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MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

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Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#131

Post by darawk »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #127
darawk wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like you didn't even read what I said. The world isn't a moral vacuum. You abdicating power does not mean that nobody has it. It means someone else does. If all of the 'good' people say "weapons and war are immoral", guess who is in control of all the weapons and war? It's really pretty easy to think through, and it's really pretty naive to bury your head in the sand.

We're not talking about abdicating power, here. The US already has that power. The US going to war doesn't give it more power, and not going to war in Iraq is not going to lessen it's power.

I've been pretty clear about not advocating the Iraq war. We're not talking about particular wars. Unfortunately, you don't get to pick and choose every thing that a government does with its power. Power comes from strength. Strength comes from weapons. Not building weapons is abdicating power. Abdicating power empowers others. Who are those others? Do we want them to have power? I think the answer is pretty clearly no.

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#132

Post by rayiner »

darawk wrote: post #120
rayiner wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This idea that it is unethical to build weapons is profoundly wrong, short sighted, and morally selfish. Right. Anything unethical about building photon torpedoes for the federation? No.

I didn't say it was unethical to build weapons for anyone . I said it wasn't unethical to help build them at all . We don't live in a vacuum. If you don't build weapons for the side you prefer, someone else will for the side they prefer . And if all the 'good' people don't support the side they like, guess which side gets all the weapons? If you don't have any 'ethical' people in the military, guess who makes all the…

I was agreeing with you.

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#133

Post by darawk »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #126
darawk wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Designing weapons to defeat Hitler could easily be justified, cause Hitler You can't just decide to make weapons when Hitler shows up. You need to be ready before Hitler shows up. > But designing weapons to, say, better fight the Iraq War? I'm no fan of the Iraq war. However, if we are going to fight the Iraq war, i'd certainly like us to have say, better targeted munitions, and I think Iraqi civilians would too. >…

"You're conflating the choice to go to war with the technology to facilitate that war. They are not the same thing. The choice to to war was a mistake. But once the choice has been made, ensuring that victory is swift and precise is absolutely ethical." I disagree. Creating these weapons, especially things like drones which make it much, much easier to go to war, and removes the penalty of having your own citizens di…

> I disagree. Creating these weapons, especially things like drones which make it much, much easier to go to war, and removes the penalty of having your own citizens die in combat, conflates those two things. If it's easier to go to war, and your side doesn't have to suffer casualties, you will go to war more often. Thus, these things are unethical, as you are facilitating war.

You are correct. However, now that drones exist, working on them is going to be about making them more targeted. Making them less likely to kill civilians, and more efficient about what they do. In large part, I agree with the targeted killing of the individuals targeted by drone strikes. What I would like to do is make the weapons and targeting systems of those drones better at reducing collateral damage. That seems like an important goal to me, and a perfectly ethical one.

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#134

Post by darawk »

rayiner wrote: post #132
darawk wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say it was unethical to build weapons for anyone . I said it wasn't unethical to help build them at all . We don't live in a vacuum. If you don't build weapons for the side you prefer, someone else will for the side they prefer . And if all the 'good' people don't support the side they like, guess which side gets all the weapons? If you don't have any 'ethical' people in the military, guess who makes all the…

I was agreeing with you.

Ah sorry. Not up on my star trek references :).

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#135

Post by kolpa »

hueving wrote: post #33
saagarjha wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> space race This was literally the result of the Cold War. > Internet Partially the same as above, also, there's no denying that they're isn't any suffering because of the Internet. > Inca Trail, Biblao Museum These mostly came about because of mechanization or better technology…

The quote in question is "slavery built everything we love". Explain how slavery built the Internet or triggered the space race.

Soviet Union -> Stalin -> Communist hegemony in Europe -> Space Race

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#136

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

darawk wrote: post #119
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are several reasons. First, weapons are made to kill. Even if they're not used, if they're finally used, the result is someone's death. Second, the USA is not only stabilizing peace, but from time to time disrupts it. Sometimes a war is waged without proper consideration. I think Iraq is the best example, but the intervention in Afghanistan wasn't necessary either. Third, even if you say the above were just mis…

In a moral vacuum, I agree. If I could flip a switch and permanently erase nuclear weapons from the world, I think i'd probably flip that switch. However, we don't exist in a world with switches like that. Any weapon the US doesn't develop out of some moral sensibility, another state like Russian or China will. Ceding military strength is not virtuous, it's naive. The choice isn't between "should these weapons exist…

Well, with WMDs we're past that point already. We have enough nukes to transform this world into hell in a few hours. Any advances in that area are of the nature that Putin mentioned recently, ones that no civilized nation would ever develop.

There is an enormous conventional arms market though. These are guns, pistols etc. Their sole aim is to kill people, plain and simple. You could justify it by saying some of those people deserve being killed, but as a creator of the weapon you can't know that, you have no control on how it's used. That's why many people would have moral objections against the production of conventional weapons.

