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?
Yes
The ties between Silicon Valley and the military run deep
71–80 of 111 posts
Re: The ties between Silicon Valley and the military run deep
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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 aggr…
Two problems with this argument. You're blaming the military for decisions made by civilian leadership. And, it's not wrong to do what we can to reduce risk both for soldiers and civilians. Adding more risk wouldn't be an improvement. Military spending is certainly tremendously wasteful, though.
>Two problems with this argument. You're blaming the military for decisions made by civilian leadership.
We have a volunteer army and have been engaging in "adventures" as far back as Vietnam. No one goes in not knowing what they'll be asked to do.
Re: The ties between Silicon Valley and the military run deep
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Two problems with this argument. You're blaming the military for decisions made by civilian leadership. And, it's not wrong to do what we can to reduce risk both for soldiers and civilians. Adding more risk wouldn't be an improvement. Military spending is certainly tremendously wasteful, though.
>Two problems with this argument. You're blaming the military for decisions made by civilian leadership. We have a volunteer army and have been engaging in "adventures" as far back as Vietnam. No one goes in not knowing what they'll be asked to do.
> We have a volunteer army and have been engaging in "adventures" as far back as Vietnam. No one goes in not knowing what they'll be asked to do.
Vietnam prominently featured draftees, and in post-9/11 America the public was heavily led to believe that Iraq was somehow responsible or related to the 9/11 attacks such that one would have not reasonably known what they were signing up for.
Re: The ties between Silicon Valley and the military run deep
#74Everyone 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? 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 aggr…
Actually, the Iraqi people were happy we freed them from the iron-grip of Saddam -- we unfortunately over stayed our welcome. For a while I was seeing a banner on an overpass: "thank you for our freedom, now go home".
I kind of think they expected it to be a repeat of Panama with a quick game of "capture the dictator" followed by installing a puppet government but the general level of incompetence (i.e. de-Ba'athification of the government) didn't let that happen.
And, yes, I do kind of consider myself a pacifist who just happened to have gone down to Panama and was involved in both Iraq invasions.
Re: The ties between Silicon Valley and the military run deep
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Two problems with this argument. You're blaming the military for decisions made by civilian leadership. We have a volunteer army and have been engaging in "adventures" as far back as Vietnam. No one goes in not knowing what they'll be asked to do.
> We have a volunteer army and have been engaging in "adventures" as far back as Vietnam. No one goes in not knowing what they'll be asked to do. Vietnam prominently featured draftees, and in post-9/11 America the public was heavily led to believe that Iraq was somehow responsible or related to the 9/11 attacks such that one would have not reasonably known what they were signing up for.
>Vietnam prominently featured draftees
Yes, the implication was that since then we've had a volunteer army. Sorry that wasn't clear to you.
>in post-9/11 America the public was heavily led to believe that Iraq was somehow responsible or related to the 9/11 attacks such that one would have not reasonably known what they were signing up for.
Weird, I was in my early teens then and somehow managed to suss out this was not the case (as did many prominent columnists).
And the official line on Iraq was that the possessed WMD, not that they did 9/11.
Re: The ties between Silicon Valley and the military run deep
#76I haven't been able to dig up a copy, but I remember there was a file named something like AI: HUMOR; LOGO TURTLES that was a grant proposal written by some people in the LOGO group at the MIT-AI Lab, in response to a military request for proposals, about how they could hatch thousands of LOGO turtles to swarm around the battlefield in geometric patterns to confuse and bewilder the enemy.
http://www.donhopkins.com/home/code/llogo.lisp.txt
;;HATCH CREATES A NEW TURTLE WITH THE SPECIFIED NAME. ALL PROPERTIES OF THAT
;;PARTICULAR TURTLE ARE AS INITIALLY WHEN A STARTDISPLAY IS DONE.
(DEFINE HATCH (TURTLE-NAME)
(PUTPROP TURTLE-NAME
(FILLARRAY (*ARRAY NIL T TURTLE-PROPERTIES) 'HATCH-PROPERTY)
'TURTLE)
(OR (MEMQ TURTLE-NAME :TURTLES) (PUSH TURTLE-NAME :TURTLES))
(USETURTLE TURTLE-NAME)
(SHOWTURTLE)
TURTLE-NAME)Re: The ties between Silicon Valley and the military run deep
#77Everyone 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?
You have a point there: Kim Jong-un's nuclear research program has kept North Korea very safe, and was obviously the best use of resources. And since the US only spends more on its military than the next 8 countries combined, the US needs to boost military spending to implement Trump's pledge of rebuilding the military to its former glory by buying more horses and ironside frigates, instead of spending it on things like health care. /s
Re: The ties between Silicon Valley and the military run deep
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> We have a volunteer army and have been engaging in "adventures" as far back as Vietnam. No one goes in not knowing what they'll be asked to do. Vietnam prominently featured draftees, and in post-9/11 America the public was heavily led to believe that Iraq was somehow responsible or related to the 9/11 attacks such that one would have not reasonably known what they were signing up for.
>Vietnam prominently featured draftees Yes, the implication was that since then we've had a volunteer army. Sorry that wasn't clear to you. >in post-9/11 America the public was heavily led to believe that Iraq was somehow responsible or related to the 9/11 attacks such that one would have not reasonably known what they were signing up for. Weird, I was in my early teens then and somehow managed to suss out this was n…
> Yes, the implication was that since then we've had a volunteer army. Sorry that wasn't clear to you.
Perhaps you should revise your writings, because nothing about the sentence would imply the "since then." This is an international forum, not everyone learns the history of US military recruitment practices.
> Weird, I was in my early teens then and somehow managed to suss out this was not the case (as did many prominent columnists).
I, too, sussed this out in my teenage years but by then the Iraq war was "waning" and the writing was on the wall.
Perhaps you're just much more prescient than I, as well as the millions of young men and women who signed up to serve their country with the belief that Iraq had truly done wrong.
> And the official line on Iraq was that the possessed WMD, not that they did 9/11.
In the lead up to the invasion, our borderline state media apparatus was heavily reporting that Hussein was building WMDs. There was also much accusations of him either funding or supplying Jihadis.
Re: The ties between Silicon Valley and the military run deep
#79Re: The ties between Silicon Valley and the military run deep
#80Earlier 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?
Vietnam.