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Simply as an observation, it’s interesting that serving in the military is usually treated as honorable, but working at a defense contractor is viewed as unethical. I wonder why that is?
Woah! It is insane that they are able to do this.
Does anyone know how much money/effort is going into achieving this? Might be interesting to compare such insane investments into destructive stuff vs investments in fighting poverty and such.
For me the thorny ethical issue is not so much working on directly evil stuff like missile targeting software for the military but software that has both military and civilian use. For example, consider a company that develops and RTOS that is used in both cars and missiles, where does that stand morally? Even the most benign technology can be used for evil so it's worth asking the question to what culpability indivi…
While it's tempting to say that there's no moral dimension this far out, I think that's not quite true - there is a moral dimension to making technology work more smoothly. It increases the ability of anyone with some power to do things at scale. On the one hand, it gives ability for anyone with tiny amounts of power to make use of it (consider the effect of, say, typewriters in the Soviet Union, or even farther back, the printing press in the hands of Luther's supporters). On the other hand, it absolutely increases the ability of people with massive amounts of power to use that power more efficiently (like the "war cloud"). My own view here is that, for those of us whose day job is in improving infrastructure / technical leverage, this increases how important it is for us as members of society to make sure that power is distributed equitably and justly. Since it's indirect, we don't have to advocate for this through what we choose to be directly employed on (the way we would if we were literally working on missile targeting software), and it's often difficult to do so, but we should advocate for this through how we engage with the political process (broadly defined) in the rest of our lives.
There's also a question of what sort of improvements you make to it. Security improvements are generally a thing you can feel good about: people with small amounts of power are much more likely to have security flaws exploited than to use security flaws offensively, so even if there's an argument that hardening some software makes it harder to attack evil businesses or evil governments, it also has the much more practical effect of making it harder for those entities to attack dissidents' personal devices. And similarly for what you choose to do: working on Signal helps the low-power individual much more than working on SELinux, even though both are conceivably dual-use.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does this extend to all countries that the US sells weapons to? Are you happy about the use of US weapons by Saudi Arabia against Yemen, for example?
The U.S. selling weapons to Saudi Arabia doesn't harm U.S. interests in any way, but it's profitable and benefits the weapons industry, which is good from a self-defense perspective.
As a former writer of telemarketing software it's nice to have missile guidance software developers that I can feel somewhat morally superior to. But in their defense at least missiles can be used in a non-evil way, but I'm not so sure about telemarketing software.
I am curious as to how missiles (or any weapon for that matter) could be used in "non-evil" way
Simply as an observation, it’s interesting that serving in the military is usually treated as honorable, but working at a defense contractor is viewed as unethical. I wonder why that is?
If the difference between criminal and lawful is just a matter of profit margins, I suspect it's hard for people think of you as being dirty, and the only question is how dirty.
Simply as an observation, it’s interesting that serving in the military is usually treated as honorable, but working at a defense contractor is viewed as unethical. I wonder why that is?
Skin in the game. A defense contractor shifts the risks of his job, excessive wars, to the public. A soldier does the exact opposite.
Edit: https://edition.cnn.com/2015/10/06/middleeast/us-collateral-... has some more info.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think he's referring to putting satellites into space for civilian use, but I could be mistaken.
These would not be qualified as missiles and have their own guidance systems. Having your rocket go and slam into a neighbouring country is not very conducive to putting satellites into space.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hitler started WW2 because he thought the other countries wouldn't fight or were incapable of fighting. His comment about invading the Soviet Union: "We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down." The way to make peace is to make sure it is not worthwhile for someone else to attack you.
Hitler started that way cause he wanted more space for Germans and also world domination. Eventually, Hitler happened to lose that war with even negotiation being impossible. Generally, Hitler said something is pretty bad argument for anything, as that man said a lot of bullshit in his life.
For me the thorny ethical issue is not so much working on directly evil stuff like missile targeting software for the military but software that has both military and civilian use. For example, consider a company that develops and RTOS that is used in both cars and missiles, where does that stand morally? Even the most benign technology can be used for evil so it's worth asking the question to what culpability indivi…
[1] https://firstdonoharm.dev/