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#137

Post by s73v3r_ »

darawk wrote: post #131
s73v3r_ wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not talking about abdicating power, here. The US already has that power. The US going to war doesn't give it more power, and not going to war in Iraq is not going to lessen it's power.

I've been pretty clear about not advocating the Iraq war. We're not talking about particular wars. Unfortunately, you don't get to pick and choose every thing that a government does with its power. Power comes from strength. Strength comes from weapons. Not building weapons is abdicating power. Abdicating power empowers others. Who are those others? Do we want them to have power? I think the answer is pretty clearly…

Not building weapons is not abdicating power. There are lots of other forms of power. Not to mention the US has plenty of weapons already.

In addition, these weapons that are being built are there mostly to reduce the cost of war on our end, while increasing it to others, namely the civilian casualties of the Iraq war (yes, I will continue bringing that up. It doesn't matter if you're not advocating for it; it is a direct result of what you are advocating). That is completely immoral.

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#138

Post by robotresearcher »

mrgordon wrote: post #130
robotresearcher wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure the DoE or DoD are contributing to MIT’s endowment? That seems unlikely to me. Those agencies award research contracts with statements of work on a cost plus overhead basis. That’s not at all the same as contributing to an endowment.

"All research institutions get additional money tacked on to federal science and medical grants to help pay for general overhead. But federal rules allow institutions to deposit those payments into their general budgets, with no requirement they be used to directly support scientific endeavors." "Universities and the federal government became partners in research after World War II. MIT was one of the biggest benefic…

Any MIT profs here that are prepared to comment on what fraction of their overhead is lost into the endowment? That rate is zero for me, but I'm not at MIT.

Overhead for me is around 50% depending on source, and everyone here is motivated to spend as much of that on research as possible. It would be very inefficient to put that money in the general fund. Much better to fund one more PhD student than bank $50K.

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#139

Post by darawk »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #137
darawk wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been pretty clear about not advocating the Iraq war. We're not talking about particular wars. Unfortunately, you don't get to pick and choose every thing that a government does with its power. Power comes from strength. Strength comes from weapons. Not building weapons is abdicating power. Abdicating power empowers others. Who are those others? Do we want them to have power? I think the answer is pretty clearly…

Not building weapons is not abdicating power. There are lots of other forms of power. Not to mention the US has plenty of weapons already. In addition, these weapons that are being built are there mostly to reduce the cost of war on our end, while increasing it to others, namely the civilian casualties of the Iraq war (yes, I will continue bringing that up. It doesn't matter if you're not advocating for it; it is a d…

> Not building weapons is not abdicating power

Yes, it really is. If you are unarmed, you have no power. All power comes from the threat of violence. Any power not directly derived from that threat is derived from it indirectly.

> In addition, these weapons that are being built are there mostly to reduce the cost of war on our end, while increasing it to others, namely the civilian casualties of the Iraq war (yes, I will continue bringing that up. It doesn't matter if you're not advocating for it; it is a direct result of what you are advocating).

Do you think the military builds new weapons to try to target civilians better? Or do you think, when they "work on drone technology" that they are trying to build better, more precise targeting system that will have less collateral damage? I think the latter. And I think it's especially the latter if 'ethical' people are the ones working on it. If 'ethical' people choose not to build weapons, who's left building them?

Re: MIT's student newspaper criticizes MIT's convenience-based ethics

#140

Post by Chris_Jay »

darawk wrote: post #43
fatjokes wrote: post #29

If it makes MIT feel better, I don't think "ethics" when I think of MIT. I think technological leadership and excellence, but definitely not ethics. For starters, they have plenty of collaborations with the military (e.g., MIT Lincoln Labs; not saying that can't be ethical... but it usually means someone's going to die). Nothing to be ashamed of. Somebody's gotta do it...

What's unethical about collaborating with the military? We don't exist in a vacuum. American military hegemony has been an extremely powerful stabilizing force, post-WWII. This idea that it is unethical to build weapons is profoundly wrong, short sighted, and morally selfish. Not to overly pick on your comment, since you did say that it can be ethical, of course. But i've seen this sentiment that military work is une…

I think it's fair to say that designing weapons that others will use is always an ethical quandary with unknowable complexity. If someone errs on the side of causing no harm - a commonly accepted default if discussions of the Trolly problem are anything to go by - then designing weapons is difficult to justify because it's just impossible to ensure that they'll be used in a way the designer would sanction. I don't necessarily disagree that it's naive to opt for inaction when faced with an ethical quandary of unknowable outcome, but it does seem to be the default position and that does count for a lot.

What I find interesting is that in some cases, the broad outcomes of a particular weapon being designed are predictable. Gunpowder is widely credited with destabilizing the feudal social order because it put military supremacy in the hands of the peasantry. Modern drones could well be used to sustain a new social order much in the way that heavy armor and stirrups sustained the feudal one. Whether that's a good thing of course depends on other ethical considerations, but if I had the opportunity to work on a weapons system, I would think much more about those kinds of implications than who would be using it - it seems best to assume the answer to that question is, "everyone".

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