Suspending judgement on this individual's stance, it's refreshing to see someone that is basing their actions on clearly articulated principles.
Why don't I take military funding? (2004)
21–30 of 134 posts
Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)
#22Many of the reasons he stated can also be applied to VC funding: > One thing that makes the slope so slippery is that you have accumulated responsibility for a lab full of graduate students, and the consequences of a major drop in funding will be even more painful for them than it is for you.
Or any funding of any sort from any source, public or private, for that matter. It's a total garbage argument; anyone can require something you disagree with as a condition for continuation of funding, the military is not special in this regard.
It's basically akin to saying "don't get a job because if you do then your boss might eventually ask you to do something (that's legal) that you disagree with."
Ridiculous.
Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)
#23If this idiot got his way, we'd all be speaking Japanese right now.
Kuipers is further proof that the only computer scientists who go into academia are those who can't hack it in private industry. What a fundamentally unintelligent human being.
Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)
#24"The goal of the military is to settle international conflict through violence." That is misleading. The purpose of the military is to safeguard the interests of our country through its presence and--if necessary--decisive violence. No US military leader wants to fight a war; that notion is absurd. Don't confuse the desires of the military with the occasional desires of its civilian leadership.
> No US military leader wants to fight a war; that notion is absurd.
I think your general point is good, but there are people, including people in government, who see war as a low-cost, acceptable means of achieving ends, including rallying domestic political support.
For example, at one point I noticed that over a short time hawkish Republican leaders in the U.S., including John McCain, favored increasing involvement in Afghanistan, attacking Iran (rather than negotiating), increasing involvement in Iraq, intervening in Syria, intervening in Egypt (IIRC), intervening in Sudan (in Darfur, though that might not have been contemporaneous), and intervening in Libya. If you look at a map, that's war in most countries from central Asia to near the middle of Africa's Mediterranean coast.
The GOP, starting before Trump, often vocally disdains the alternative to war, diplomacy. The Trump administration has taken it to a policy level worked to undermine the United States' relations with other countries and openly advocated, including in written op-eds from administration members, 'a return to geopolitical competition' - i.e., the state of things before WWII, which led to centuries of wars. They've abandoned treaty after treaty, and damaged the U.S.'s reputation so that they can't be trusted to adhere to future agreements (which I think is intentional, an attempt make the move away from diplomacy irreversible). The Trump administration openly works against the rule-based international order and openly opposes international law; the alternative to law and order is anarchy; the alternative to those mechanisms is war.
The Trump administration also has gutted State Department; they've attempted to gut its budget (Congress hasn't always agreed), they've cut and obstructed many programs, forced out a large proportion of talent (my vague memory is that they forced or urged out over a third of the most senior officers, who are, as I understand it, irreplaceable), and disrupted hiring.
Why would you destroy the means of diplomacy if you don't seek war?
Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)
#25The United States could certainly be less war-happy, in my opinion, but what happens if some group decides to declare war on another, or commit atrocities, and absolutely refuses to negotiate? Or what if negotiations take months or years, and more human lives are lost in that time than would be through war?
I'm not saying that most or even a significant fraction of the US's wars up until this point have been justified, but professor Kuipers seems to be of the opinion that violence should never be used to settle international conflicts.
Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)
#26>, 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…
If they go to that lengths then they're laundering responsibility away from the researcher, which seems to be his main thrust - the affirmative decision to do research for the military puts the responsibility on the researcher; doing it for a worthy cause and acknowledging the potential for good or bad puts that ball in the "worthy cause"'s court.
Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)
#27This 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 following this advice would be the subjugation of the US, and possibly all western democracies, by other countries. Where possible, militaries should not be used, because violence is a terrible thing... and that is something most military personnel already know. But absence of a military often produces means slaughter by another.
In practice, countries only independently exist if (1) they have a military or (2) they have an ally with a military who is willing to use it on their behalf. If a country is unwilling to work out its defense, another country will be happy to take it over.
Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)
#28>, 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…
And the civilian world can do the same, fund research with a presumably benign purpose, turn around and sell it to the military.
Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)
#29> Military action, with its inevitable consequences to civilian populations, creates and fuels deadly threats, and therefore increases the danger that our country faces. Wrong. The United States is inexorably in conflict nations whose domestic policy failures cause them to act in often violent ways that threaten US interests. If academia adopted Kuipers' position we would be no closer to peace, and much closer to liv…
I think simplifying the issue distracts us from the real issues, which are complex. The U.S. uses its military for good purposes and for bad. Sometimes war is due to other country's actions, sometimes due to the U.S.'s (e.g., Iraq), and probably usually due to both.
For example, the immediate causes of many U.S. wars later turn out to be false, such as the destruction of the Maine which precipitated the Spanish-American War, the Gulf of Tonkin which began full-scale intervention in Vietnam, and the WMD in Iraq.
But even wars that are justified lead to bad outcomes, as the author states: What war hasn't had the consequences you quoted? Unfortunately, sometimes, those are the best outcomes available, but it's quite a moral decision to inflict that on others.
Re: Why don't I take military funding? (2004)
#30>, 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…
Military and intelligence agencies have a stake (and funding) in plenty of humanitarian causes -- weather prediction, food security, space exploration, etc. But as a way of bypassing researchers' beliefs, it simply isn't necessary: plenty of smart people will take military or intelligence money directly. I remember being told that Carnegie Mellon's school of computer science had over 70% of its total funding from military and intelligence contracts.
I don't think most pacifists believe their convictions will directly prevent war, or even make it significantly harder to prosecute. But demonstrating convictions can force people to hold a mirror up to their own, and can change what people accept in ways that add up to big implications. I'm not a pacifist, but I'm grateful to Dr. Kulpers for demonstrating that it is possible to make a CS career outside of the military industrial complex. Anyone who participates in the business of war should at the very least consider their rationale beyond "how else am I supposed to find work?"