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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)

#361

Post by watwut »

edm0nd wrote: post #257
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…

> Especially the revelation that Satya worked with the IDF to capture all Palestinian phone conversations and host them on Azure. man imagine when you learn about what MS did to all Americans phone conversations, emails, meta data, and basically all digital communications flowing in and out of the US for the NSA.

I think that the difference is that there was no ongoing genocide against Americans at the time.

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

#362

Post by s1artibartfast »

slg wrote: post #356
s1artibartfast wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That explains the confusion. I dont think anyone in the chain made that equivalency.

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

#363

Post by watwut »

chasd00 wrote: post #138
tessierashpool wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to say it, but this is mostly true. reason I hate to say it is because companies like Palantir and Anduril are clearly pursuing political objectives, including subverting governance by creating tools which set the frame and context that governance happens in. if Palantir and Anduril were observing the same strict separation between political and military matters, and the same strict separation between domestic…

> Palantir and Anduril are clearly pursuing political objectives How so? I honestly haven't heard this before. I like Anduril's tech and have some friends who work there. I would be excited to work at Anduril but my skills have diverged away from what they do and so I wouldn't make a very good hire.

There is LITERAL Palantir manifesto. And Thiels political projects are out there in the open too. Including making of JD Vance.

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

#365

Post by cindyllm »

bluegatty wrote: post #345
nradov wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it important? Do those arbitrary labels allow us to feel morally superior to those who make different choices?

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.

[dead]

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

#366

Post by floweronthehill »

thenthenthen wrote: post #336
nradov wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even before Fairchild Semiconductor was founded, much of the original SF Bay Area tech industry started during and after WWII to develop radar and electronic warfare systems for the military.

Is there a place I can read about this? I am doing research on tech-histories (mainly in Asia) and i would say 100% of all tech coming from there has its origins in radio and radar tech, yes including fridges (you might have in your home right now)

Palo Alto by Malcom Harris goes even further back to the 1800s to explain the origin of Silicon Valley.

https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/malcolm-harris/palo...

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

#367

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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…

> Ukraine does not have a nuclear deterrent and yet Russia is deterred from using nuclear weapons

Ukraine giving up its Soviet nukes in the 1990s was, with the benefit of hindsight, a mistake that has cost over a hundred thousand Ukrainians their lives. Even if Ukraine just had the missiles in a basement, the possibility that it had cracked the control system–or shortened the runway to reprocessing the warheads for a domestic platform–would have likely deterred war.

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

#368

Post by pfdietz »

ForHackernews wrote: post #360
votingisntreal wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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."

But one might also ask: is it actually bad to do beta testing on live vehicles?

Self-driving cars might globally save many millions of lives.

Consideration of statistical lives leads to counterintuitive consequences.

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

#369

Post by hyperlinerapp »

There is a world in which weapons are not needed. It’s just not a world that exists where there are humans.

I for one want my country to have the best weapons that kill the most enemy combatants in the most efficient way with the fewer non combatant casualties and with the less collateral damage.

For a world without weapons, I usually go to the fantasy isle of the bookstore.

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

#370

Post by ForHackernews »

pfdietz wrote: post #368
ForHackernews wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

But one might also ask: is it actually bad to do beta testing on live vehicles? Self-driving cars might globally save many millions of lives. Consideration of statistical lives leads to counterintuitive consequences.

Absolutely, and real professions with real professional ethical standards have considered such questions[0] and taken informed positions on them. Nothing of the kind exists for programmers.

[0] https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/ama-code-medica...

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