51–60 of 111 posts
Everyone acts like military research is obviously evil. Is it really so terrible to research arms for the people who risk their lives keep us safe?
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> Is it really so terrible to research arms for the people who risk their lives keep us safe? If this was the only thing the weapons were used for, then maybe people wouldn't be upset about this kind of stuff. The same arms will however also be used to extrajudicially assassinate people based on nothing else than their phone signal, in countries we are not at war with; they might be sold to regimes like Saudi Arabia…
Are you sure you want to be unarmed in front of enemy just because someone else may use your weapons unresponsively? Look at Ukraine then. Ukraine exchanged their nuclear arsenal for promises of safety by Russia, Britain, and USA. Is Ukraine safe place now?
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Parent comment was regarding " the people who risk their lives keep us safe ". How do naked starving peasants on the other side of the earth pose a threat to the world's only superpower?
Even naked starving peasant can launch a nuclear missile or an other «humanitarian help» from Russia. They have nothing to lose.
Everyone acts like military research is obviously evil. Is it really so terrible to research arms for the people who risk their lives keep us safe?
> Is it really so terrible to research arms for the people who risk their lives keep us safe? If this was the only thing the weapons were used for, then maybe people wouldn't be upset about this kind of stuff. The same arms will however also be used to extrajudicially assassinate people based on nothing else than their phone signal, in countries we are not at war with; they might be sold to regimes like Saudi Arabia…
Go ahead and give an example, if you wouldn't mind?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is it really so terrible to research arms for the people who risk their lives keep us safe? If this was the only thing the weapons were used for, then maybe people wouldn't be upset about this kind of stuff. The same arms will however also be used to extrajudicially assassinate people based on nothing else than their phone signal, in countries we are not at war with; they might be sold to regimes like Saudi Arabia…
fight wars based on reasons the administration knows to be false Go ahead and give an example, if you wouldn't mind?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you sure you want to be unarmed in front of enemy just because someone else may use your weapons unresponsively? Look at Ukraine then. Ukraine exchanged their nuclear arsenal for promises of safety by Russia, Britain, and USA. Is Ukraine safe place now?
Helping a military that is behaving immorally and being unarmed are also not the only options. If more and more people refuse to work for the military on these grounds, this may in the long run put some pressure on them to change their behavior. I do admit that this is hopelessly idealistic though and I don't expect this to happen anytime soon.
There are few different kind of morality in circulation, so I need to know about what morality we are talking.
Liberal morale is used at the West: every person life costs infinity, so we cannot exchange life of a person to save another person or even infinity of persons.
However, at war or in military, Liberal morale can't be used, because Liberal morale forbids to send soldiers to protect civilians: life of a soldier has same cost as lives of all civilians in the country. So every military in the world uses Utilitarian morale, where each life has a cost. In most countries, order of life cost is: our politics > our commandment > our civilians > other civilians > our soldiers > enemies, and goal is to minimize loses. In some countries order can be different, e.g. religious leaders can send civilians to kill other civilians or civilians can be used to protect soldiers (e.g. famous speech of V.V. Putin: «We will put our soldier behind their (Ukrainian) mothers and children. Not in front but behind. Will they shoot at them? At their own mothers and children?» https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoQXvPsBBn8 ), and so on.
So my question is: to which kind of morality you are referring when you are talking about "immorality"?
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I think all he's saying is, that until he feels his own country resolves to use its arsenal in a somewhat responsible manner (he gave some pretty good examples to the contrary), he doesn't think you can make weapons for them in good conscience.
Yep. But I'm asking about consequences. Ukraine was very poor after collapse of socialism, so USA had worries that Ukraine may sold or lost some of their nuclear bombs, ballistic missiles, or supersonic bomber to an enemy of USA, so USA (with Russia and Britain) promised security to Ukraine in exchange of promise to demolish all that, and to stop development of any new weapons which can harm USA. So we dropped our we…
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This is ultimately a decision that everyone has to make on its own, and it's an ethically complex issue with many facets. My take on it is that if you contribute in any way to the development of a weapon that is used in morally unjustifiable ways, then you're complicit to murder and manslaughter, and you should be aware of that. For example, the US is conducting drone strikes in Afghanistan, which are essentially pol…
Anyone who pays taxes to the US federal government contributes to the development and maintenance of nuclear weapons. Most other weapons have insignificant effects by comparison. We should not underestimate their danger just because they have not recently been used. That's the conundrum Americans should all be thinking about.
Of course, there are a number of situations in which nuclear weapons could end up being used in the future (or very nearly were used in the past), but saying nuclear weapons should be completely dismantled by everyone is not as clearly desirable as you make it seem.
Everyone acts like military research is obviously evil. Is it really so terrible to research arms for the people who risk their lives keep us safe?
When in recent memory has the US military risked significant amounts of soldiers to "keep us safe"?
If anything, the US military has made me unsafe. The invasion of Iraq was a disaster. Torture and drone warfare have created scores of "terrorists" - people angry that their civilian family members were killed in a war of aggression. You can trace a direct path in history from the invasion of Iraq to the rise of ISIS.
Meanwhile, money that could have been spent of social services funded these wars - leading to an economic climate so bleak that voters elected a fascist president in hopes of changing their station in life.
I'm no pacifist, but wars of aggression are not "keeping us safe" in any sense of the phrase.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Helping a military that is behaving immorally and being unarmed are also not the only options. If more and more people refuse to work for the military on these grounds, this may in the long run put some pressure on them to change their behavior. I do admit that this is hopelessly idealistic though and I don't expect this to happen anytime soon.
Can I ask question first about "immorally" to be sure I understand you correctly? There are few different kind of morality in circulation, so I need to know about what morality we are talking. Liberal morale is used at the West: every person life costs infinity, so we cannot exchange life of a person to save another person or even infinity of persons. However, at war or in military, Liberal morale can't be used, beca…
Also, all of these have been repeatedly violated by the US military or its contractors, making me more hesitant to want to help them, even under the assumption that they are necessary to protect our liberal societies from other regimes.