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Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)

costsofwar.watson.brown.edu

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Re: Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)

#41

Post by ElProlactin »

homeonthemtn wrote: post #20
mentalgear wrote: post #10

also the new war-profiteers are profiting from a war a certain family member started. > NEW YORK (AP) — Among dozens of companies competing for Pentagon contracts to supply attack drones, one stands out. > Powerus is flush with cash and ballooning in size as it buys up rivals and has one other advantage: It is partly owned by President Donald Trump’s two oldest sons. > The latest Trump venture is hoping to win some o…

Evidently they want to deplete the military's reserves in order to sell them the refills.

[dead]

Re: Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)

#42

Post by username_my1 »

slowin wrote: post #8

It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this. I quit my job at Microsoft due to their complicity with Israeli war crimes and oppression (and certainly the US government was involved too). It's tough to leave a high paying job, but I feel good about it every single day. We don't have to be cogs in the MIC machine and we don't have to build systems that terrorize people.

This is the problem with capitalism.

Nothing is ever enough, all the top tech companies, it's not enough that the conquered the global market, not enough that they dominated commerce, media, automotive, cloud, space ...

it's not enough that they have the largest headcounts on the planet (outside India / China).

they always need to do more and bigger the next quarter.

no morals, no core market, no other guideline, simply more, and I have to do it because else someone else will.

I really hope the Chinese keep killing everything that gets too big to fail.

endless growth is the same as cancer. unnatural destructive.

Re: Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)

#43

Post by tessierashpool »

1234letshaveatw wrote: post #37
slowin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a 68 working on consumer products, but it was still too much for me. Especially the revelation that Satya worked with the IDF to capture all Palestinian phone conversations and host them on Azure. Every day I woke up to go to work after I found that out, I was sick to my stomach. I eventually couldn't take it any more. I took a pay cut and I'm still in the tech industry working for a startup, and still facing e…

TIL an intelligence agency spying on a foreign adversary is human rights abuse. I would be super upset if my country of residence did the same to a neighbor sending rockets my way, would make me sick to my stomach

take these theatrics somewhere else, please. you're changing the topic and you're not arguing in good faith.

Re: Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)

#44

Post by Fraterkes »

1234letshaveatw wrote: post #37
slowin wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a 68 working on consumer products, but it was still too much for me. Especially the revelation that Satya worked with the IDF to capture all Palestinian phone conversations and host them on Azure. Every day I woke up to go to work after I found that out, I was sick to my stomach. I eventually couldn't take it any more. I took a pay cut and I'm still in the tech industry working for a startup, and still facing e…

TIL an intelligence agency spying on a foreign adversary is human rights abuse. I would be super upset if my country of residence did the same to a neighbor sending rockets my way, would make me sick to my stomach

Little slip of the mask here where we seamlessly transition from the perspective of an American working for an American tech company to someone living in a country neighbouring Palestine.

Re: Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)

#45

Post by pfdietz »

slowin wrote: post #8

It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this. I quit my job at Microsoft due to their complicity with Israeli war crimes and oppression (and certainly the US government was involved too). It's tough to leave a high paying job, but I feel good about it every single day. We don't have to be cogs in the MIC machine and we don't have to build systems that terrorize people.

> It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this.

This appears to me to be unrealistic or performative, except if you mean pushing back in the sense that anyone could, as a voter for example. Boycott of defense work won't work; attempting to claim some special authority in debate won't work either.

Re: Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)

#46

Post by afavour »

chanakya wrote: post #22

Serious question: should companies not participate in contracts from their country's defense department? Or is the argument that it's only US companies which shouldn't, because the US is uniquely evil?

I think it’s difficult to come up with hard and fast rules. But the fact that the US government (falsely) renamed their Department of Defense to Department of War is perhaps a useful signal.

Re: Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)

#47

Post by alterom »

hkchad wrote: post #27

Transforming? You guys do know where google got it's start right? SV has been DOD funded from the start.

Wait till they find out where the Internet came from.

Or what drove the demand for silicon in the first place.

As for "transforming", that happened some time during the Vietnam war when the laser-guided bomb was introduced. Been a smooth sailing ever since.

Re: Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)

#48

Post by lbrito »

Benjammer wrote: post #29
davidw wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like tech has lost its way recently. It's a huge, huge field, so there have always been people working on 'bad' things, but IDK, I just don't have the same feeling of optimism about things that I used to and I wish there was some kind of movement bringing that back.

Recently? Blind (teamblind.com) culture has been taking over tech for like a decade at this point.

I think the parent commenter is referring to a much darker side of tech than just TC-chasing Blind culture, which is pretty harmless in comparison

Re: Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)

#49

Post by leonidasrup »

slowin wrote: post #8

It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this. I quit my job at Microsoft due to their complicity with Israeli war crimes and oppression (and certainly the US government was involved too). It's tough to leave a high paying job, but I feel good about it every single day. We don't have to be cogs in the MIC machine and we don't have to build systems that terrorize people.

Microsoft has been participating in PRISM program (SIGAD US-984XN) since 2007.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM

There are allegation that Microsoft changed Skype architecture (after buying Skype for $8.5 billion) to make wiretapping easier.

" In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism; "

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-...

Re: Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024)

#50

Post by datsci_est_2015 »

pfdietz wrote: post #45
slowin wrote: post #8

It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this. I quit my job at Microsoft due to their complicity with Israeli war crimes and oppression (and certainly the US government was involved too). It's tough to leave a high paying job, but I feel good about it every single day. We don't have to be cogs in the MIC machine and we don't have to build systems that terrorize people.

> It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this. This appears to me to be unrealistic or performative, except if you mean pushing back in the sense that anyone could, as a voter for example. Boycott of defense work won't work; attempting to claim some special authority in debate won't work either.

The opposite of performative action is even worse: nihilism or even active support of atrocities.

Too many nihilists in the tech industry with the attitude “if I don’t do it someone else will”, and here we are as a professional class actively making the world an objectively shittier place. The VCs can’t do it without us.

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