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Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

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Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

#101

Post by manfredo »

yason wrote: post #100
manfredo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the US could be "strong" but the US isn't just defending its own soil. It's effectively propping up allies all across the globe. Also, as a percentage of GDP US military spending isn't all that high. It's just over 3% [1]. South Korea is at 2.6%. In most years, Israel outranks the US (they probably could afford to drop their spending because their regional rivals are having very bad domestic problems and are in…

Yes, the US could be "strong" but the US isn't just defending its own soil. It would seem natural to think your own soil is the only thing you can ever rightfully defend. USA seems to be doing the defending anywhere but on their own soil.

True, but the US soil really doesn't need much defending. There are large oceans to the East and West. To the North is an allied country, and to the South is a country with close economic and cultural ties. There are no countries that could feasibly carry out a transoceanic invasion of the US, even were they to exert the entirety of their military might.

Countries like Poland and South Korea are within the reach of geopolitical rivals, though. So places like those are where the US is garrisoning much of its combat ready troops. Which makes perfect sense.

I'm also not so sure what you meant by "It would seem natural to think your own soil is the only thing you can ever rightfully defend." Why wouldn't it be rightful to defend the territorial integrity of other countries? In fact, the US is obligated to defend it as per international treaties like NATO.

Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

#103

Post by mcguire »

wildmusings wrote: post #45
colonelxc wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it differently. They are not advocating against the military, just that they will not participate. They are not trying to say that all CS (or any field) should wholly shun military work, just that they have. Choice quote: """Do you try to keep others from taking military funding? No. Mine is an individual testimony, and each person makes an individual decision about how they will spend their life's work."""

I think there's something to Kant's first formulation of the Categorical Imperative: Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law. Edit: to address a common confusion: this has nothing to do with imposing a rule on others. This formulation only says that you ought to act in conformance with rules that you would want all others to act by as well.

On the other hand, if everyone were not accepting military funding....

Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

#104

Post by landryraccoon »

orf wrote: post #86
zdragnar wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have recent history to demonstrate: WW2 followed by the cold war. Is there a Nazi Germany today? No. Could there be something similar again? Of course. Hell, there's even a show on Amazon (based on a book) centered around the idea of an alternate history where the Allied forces lost WW2 and the US is occupied territory.

Things where a little bit different back then, don't you think? Do you believe nothing that's happened in the last 70 years (most notably nuclear weapons) changes this scenario at all? There are also many fictional shows on Amazon, should we use them to guide us?

I don't think philosophically this helps the case that armed forces are unnecessary. All it argues is that a nation needs a nuclear armed force instead of a conventional one to stay independent.

If a nation has no nuclear weapons and cannot compete conventionally, it could be bullied. Take Ukraine for example - would they really be worse off if they kept some nukes? Perhaps Russia would be deterred from aggression if they did.

Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

#105

Post by mcguire »

jasode wrote: post #15

>, after completing my PhD thesis on cognitive maps, I found that the only funding agency that was interested in supporting my research wanted to build smart cruise missiles that could find their way to their targets. This was not what I wanted my life's work to support. But if the military really really wanted to, couldn't it just "launder" their funding via "worthy humanitarian" causes? The government could find a…

They've done that before. It usually results in some blow-back, when the researchers discover the game.

https://read.dukeupress.edu/books/book/70/chapter-abstract/1...

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2016/07/19/book-revi...

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

(I had a sociology class in the late 80s whose professor was a bit bitter about Project Camelot, judging by her comments.) https://www.jstor.org/stable/41303322?seq=1#page_scan_tab_co...

Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

#106

Post by nec4b »

bb611 wrote: post #99
nec4b wrote: post #92

In my mind he is similar to anti-vaxxers. He can afford his position, only because actions of a large majority of other people are keeping him safe.

The large majority of Americans work for the military industrial complex?

I think you are asking me the wrong question here. If we keep things in context, the right question is: Does the large majority of people who get the chance to be funded by the military accept its offer? The answer is yes.

Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

#107

Post by shadofx »

orf wrote: post #55
dwheeler wrote: post #27

This individual recommends that society do nothing even though there are other military powers. I don't agree. Edmund Burke had something to say about two centuries ago: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Absence of a military means a commitment to doing nothing. If all Americans don't take military funding, the result will not be a nicer world. The result of US society…

> The result of US society following this advice would be the subjugation of the US, and possibly all western democracies, by other countries. This seems to be a common sentiment in the USA. Perhaps I'm naive, but you're saying that without your grossly overpowered military the USA would be overtaken by... Mexico? Canada? I think it's a bit reductionist to simply say "less army = we die". Things are more complex than…

Academia boycotting the military won't destroy the MIC. It will simply move all military research into military sectors, because if you can train a person to kill, you can train them to do science.

Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

#108

Post by mcguire »

Ben Kuipers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Kuipers, http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~kuipers/) is an incredibly nice man and good professor, and while I was at UT Austin he was the department chairman at least once. I never took a class from him and I don't even have any funny or embarrassing stories about him. In person, he's sounds very much like he writes here.

Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

#109

Post by [deleted] »

bassman9000 wrote: post #88
orf wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think Russia or China would launch a ground invasion of a nuclear capable country in a different continent, for no other reason that it looked a bit weak? I wonder why the Russians are not launching invasions of several resource rich African countries as we speak. I agree that currently the US protects strategic sea routes that benefit the US, and as a byproduct other countries. That's fine, and the seas have alw…

At some point, yes, they would. The whole point of the article is that people with the technical knowledge to maintain and improve the US miltary shouldn't do it. Luckily, reaching a critical mass of scientists and engineers with such attitude, enough for basic defense systems to fail, seems unlikely. But there's such an horizon. I wonder why the Russians are not launching invasions of several resource rich African c…

[deleted]

Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

#110

Post by manfredo »

porpoisely wrote: post #98
manfredo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US itself is likely safe. Not many militaries are capable of occupying most of a continent across an ocean. But the absence of strong democratic militaries could easily put subjugation of much of Eastern Europe by Russia, or East Asia by China within the realm of possibility. The latter may be more willing to use gunboat diplomacy in Africa if their loans aren't repaid.

Following that line of reasoning, is it better that eastern europe and east asia be under our subjugation? Or is it only subjugation when they do it? We are less than 250 years old as a nation. How did eastern europe and east asia manage before we arrived? Pride goeth before a fall. I'm afraid our hubris is going to cost us big one of these days.

> Following that line of reasoning, is it better that eastern europe and east asia be under our subjugation? Or is it only subjugation when they do it?

I'm not sure I follow. Is it your genuine belief that Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states would prefer Russian hegemony? Or that South Korea prefers Communist hegemony? The reality is that if the US doesn't maintain a strong presence in these regions, then other powers will exploit that power vacuum. Sure, in an ideal world, every country would turns it's swords into plowshares, it's tanks into tractors, etc. But we live in the real world, not the ideal world.

> We are less than 250 years old as a nation. How did eastern europe and east asia manage before we arrived?

Eastern Europe spent most of the last 250 years under monarchies and dictatorships. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that most[1] find the 21st century is preferable to domination by the USSR, domination by the Fascists before that, and imperial monarchies before that.

East Asia spent most of the last 250 under either feudalism[2] or domination by an imperial power. Again, I'm going to go out on a limb that they prefer their situation in the 21st century to that.

1. Probably all Eastern European countries other than Russia and maybe Belorussia and Moldova. The latter two are pretty pro-Russian.

2. Some point out the Qing dynasty had an extensive central bureacracy and isn't exactly fudalism. It's some form of monarchic rule, though.

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