Silicon Valley is transforming the military-industrial complex? (2024) • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:46 PM UTC

SllX wrote: post #224

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether a war is fought defensively or offensively, war is still war Someone being invaded should lay down arms because invasion and fighting an invader are morally equal? > that changing one word in a bureaucratic ensemble of Departments is going to change meaning of what it means to go to war or the reality of war itself Department of War celebrates an era when wars of conquest were profitably fought. It explicit…

> Someone being invaded should lay down arms because invasion and fighting an invader are morally equal? The morality of a war is not easily encompassed in small words like “war” or “defense”. > America being America, they're mostly going to be offensive. America being America, any war fought by us not in direct defense of American people & territory is by definition an offensive war. Doesn’t stop us from calling war…

> morality of a war is not easily encompassed in small words like “war” or “defense”

It's not. But you're avoiding the question. If you claim all war is morally equal, then a defender is equally at fault as an invader, and we're going to fundamentally disagree. If you don't believe that, I'm still curious about your position.

> America being America, any war fought by us not in direct defense of American people & territory is by definition an offensive war

Agree.

> Doesn’t stop us from calling wars fought elsewhere “defense”

We still call them wars. Nobody calls what we did in Iraq or Vietnam or Korea the defense or whatever. We call them wars.

I think we agree that renaming the DoW the DoD didn't reduce American military adventurism. What I'm saying is returning the DoD to the DoW absolutely presages a difference in attitude that is more dangerous and more violent.

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

#232

Post by slowin » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #209

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if enough tech workers at Microsoft felt strongly about these ethical issues, they could influence Microsoft's decisions internally This isn't how companies work or are structured. If you have the CEO's ear, potentially. If you don't, the only ethical thing to do is to quit. (I don't personally have an issue with the military per se . I have other issues with several tech companies which would make taking a job the…

If something bad is going on and you don't agree and you quit, that is just absolving you of your guilt. I mean think two steps ahead. Is M$ going to go "gee, Jimbo quit, maybe the project is just no good and we ought to stop." Hell no. They will fill your position with someone who will be thankful for the opportunity. And I think ultimately you know it, but a bit of cognitive dissonance makes you think you did somet…

I think you do have a point but, at least for me, I found it wasn't so cut and dry. Nothing I was working on related to the ethical issues I had. I did find other like-minded people in Microsoft and that felt like we were at least creating a pocket of people who cared, yet none of us had direct power to change anything. There were people who protested directly and got fired for it. I had to balance my IRL responsibilities outside of work with my ability to change things and my need for employment in the future. I made compromises across the board and like I mention up thread, I don't think I was brave at all. In fact I think I did the bare minimum I could, but at least I'm no longer complicit.

There are people far braver than me, but they were indeed fired. There are probably people covertly fighting the system from within but I didn't work close enough to any of these projects to know them.

So ideally people would do what you say and/or just be very open about their objections, but it's also worth recognizing the risk of industry blacklisting and how things like employer provided health insurance raise the stakes.

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

#233

Post by bluegatty » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:47 PM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #119

I do think that for those of us who got into tech in the last couple of decades, the history can be rather obscured, but from the Fairchild semiconductor days, the military was a main customer, right? I think there's a real question: would the world be a better place had Fairchild and peers e.g. refused to build ICs for missile systems (including the minuteman), for example? Would the same tech have been developed wi…

Good point, but there's a very big difference between dual use tech that gets it's start in the military, vs building weapons systems.

Silicon, GPS, the Internet, nuclear power, most of rocketry and space etc., I think most would believe was worthwhile.

Building cruise missiles, or 'Civilian Monitoring Tech' - that's a different question.

I don't think that DARPA, the internet, or NASA etc. count as 'Military Industrial Complex', but Anduril of course does, and Palantir pretty much does as well.

That's 'new' for the Silicon Valley at least, it has mostly not been building 'defence tech' but rather general tech that has key defence use.

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

#234

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:48 PM UTC

[deleted]

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

#235

Post by monideas » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:49 PM UTC

buellerbueller wrote: post #154

monideas wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

People who say they are against panopticons and for democracy are universally fine with subjecting their political enemies to panopticons and only for democracy when their side wins.

