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Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year

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Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year

#111

Post by ambicapter »

izacus wrote: post #39
sdinsn wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Am I wrong in assuming that if U.S. doesn't develop this tech some other country will? You are not wrong. Alibaba, Baidu, etc. work heavily with the Chinese government in this area.

Is that the old tired "if you won't help build tools to butcher people, evil chinese will?" argument? This zero-sum, jingoisti, outlook on the world has caused most damaging and bloody wars in history. World policy is not a zero sum game and every human does not have to help kill other humans for the world to be at peace.

> World policy is not a zero sum game

The Pentagon does not deal in World Policy, it deals in martial policy. As General Mattis said, "If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately".

Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year

#112

Post by jopsen »

drak0n1c wrote: post #6

Unfortunately, the divide between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon will be bad for national security in the long run. Recent news cycles keep revealing yet another piece military equipment suffering from software weaknesses. Technology does not stand still, if Russia and China have more of their most talented engineers willing to work on national projects than us that will inevitably lead to a competence gap. Here is…

You assume the military power has a significant role to play in the future.

Building secure civilian products, countering corporate espionage, and building products bæused world wide, all probably play a bigger part.

As do diplomacy. Disagreement between the bigs powers haven't been solved with military power for a long time.. why would that change?

Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year

#113

Post by izacus »

xvector wrote: post #69
izacus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the old tired "if you won't help build tools to butcher people, evil chinese will?" argument? This zero-sum, jingoisti, outlook on the world has caused most damaging and bloody wars in history. World policy is not a zero sum game and every human does not have to help kill other humans for the world to be at peace.

> "if you won't help build tools to butcher people, evil chinese will?" It's not that they will . It's that they are . When someone who most certainly does not have your best interests at heart is building technology capable of crippling or dominating you, what response do you suggest? Passivity? The only recourse here is to either convince them to step down or to - at the very least - match them. Anything else puts…

> It's not that they will. It's that they are.

[Citation needed]

> When someone who most certainly does not have your best interests at heart is building technology capable of crippling or dominating you, what response do you suggest? Passivity? > The only recourse here is to either convince them to step down or to - at the very least - match them. Anything else puts you at a disadvantage and puts your citizens in danger.

You are presenting a false fallacy where the only two options are "do nothing" and "invest all possible resources available to the country into killing other people". A casual look at history book would quickly show you that escalating arms races are not beneficial in the long run - even to the country winning them, since they degenerate into building murder tools at the expense of their own citizens. Much like modern US, which is incapable of providing healthcare to their citizens.

That does not mean that no resources should be put into defense, but every civilian IS NOT morally obligated to help kill other people.

Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year

#114

Post by slededit »

jka wrote: post #89
drak0n1c wrote: post #6

Unfortunately, the divide between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon will be bad for national security in the long run. Recent news cycles keep revealing yet another piece military equipment suffering from software weaknesses. Technology does not stand still, if Russia and China have more of their most talented engineers willing to work on national projects than us that will inevitably lead to a competence gap. Here is…

Transparent de-escalation is the solution, not the age-old rhetoric of 'staying ahead in the arms-race'. _Most_ people regardless of country of residence or origin want a peaceful and fulfilled, free life. You can never please everyone but arguing from basis of 'fear of the other' is a bit disingenuous and leads to these literal arms races. That's not to say defense spending isn't important, but it has to be stressed…

The big fish is always going to have challengers from somewhere. You may be right about the average case but the world is quite large.

Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year

#115

Post by slededit »

21 wrote: post #18
BurritoAlPastor wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not inevitable if we aren’t willing to let it happen. It used to be “inevitable” that poison gas, napalm, cluster mines, etc. were inevitably the future of war, but as a species we decided we weren’t okay with the effects of those technologies, and we’ve subsequently been reasonably successful at not using them.

The progression was always towards more targeted weapons, because they have less collateral damage.

And a much higher chance of actually destroying the target. The US dropped more tonnage of bombs on Vietnam than the entirety of WWII, and yet random destruction is rather ineffective.

Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year

#116

Post by izacus »

neaanopri wrote: post #71

I think younger engineers' morality towards the military distinguishes between technology for great-power warfare, and technology for bombing weddings in Yemen. Aside from some real outliers, nobody of any age wants to lose a war with China. However, it's the "wars of choice" that are problematic.

Why are you talking about a war with China? Is USA preparing to attack China in the near future? There has been a very concerning rise of targeted anti-Chinese articles on this site, is that a preparation for war?

Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year

#117

Post by avmich »

darawk wrote: post #104
avmich wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read this - "If you don't make the decision, it gets made for you in the other direction" - and I understand that just as GP wrote.

And how exactly does that mean "if we don't get them, they'll get us"? What it means is that not acting is as much an action as doing so.

Not acting is always as much an action as doing so, if you consider actions abstractly. In this case I don't think it deserves stating.

Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year

#118

Post by izacus »

ambicapter wrote: post #111
izacus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the old tired "if you won't help build tools to butcher people, evil chinese will?" argument? This zero-sum, jingoisti, outlook on the world has caused most damaging and bloody wars in history. World policy is not a zero sum game and every human does not have to help kill other humans for the world to be at peace.

> World policy is not a zero sum game The Pentagon does not deal in World Policy, it deals in martial policy. As General Mattis said, "If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately".

And as we've seen, it'll eat all the money you can throw at it and even more, even if it means no healthcare, education or basic infrastructure in the country they're supposed to defend. Militarys appetite for money is limitless.

Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year

#119

Post by [deleted] »

jka wrote: post #89
drak0n1c wrote: post #6

Unfortunately, the divide between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon will be bad for national security in the long run. Recent news cycles keep revealing yet another piece military equipment suffering from software weaknesses. Technology does not stand still, if Russia and China have more of their most talented engineers willing to work on national projects than us that will inevitably lead to a competence gap. Here is…

Transparent de-escalation is the solution, not the age-old rhetoric of 'staying ahead in the arms-race'. _Most_ people regardless of country of residence or origin want a peaceful and fulfilled, free life. You can never please everyone but arguing from basis of 'fear of the other' is a bit disingenuous and leads to these literal arms races. That's not to say defense spending isn't important, but it has to be stressed…

[deleted]

Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year

#120

Post by ambicapter »

izacus wrote: post #118
ambicapter wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> World policy is not a zero sum game The Pentagon does not deal in World Policy, it deals in martial policy. As General Mattis said, "If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately".

And as we've seen, it'll eat all the money you can throw at it and even more, even if it means no healthcare, education or basic infrastructure in the country they're supposed to defend. Militarys appetite for money is limitless.

> and even more

I find it hard to believe the military spends more than Congress gives it. Military doesn't decide the budget either. Of course a lot of pork is reps spending money in their districts to "create jobs", even when the military doesn't want what they're making [0]. Clearly Pentagon isn't in charge of that spending, or they wouldn't be spending money on what they don't want.

[0] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/12/18/congress-agai...

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