141–150 of 516 posts
Interesting when a multi-national company says things like "We are still doing everything we can within these guidelines to support our government, the military and our veterans," It may be the government of the company, but it ain't the government of a significant chunk of employess at Google, wonder how they feel about statementsl like this.
I doubt many expat H1B's from the subcontinent will have any qualms about military work.
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Yes, I do think we have problems with certain commercial interests overriding public welfare, in pretty much all industries. Bad actors exist everywhere and unfortunately can cause much chaos in such a powerful force as the modern military. That being said, yes, the world is safer than ever before. There have been many mishaps and sadly some of them are because of pulling back on military action prematurely, leading…
Is our military capable? We've failed horrendously at two wars in Iraq and one war in Afghanistan. We like to claim that we defeated ISIS, but let's be real, we defeated ISIS in about the same way we defeated Germany, we let everybody else fight for us, then took the credit. ISIS? PKK & YPG defeated ISIS, and as a thank you we're about to throw them under the bus to stay in the good graces of the Turkish dictator. We…
ISIS was very much defeated, and it was actually the lack of military followthrough that let it grow back, although it is still severely diminished. The citizens of those countries that were ravaged are incredibly thankful for US military assistance, and I advise you actually talk to some of them if you haven't before you pass judgement on what war you think was lost.
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Google is at this point not just some US company, but a multi-national one. I'm not a US citizen, so for me the US having a strong military isn't necessarily in my best interests, depending on circumstance. So what stops me, as a Google customer (which I am), to stop doing business with them, given that I see proof after proof that they are working against my interests? This is the same problem as with the Snowden le…
> I'm not a US citizen, so for me the US having a strong military isn't necessarily in my best interests, depending on circumstance. Yes, that's exactly the problem. What if in the future, my country and USA will be enemies? It is not very probable, but so wasn't a prospect of war in Ukraine, for example. You just don't know how things will develop, and if a company want's to be global, it shouldn't directly support…
There might be national secret-sauce here or there, but the major military contractors are all international. Lots of projects involve R&D spread across multiple nations. Things mostly get dicey when looking at nations that are too unstable to trust (Egypt, Pakistan, etc.), or those that are current rivals (Russia, China).
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Maybe "many people here" feel that what our military does has little to nothing to do with defending our country, and often puts us at more risk and/or makes the world a worse place. This is such a weird and controversial concept to so many people here.
Feelings rarely ever help in these situations. Why would a defense force put you more at risk? The world is not a gentle place and it takes less than 30 seconds of browsing international headlines to see that. The chaos is kept in check through violence and the military has a direct impact on the peace and freedoms enjoyed by the populace. Two major nations are rapidly growing powerful tyrants with Putin and Xinping.…
So don't go with feelings, go with facts.
Any real reading into the US' military and intelligence operations in South America, Africa and the Middle East should be all the evidence you need.
I wonder if Silicon Valley refuses to cooperate with the military if it won't mean that America won't be able to compete with China and Russia strategically in the long term. Those countries presumably have no problems getting their tech industry to cooperate. Russia having an advanced form of AI-weaponry without any form of MAD-doctrine is probably not the best scenario.
Every company I apply to is told during the interview process that I will not work on military projects, and that I would probably leave the company if they chose to take on a military contract. If you have personal moral limits and you’re upfront about them then no-one is the worse off; I’ve yet to be turned down for a job over it and, somewhat the opposite, companies seem to appreciate frankness.
I don’t think you realize the security of our country has been built by hundreds of thousands of mechanical and electrical engineers, computer scientists, and physicists. Sure, working on military contracts may include uncomfortable problem spaces. But is it morally wrong to work on contracts that ultimately protect American lives?
Would love to work on actually protecting American lives but at this point Pentagon in an unaccountable monster that has actually funded terrorist organisations and has made America (and rest of the world) unsafe. Not to mention I find it morally reprehensible that our young kids are dying in distant third world countries like Iraq, Afganistan and Syria and involved in killing thousands little kids and innocent civilians in the name of "protecting American lives".
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> But is it morally wrong to work on contracts that ultimately protect American lives? [citations needed]. I've not been aware of any war on US soil.
It's not too much of a stretch to describe 9/11 as an act of war.
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As an Israeli, I believe that US intervention in the long term and the fact we were stuck in a proxy of the cold war did us mostly harm. While we see the US as an ally here - we haven't traditionally been at war with Arab countries and I think a big part of it was the influx of military equipment from the US to Israel and from the USSR (and later Russia) to the surrounding countries. (This is an oversimplification bu…
"While we see the US as an ally here - we haven't traditionally been at war with Arab countries" Literally since the founding of the state of Israel the country has been at war with the Arab nations. Could you expand on what you mean by this?
Every company I apply to is told during the interview process that I will not work on military projects, and that I would probably leave the company if they chose to take on a military contract. If you have personal moral limits and you’re upfront about them then no-one is the worse off; I’ve yet to be turned down for a job over it and, somewhat the opposite, companies seem to appreciate frankness.
If you contribute to open source software then you’re contributing to military projects.