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

#236

Post by anonymars » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

monideas wrote: post #220

esalman wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 maj…

Just because these ideas are heterodox relative to prevailing norms which makes you uncomfortable, it doesn’t make them immoral ideas. I wouldn’t say these statements even have moral judgments in them either way. For example, this doesn’t even ascribe moral weight to “freedom” or “democracy” just that they are at odds. This is why these types of things are better left to elite minded people who are capable of these t…

> these types of things are better left to elite minded people who are capable of these types of discussions

In a world of eye-poppingly hot takes, I commend your ability to somehow raise the bar

Bonus points for dismissing things like "you can change the world without getting approval from other people" (you could hardly ask for a more substantive topic to debate in moral philosophy than one's freedom to affect other people) as mere valence-level "how can good feeling != good feeling" sophistry

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

#237

Post by JumpCrisscross » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

paimapi wrote: post #229

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> my understanding was that Israel has been repeatedly condemned by both and last I heard, the free-trade agreement with them has been stalled for years. but what do I know? India-Israel trade has been growing since diplomatic relations between the nations were established in 1992 (including since the war in Gaza) [1]. In 2025 they signed a bilateral investment agreement. And Israel is a growing defence provider to I…

Israel sanctioned BYD and China sanctioned Israeli cybersec firms back recently to my knowledge. The average Chinese citizen also is much more willing to call it a genocide and if there's one thing the Politburo knows to do, it's not to unnecessarily foment unrest by collusion I don't personally think it's likely relations would improve on this and I consider myself much better read on the goings-on of the PRC than m…

> Israel sanctioned BYD and China sanctioned Israeli cybersec firms back recently to my knowledge

Yup. China is also shipping arms precursors (and very likely intelligence) to Iran. China and Israel aren't friends. But Israel pivoting from the U.S. absolutely brings it back to the table. China isn't, like, sanctioning Israeli firms in general, or even Israeli firms in the West Bank.

> doubt it'll be straightforward or that Israel would be so aggressively expansionist without the 300 billion or so they've received from the US

My personal hypothesis is the aid turned Israel into a monster. Removing the aid, however, won't change that. It just means more broad-based munitions.

Israel and Gaza have natural gas. The world has shown it will tolerate a lot of nonsense from an energy supplier, particularly a nuclear-armed one.

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

#238

Post by jazzyjackson » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:50 PM UTC

mandevil wrote: post #221

hkchad wrote: post #27

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

This long pre-dates Google. Microprocessors as a whole were a result of the US military industrial complex. The first large scale use of integrated circuits was the Minuteman II ballistic missile guidance system. The lineage that leads to the modern smartphone starts with Texas Instruments winning the contract for that military guidance system (first as a subcontractor to North American, then fully on their own). Sim…

The ENIAC press demo, essentially the first public demo of an “electromechanical brain”, just ran parabolas to estimate artillery trajectory. (It also involved the genius addition of ping pong balls secured to each lamp on the machine, so as to be more legible to the reporters and photographers)

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

#239

Post by SllX » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:54 PM UTC

tastyface wrote: post #227

SllX wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was originally entitled “Department of War” and was changed after World War II for better PR. Whether it is called “Department of War” or “Department of Defense”, it’s still the same organization maintaining the same mission operating under the same budget. Personally, I view “Department of War” as more honest, because War has always been its business.

Well, except the administration changed the name and then immediately engaged in wars of blatant aggression with Venezuela and Iran. What we choose to call things *is* important.

You’re right, what we choose to call things is important, but our calls should better reflect reality.

Like Venezuela: we definitely did things that a neutral observer could fairly & reasonably call Acts of War by conducting an aggressive military operation that ended in the result of us arresting Maduro. Yet the net result is that we did not actually fight a war in Venezuela, and we are still not fighting a war in Venezuela. So if a tinpot socialist dictator gets arrested in a forest & none of the invaders/law enforcement are left to shoot at when the smoke clears, was it really a war? Apparently not.

As to Iran, the only moral differences I see between our operations in Iran conducted by the US Department of War & our operations in Iraq conducted by the US Department of Defense 23 years earlier, is that 23 years earlier, the politicians actually bothered to try & make a convincing case to the American public first & the the invasion of Iraq was executed more competently. I definitely wouldn’t call either operation “defense”.

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

#240

Post by XorNot » Thu, Sep 10, 2026, 9:55 PM UTC

Centigonal wrote: post #228

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 this is secondary to a widespread loss of confidence in our nation's political and foreign policy apparatus to do what's right for the average American. "Working for the military is evil" descends from a post-Vietnam, post-Iraq, post-Snowden worldview that presupposes that the military will leverage technology it has access to in unexpected, undesirable, and broadly harmful ways.

Well that and it's indicative of the broader American social dysfunction that they are chronically incapable of holding themselves or their (still surprisingly democratic) government accountable and so everything is always about "the corporations".

Every problem is meant to be solved by what corporations do or do not do.