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

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

#151

Post by matheusmoreira »

antonvs wrote: post #91
monideas wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting energy into your family is generally the opposite of psychopathy, it's actually a good thing to do. On the other hand you can actually find a lot of psychopaths who find their outlet in political activism "The Dark Triad traits predict authoritarian political correctness and alt-right attitudes" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7369609/

The psychopathic tell is dismissing political activism as "trying to derive meaning." It's right up there with the idea that moral or ethical claims are "performative". These kinds of claims generally come from people who don't feel any moral or ethical impulses. These people are most commonly malignant narcissists and psychopaths. A great example is Elon Musk who described empathy as a "bug". Morality is a fundament…

There are many things I consider to be deeply immoral that I nevertheless cannot change. My political activism is merely performative.

Power and wealth are already so entrenched I think we have little chance of effecting any lasting change without violence. So either I become a literal terrorist, or I enable Daniel Plainview mode. It seems to me like the rational move is to try to get rich by any means necessary so I can fuck off to somewhere isolated and never have to deal with the rotten society I hate ever again.

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

#152

Post by sebzim4500 »

EA-3167 wrote: post #113
JoshTriplett wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you shame people for acting now rather than earlier , you discourage them from acting at all. Sometimes people aren't in a position to be secure enough to act. Sometimes different issues are more effective at resonating enough to break through previously cached unconsidered patterns of thought. Sometimes people don't know all the things that are going on, and act once they've learned about them. Whatever the reaso…

I’m not interested in shaming people or crediting them for superficial performances. The entire premise is ridiculous, as if the companies people are working for are somehow ethical. You’re making money from venture capitalists and tech firms, MS, Meta, X, Google, etc… which of them is any better than MS? They’re all awful in different ways.

It's clearly not a superficial performance if you actually quit a high paying job.

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

#153

Post by mitxela »

alpha_squared wrote: post #129
JoshTriplett wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are dismissing people as superficial or performative when they are taking action according to their ethics. Have you considered the possibility that people are not, in fact, performing , and are just trying to be ethical ? I can't tell if your actual goal here is to be dismissive of the entire concept of people caring about ethics, or if you don't think that quitting is an effective means of acting in concert wit…

A lesson I've had to learn is that, for some people, ethics is a paycheck. It can be incomprehensible to imagine someone acting against their own paycheck as a result.

Capitalistic evolution selects for that people, so their numbers only increase.

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

#154

Post by buellerbueller »

monideas wrote: post #123
antonvs wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of what people call morality is just their own feelings or interest or some attempt to protect their ego, it's basically just an expression of narcissism. Oh good grief. Hot take of the month right there. All you're doing is demonstrating how uninformed you are on the subject. Can you name anything you've ever read about this? > [Thiel] displays a lot of humility in his speech and conduct. You can't be serious…

The reason you call Thiel immoral or psychopathic is because he's wealthy and this evokes jealousy in you, it's a threat to your ego and your own sense of self worth. It's really that simple and this is a good illustration of what I'm talking about.

No, Thiel is immoral because he is funding a panopticon and wants to get rid of democracy in favor of authoritarianism. It's really that simple, and your blindness to his cartoonish level of villainy is a good illustration of what everyone who is pushing back against you is talking about.

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

#155

Post by 5upplied_demand »

EA-3167 wrote: post #128
JoshTriplett wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are dismissing people as superficial or performative when they are taking action according to their ethics. Have you considered the possibility that people are not, in fact, performing , and are just trying to be ethical ? I can't tell if your actual goal here is to be dismissive of the entire concept of people caring about ethics, or if you don't think that quitting is an effective means of acting in concert wit…

You don’t have to repeat yourself, I understood your point originally, I simply disagree with both your premise and conclusions. I don’t have the same respect for people who preach “anti-Zionism” at every turn online, I’m not that gullible.

If quitting a job is "performative" what would you consider a "non-performative" act?

Ironically, you are doing your own preaching in your comments. It could even be described as "performative."

