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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)

#351

Post by asdff »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #215
asdff wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> They will fill your position with someone who will be thankful for the opportunity But you won't be doing it. Companies are run top-down. If you're within the organisation you're advancing the goals of those at the top. You aren't going to change that by complaining internally (unless you have a direct line to the CEO). It's fine to disagree with something and just not contribute to it. If you want to be principled…

>Unless you're conducting sabotage

I am saying you should conduct sabotage if you feel the work is immoral and against your principles to such an extent. It would be immoral not to in a lot of ways, saying you'd rather wash your hands of it and pretend it weren't happening than to try and think of what you might do about it.

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

#352

Post by nradov »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #349
dredmorbius wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today that role (strongly discouraging grouped formations) has been occupied by drones. The current UA/RU front is a 30km deep kill zone crossed by FPV craft (and discarded optic fibre cables) in which the largest effective group size might be four or so soldiers. Tanks are all but useless as sitting ducks. Reuters made a surprisingly good infographic / interactive feature on this this past July: https://www.reuters.…

Some aspects of modern warfare seem to be taking the classic idea of light infantry and dialing it up to 11. They have little armor or heavy weaponry but are such a fluid sparse target and have such a small logistical footprint that they are expensive and difficult to root out. The modern version of this allows the same soldiers to command heavier, better weaponry via remote control that is asymmetric to their logist…

That's already beginning to happen. Both sides are increasingly taking humans out of the loop.

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

#353

Post by slg »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #346
slg wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The person I replied to stated that a country refusing to develop military tech for moral reasons was destined to fall to a country that ignores morals and develops that tech. I pointed to an example of an aggressor nation that is refusing to use all the military tech at its disposal. Modern society has decided that ethics don't go completely out the window in war and by and large nation states at least pretend they…

I got that far. Does the 2nd point contradict the first (setting aside the question of if other deterrents are at play in Russia?)

I'll be as straightforward as possible. Ukraine does not have a nuclear deterrent and yet Russia is deterred from using nuclear weapons ergo Ukraine didn't need its own nuclear weapons as a deterrent to prevent Russia from using nuclear weapons. And when even the "despotic regimes" like Russia are refusing to use a weapon, it no longer becomes a credible threat for the ostensibly good guys to threaten to use.

Weapons can only act as a deterrent if your opponent believes you're willing to use them and there are some weapons that no one is willing to use. And if no one is willing to use them, it's probably a waste to develop them in the first place.

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

#354

Post by klausa »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #269
georgeburdell wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you support the status quo of millions of H1Bs? Those people I doubt can or will take such a principled stance, making collective action by tech workers impossible.

This is why H1B needs to be a relatively fast path to citizenship. Without that, the bosses will continue to behave badly.

Why do people always assume that people on H1Bs _want_ a citizenship?

There's tons of things you can do to make people on visas more empowered to push back at work without them become citizens; and in many cases cutting ties to their original countries.

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

#355

Post by s1artibartfast »

slg wrote: post #353
s1artibartfast wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got that far. Does the 2nd point contradict the first (setting aside the question of if other deterrents are at play in Russia?)

I'll be as straightforward as possible. Ukraine does not have a nuclear deterrent and yet Russia is deterred from using nuclear weapons ergo Ukraine didn't need its own nuclear weapons as a deterrent to prevent Russia from using nuclear weapons. And when even the "despotic regimes" like Russia are refusing to use a weapon, it no longer becomes a credible threat for the ostensibly good guys to threaten to use. Weapons…

How is that an argument that demilitarized pacifism is a tenable national policy. This was the point you started arguing against. Russia hasent nuked Ukraine so nobody needs defenses or arms?

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

#356

Post by slg »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #355
slg wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll be as straightforward as possible. Ukraine does not have a nuclear deterrent and yet Russia is deterred from using nuclear weapons ergo Ukraine didn't need its own nuclear weapons as a deterrent to prevent Russia from using nuclear weapons. And when even the "despotic regimes" like Russia are refusing to use a weapon, it no longer becomes a credible threat for the ostensibly good guys to threaten to use. Weapons…

How is that an argument that demilitarized pacifism is a tenable national policy. This was the point you started arguing against. Russia hasent nuked Ukraine so nobody needs defenses or arms?

>How is that an argument that demilitarized pacifism is a tenable national policy.

I never made that argument. My original comment was refuting the idea that taking a singular option off the table is equivalent to pacifism. Ukraine didn't feel the need to develop a nuclear program, that doesn't make them pacifists.

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

#357

Post by bluegatty »

nradov wrote: post #350
bluegatty wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because building 'GPS', 'LLMs', 'food preservation', 'vaccines' and 'off-road vehicles' is not 'arbitrarily different' from building 'cruise missiles' or 'F22 fighters'. They are completely different things. 'Tech' that can be used by the military', and 'weapons' are not 'arbitrary labels'. HN is the only place in the world where someone would try to conflate the two to make a point, I don't think it's reasonable.

That's just your meaningless opinion.

No, it's a substantially objective, and fully uncontroversial perspective.

Given that, consider consulting with another actual human being, or even your favourite AI to help ground yourself a bit in those ideas.

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

#358

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

klausa wrote: post #354
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why H1B needs to be a relatively fast path to citizenship. Without that, the bosses will continue to behave badly.

Why do people always assume that people on H1Bs _want_ a citizenship? There's tons of things you can do to make people on visas more empowered to push back at work without them become citizens; and in many cases cutting ties to their original countries.

When you're drafting policy, you get to be choosy about who you want in your country. I think that's more or less standard practice.

We should want people who want to stay here long term, because then they have a stake, an incentive to stand up to bosses that want to wreck the place.

As sympathetic as I am to the desires of somebody who wants to come for a while and then leave, I think a better policy would deprioritize such candidates.

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

#359

Post by hn_submit »

No it isn't. What's transforming the military-industrial complex are the wars in Ukraine and Iran which have shown that cheap drones can totally defeat a much larger and more advanced military force.

The road we've taken where we make air-defense missiles costing $5 million a piece which we'd run out of in a shooting war within two weeks is just untenable.

The military-industrial complex with its overpriced toys is a dead end. We need cheap stuff by the millions. The military-industrial complex simply isn't interested in delivering that kind of hardware. Lockeed-Martin has made a "cheaper" version of the Patriot air-to-air missile, but it still costs $2.5 million a piece. I doubt they'll go any lower than that.

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

#360

Post by ForHackernews »

votingisntreal wrote: post #312
ForHackernews wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the problem: Software developers are not a professional class, we are hired goons with no professional organization nor a code of professional ethics. This is one of my personal bugbears. I keep making this point on HN but devs want to LARP as professionals so they usually don't want to hear that they have more in common with retail workers than they do with carpenters, engineers, or accountants. Prev…

> have more in common with retail workers They did this to automotive. It was once a respected technology, and being a mechanic or factory worker was a high-paying job. Now you have Jiffy Lube and some pimply kid in a polo! Polofication Has come for many industries... And if retail was done the same way as it was 20 years ago, some kid in a polo shirt at Office Depot would be making small business websites using Chat…

Nothing that you say is responsive to my point. None of your so-called engineers at Tesla has ever said, "I'm sorry Mr. Musk, we won't deploy those features because it's against the Software Engineering Code to do beta-testing on live vehicles where it harms users and endangers members of the public. You can fire us, but you'll get the same answer from the next engineer you call into this office."
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