Everyone needs to fear the military industrial complex. Its bad for every business that is not in the business of war and killing. I'm sorry but today is unlike anything we have ever witnessed. While Military Industrial Complex was one thing in 1950, today, its a totally different beast and our society can't take much more beast.
Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project
461–470 of 1001 posts
Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project
#462Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Only in the USA is it normal to think that people should have the right to kill in self defense. If that's the case, I don't want to live anywhere else. If someone breaks into my home in the middle of the night, they pose a deadly threat to my family. In what country would you not feel the same way? > Even more, many think they should be able to defend themselves from the state. Not all states are benevolent, nor a…
Why must an intruder, who may be there just to steal something and not harm others, immediately have to pay for their actions with their life? Do gun owners truly believe that they can band together and stop the entirety of the United States military anymore? The same people who are large proponents of the 2nd Amendment also seem to encourage a massive defense budget which seems backwards to me.
>Do gun owners truly believe that they can band together and stop the entirety of the United States military anymore?
Well, yeah.
There are no illusions that a group of people with dubious levels of training could square off against the government and come out on top. However, you can certainly raise the cost of occupation _significantly_.
Despite the US rolling into the middle east with all of its technological might, planes, helicopters, and modern armor, its still bands of people with guns and bombs who, years after "mission accomplished", drag the conflict onward.
Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project
#463Everyone needs to fear the military industrial complex. Its bad for every business that is not in the business of war and killing. I'm sorry but today is unlike anything we have ever witnessed. While Military Industrial Complex was one thing in 1950, today, its a totally different beast and our society can't take much more beast.
We should all be in the business of peace and prosperity, not war and destruction. If we aim to build a better world that is. What will it take, my fellow geniuses, to build a peaceful world?
Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project
#464Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see the dead post, though I've looked. I'm happy to hear the points.
after removing insulting remarks, ataturk's comments looks like this (which i personally agree with): Globalism == lack of agency, the end of voting and elections. Universal education == total indoctrination and ideological consistency of the collectivistic variety. Universal healthcare == the end of individual choice, individual responsibility, all new extensive taxing regimes, the destruction of the individual on m…
Thank you for taking the time to find and share the points. I'd like to rebuke :
>Globalism == lack of agency, end of voting and elections
If federalism didn't lead to this, why would globalism? What even is globalism? I am skeptical of this because "globalism" seems to be used as a catch-all alt-right bogeyman lately.
>universal education == total indoctrination, ideological consistency
Universal access to education doesn't have to mean homogeneous curriculum. It doesn't have to mean lack of education choices. It doesn't even have to mean requirement to receive education.
Another thing I find curious - the very people I find rejecting education "collectivism" are often people who wouldn't blink before forcing their own "indoctrination" upon others. We fight this fight in Texas far too often - should schools teach facts (evolution), or give "fair credence" to falsehoods (intelligent design) because of religion? Woops, out goes falsehoods as soon as the satanists get involved and also flex their constitutional rights, never mind, we'll take evolution!
>universal healthcare == the end of individual choice
I don't see why this has to be true, it isn't in any of the current implementations of universal healthcare.
>end of individual responsibility
Are you presently responsible for your water being clean? Are you presently responsible for the quality of your roadways? Are you presently responsible for the guarantee that your medication contains advertised active ingredients that do as it says on the label?
>Extensive taxing regimes
Shift military funding, close ultra-rich tax loopholes.
>destruction of the individual
Fail to see how this is true. Unsupported by argument.
>gun control == people control
False equivalence.
>then, total domination by the state and a monopoly on the use of force
Currently working just fine in countries with gun control laws, which, by the way, completely nullifies the false "has never worked out well" absolute you ended with. Furthermore, the USA has right now a monopoly on the use of force. The US and its laws have sovereign control over whether you are allowed to use force or not. You have almost no say in the matter. Furthermore, this isn't 1776. The gap in armament between civilians and a martial state is so large as to be hilarious. Were the need to arise, US combined armed forces could drone strike, Tomahawk, artillery, AC130, or just door to door ground and pound any organized militia to dust. Or, you know, nuke it.
Are you, private US citizen, allowed to build a nuke?
I see this kind of response a lot to "the globalist threat."
What's the end game, for people that believe these things? Endless culture war? A galaxy-spanning human civilization that still has their "I'm an American and you're Chinese" safe little lines? Is there a fear that the "wrong" culture will persist into the future?
Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project
#465Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure if you meant to imply that the 2nd amendment is a fundamental human right but if so I think that's a bit of a stretch. 'Fundamental rights' (under US law) I think is defensible as fundamental is treated as an alias for constitutional so guns are in. 'Fundamental human rights' to me implies broad and fundamental applicability, i.e. the UN declarations and covenants on human rights, which don't iterate gun…
I'd argue that fundamental human rights means rights that exist inherently regardless of whether the UN or any given country recognizes them. My feeling is that people have a right to self defense, which would require them to have access to some effective weapon. In theory that could be a club or blade rather than a firearm; however, currently firearms are the only (somewhat) socially acceptable weapon to carry in th…
I can't think of a single right that exists inherently. Where does such a right originate?
For every right that most people hold evident, you'll find people who disagree. This is why rights are codified in laws and agreements.
Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project
#466> Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project That moment when you realize your mega-corp employer's "culture" is merely just another tool to get your to do their bidding. How do the share holders feel? I'm sure they're betting that almost every employee will stay no matter how their technology is used.
Indeed, they know few to none of these petitioners will quit. 3,000 petition signatures will do nothing. 3,000 resignations would, but Googlers aren't going to pass up on the high paychecks, three five-star meals a day, and massages in the office based on moral grounds. (In the same vein, Google's NetPAC has been quietly donating the max to Republicans like Paul Ryan and Steve Scalise, while most of their engineers o…
That’s generally not how collective bargaining works. After petition, the next step would be a strike, not mass resignations. Then if there is no resolution between management and labor, there will be terminations and regulations.
Perhaps before going to premature conclusions, it might be worthwhile to wait and see how management reacts.
Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project
#467This is is not the same kind of technology as better materials science for gun barrels, or hypergolic fuels for ICBM maneuvering thrusters. This is about a software that constitutes a decision making process. Who dies is not up to you or a commander, but by a automatic software process. Debugging the code means innocent people are probably going to die to do it.
Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Only in the USA is it normal to think that people should have the right to kill in self defense. If that's the case, I don't want to live anywhere else. If someone breaks into my home in the middle of the night, they pose a deadly threat to my family. In what country would you not feel the same way? > Even more, many think they should be able to defend themselves from the state. Not all states are benevolent, nor a…
You make a great point. Police forces have been sued for responding slowly or not at all to threats on lives and found to have no responsibility to respond to a particular crime.
Many people don’t actually know this, but police has “no duty to protect”, meaning that they can perfectly legally not Intervene even if they know with 100% certainty people are being hurt or murdered. Look up “no duty to protect”.
Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project
#469Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nukes prevent any war from happening between any powerful nation. So, in the universe you are writing from, the Kargil War would have been an impossibility?
India and Pakistan aren't really powerful nations in the nuclear sense that the US and Russia are. I assume the person you are replying means powerful nation as "nation with a lot of nukes", which is pretty much only the US and Russia. US Nukes: 7300 Russia Nukes: 8000 India Nukes: 90-100 Pakistan nukes: 100-120 Everyone except the US and Russia nukes: ~1100 (source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/nine-nati…
Even if you restrict it to the US and USSR (and later Russia) there have been direct armed conflict, including both being on opposing sides in war (notably, but not exclusively, both Korea and Vietnam during the Soviet period, but also extending into the current war in Syria), though there have been political cover done to limit risk of escalation (e.g., Soviet Air Force flying NK-badged fighters and, initially, prohibiting use of Russian over the radio in Korea; Russian forces on the ground fighting, sometimes directly against US forces, being the “Wagner PMC”—a GRU-backed notionally-private group.) op
Re: Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. Project
#470As an engineer I have serious moral qualms about furthering the goals of any military. Contributing means being complicit. The fact that the military funds research doesn't change that.
> Contributing means being complicit. I don't agree with this. Many open source projects have been used for sinister means (not just by governments). But does that make those contributors complicit? Should those contributors be safe-guarding against all possible unintended use cases? It seems like you're painting all military efforts and funding in evil terms. But these efforts are directed by many different people,…
> Does that make us complicit if those technologies are ever used in malicious ways?
Yes. If you choose to work for an entity you help further their work. Militaries are made for war and by contributing to a military, you directly help them commit atrocities. Working for a military is simply war profiteering [1].
> Do the evil actions of some people in an organization make the entire organization evil?
Yes, if you voluntarily join an organization knowing they have evil people doing evil things.
> Does that mean that all military efforts are unjust?
Yes, with probably the only exception being a defensive war.