathers of the kingdom). The authority of the state is derived from the authority of parents through the principle of subsidiary.
Government and money are two institutions who's origins are much debated, but I would be find replacing them with something else, "self-perpetuation" replaces "natural" for me.
I also so think this is dovetails with the best argument for reproducible bootstraps (as the follow up to reproducible builds). Without that, and like with our socials institutions, we have a a "historical bootstrap" we are constrained by. But by making an artificial bootstrap, we gain some freedom to tinker rather than being completely constrained by historical happenstance.
With software it is clear what this looks like. With something like governance and money it is less clear. Certainly it's hard to imagine the John Locke style arguments bootstrapping from "primitive man" working out, as children must be raised in a culture before they get the privileges of democracy, and are thus biased. But perhaps there are other more feasible ways.
The reason the op's comment is not actually a straw man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man) is because the first governments were developed out of a necessity to ensure a unity of peoples, the functioning of essential systems, and the protection of said peoples and systems. It's also why (for instance) the very first sentence of the US constitution has multiple touch points with national security:
> We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, *establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty* to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
To summarize: defense is how so much of our monetarily non-viable societal advances take place because defense is primarily why governments exist at all. Even arpa-e (thanks for your edit—it's a good topic to bring up) exists to minimize our reliance on foreign energy, which is directly motivated by national security.