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

#156

Post by buellerbueller »

monideas wrote: post #87
antonvs wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the foreign born employees did not care at all, they were just there to work. There's survivor bias in that observation. There are plenty of "foreign born employees" who choose not to work for companies that explicitly violate their values by choice. (I phrase it that way because of the whole "no ethical consumption under capitalism" issue.) I know because I'm one, and I have friends with the same mindset.

I mean non-Europeans/non-Anglosphere

So your argument is a racialist one?

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

#157

Post by Terr_ »

t-writescode wrote: post #74
sadnvkse wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the risk of being downvoted to oblivion. Threads like this always have lots of people agreeing to people quitting the jobs, not even ones that are directly working on that but even ones just associated with the company at hand. This is an honest question, how do you decide what is Ok? A job with a company that was involved in this is not Ok, fair enough. What about working with a company that does business with Mi…

I think you answered it. Everyone has their own moral compass and act accordingly. The concept of “No Ethical Consumption Under Capitalism” and the moral framing of later seasons of The Good Place give good representations of how. Ultimately each person makes a mark of what they can and cannot care about, and caring about literally everything is a fast-track to total impotence. Some situations are (relatively) easy:…

I think a way-out exists if we accept that "shopping isn't politics" [0]. In a nutshell:

* Bad news: "Voting with your wallet" is actually pretty ineffective. Big companies know it, diversify around it, and they're happy when consumers are neutralized and busy infighting with one-another over consumptive purity, instead of...

* Good news: Organizing politically does work, and is so much more-effective that you can arguably redeem any evil taint on your shopping list by engaging in it.

[0] https://doctorow.medium.com/https-pluralistic-net-2026-05-21...

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

#158

Post by esalman »

monideas wrote: post #123
antonvs wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of what people call morality is just their own feelings or interest or some attempt to protect their ego, it's basically just an expression of narcissism. Oh good grief. Hot take of the month right there. All you're doing is demonstrating how uninformed you are on the subject. Can you name anything you've ever read about this? > [Thiel] displays a lot of humility in his speech and conduct. You can't be serious…

The reason you call Thiel immoral or psychopathic is because he's wealthy and this evokes jealousy in you, it's a threat to your ego and your own sense of self worth. It's really that simple and this is a good illustration of what I'm talking about.

Quotes from the man himself:

On Democracy and Freedom: "I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible"

On Competition: "Competition is for losers"

On Technology and Control: "One of the things I like about technology is that when technology is unregulated, you can change the world without getting approval from other people. At its best, it's not subject to democratic control and not subject to the majority, which I think is often hostile to change"

On Reputation: "I'd rather be seen as evil than incompetent"

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

#159

Post by throw0101d »

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?

> * Or is the argument that it's only US companies which shouldn't, because the* US is uniquely evil?

What are the (current?) foreign policy goals of the country in question? If it leans more defensive, like Japan, that's different than a country that may have a more interventionist bent.

Also what product(s) is the company developing or offering (field hospital equipment or are we talking about Palantir)?

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

#160

Post by SoftTalker »

slowin wrote: post #40
1234letshaveatw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, OC was so brave

I just want to say that I don't think I was brave at all. I actually feel a lot of shame because I knew that Microsoft wasn't compatible with my values when I joined. I didn't know the exact details that came out later, but I took a very high paying job for a company that I thought at best didn't align with my values. I had to live with a growing cognitive dissonance about the choices I made. I also didn't exit tech…

So, did you stay long enough to accumulate FU money and then quit?

Because that's a bit easier than quitting or turning down a job when you need the income.

Since you say you're still working and have people to support I am guessing it was more the latter, but maybe the "very high paying job" gave you the runway needed to make that choice? I quit a high paying software job under different circumstances. The company wasn't doing anything unethical (that I know of) but I was just sick of how they managed people and projects. It had reached the point where I sat in my car for 15 minutes (or longer) every morning just trying to summon the willpower to get out and walk into the office. So I finally just quit. But it was easier as I had stashed away enough money to give me time to find a new job without having to jump on the first offer. I ended up freelancing a bit to extend the runway even longer.

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