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Google helps Pentagon analyze military drone footage–employees “outraged”

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Re: Google helps Pentagon analyze military drone footage–employees “outraged”

#31
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japanese internment camps? I’m sure at that scale people died that would not have. Next given the scale of wwii I’m sure there were us citizens fighting for the axis powers. The main difference is we lacked the ability to track, research, and target individuals like we do today.

While those camps were morally reprehensible and constitutionally indefensible, the goal was not to kill people. Can we at least agree that the whole , “A secret court has ordered your death from the sky,” thing is a lot more purposefully murderous? Not capture, not detain, just kill.

Well that's the whole problem with the War on Terror, isn't it - the designation of who's an enemy is rather unilateral. At least in Al-Awlaki's case he was advertising his ultra-militant intentions about as clearly as possible.

Re: Google helps Pentagon analyze military drone footage–employees “outraged”

#32

I think this is a good example of how their old ethos of "Do no evil" was a narrow-minded fantasy by privileged white people who never had to face the world they were born into. Sitting in your expensive apartment (raising rents so that the former neighbors can no longer afford to live here), sipping your Starbucks (a global commodity dependent on trade deals to somewhat stabilize paying farmers around the world abou…

I probably occupy a considerably more marginalized/precarious position in society than you do, but while your observations are largely well-founded you chose an amazingly pompous way to articulate them.

Re: Google helps Pentagon analyze military drone footage–employees “outraged”

#33
post #2

Love how “some employees” at Google are bent out of shape that Google would help the DoD. To those employees: it’s cool, just sit back, write code, drink your fancy coffees and be self absorbed while patriots defend you and do the hard work of defending freedoms.

Please do not post ideological flame tropes to Hacker News. They're predictable, and so do not gratify intellectual curiosity. They lead to flamewars, which destroy the container here. We all have an interest in not letting that happen. Please (re-)read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

The good things about HN are all fragile. The default forces of the internet all tend to destroy them. Everyone posting here is responsible to take care of the container—just like you wouldn't litter in a city park, or set one on fire.

Re: Google helps Pentagon analyze military drone footage–employees “outraged”

#34

I think this is a good example of how their old ethos of "Do no evil" was a narrow-minded fantasy by privileged white people who never had to face the world they were born into. Sitting in your expensive apartment (raising rents so that the former neighbors can no longer afford to live here), sipping your Starbucks (a global commodity dependent on trade deals to somewhat stabilize paying farmers around the world abou…

Would you please stop posting flamebait and ideological fodder to Hacker News? Whether you mean it to be or not, it's vandalism. This wretched subthread is exactly what we don't want on HN. It is exactly what will trash the site.

An experienced user like you ought to be more familiar with https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and ought to take better care of the commons. Everything that's good about Hacker News is fragile.

Re: Google helps Pentagon analyze military drone footage–employees “outraged”

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because superpowers have ICBMs, we don't see large scale wars with 10s millions of casualties for 70 years.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-has-killed-more-than-20-mil... That’s tens of millions, and I’m being generous in ignoring how you’ve moved the goalposts. Your thesis is simply unsupportable, sorry. Besides, we don’t know what the future holds, but in terms of raw possibilities we can now end all human life on Earth thanks to technology. That’s also new in the last 70 years. Hopefully we’ll never do it, but we could…

> That’s tens of millions

It says "This study reveals that U.S. military forces were directly responsible for about 10 to 15 million deaths ", which is not "tens". Now imagine death toll if US would directly fight war with USSR over Europe.

And yes, it includes Vietnam and Korean wars, where high precision weapons weren't used yet.

Re: Google helps Pentagon analyze military drone footage–employees “outraged”

#36
Comments moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16532112. Not the flamewars though.

All: we eventually ban accounts that propagate flamewars like these. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html for how HN is intended to be used, and then please use it that way.

Re: Google helps Pentagon analyze military drone footage–employees “outraged”

#37
post #2

Love how “some employees” at Google are bent out of shape that Google would help the DoD. To those employees: it’s cool, just sit back, write code, drink your fancy coffees and be self absorbed while patriots defend you and do the hard work of defending freedoms.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/world/asia/drone-strikes-... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone... Whatever you think of civilian deaths, don’t forget that we assasinated 6 US citizens without a trial. Freedoms my ass. What about the freedom of people attending a wedding or receiving medical treatment not to be killed? If this was another country doing the same to the US, would your non-a…

Would you please stop using HN for ideological arguments? It's not ok.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Google helps Pentagon analyze military drone footage–employees “outraged”

#38
post #34

I think this is a good example of how their old ethos of "Do no evil" was a narrow-minded fantasy by privileged white people who never had to face the world they were born into. Sitting in your expensive apartment (raising rents so that the former neighbors can no longer afford to live here), sipping your Starbucks (a global commodity dependent on trade deals to somewhat stabilize paying farmers around the world abou…

Would you please stop posting flamebait and ideological fodder to Hacker News? Whether you mean it to be or not, it's vandalism. This wretched subthread is exactly what we don't want on HN. It is exactly what will trash the site. An experienced user like you ought to be more familiar with https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and ought to take better care of the commons. Everything that's good about Hacker…

Vandalism? I expressed views based on facts about the world. I mean, I don't think you can see your own overreaction.

First of all - do I really have to be the one to point out that "ideological" is not a pejorative term? Ideology is literally "a : a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture; b : a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture; c : the integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program". Fodder literally means "food". You're complaining that I am posting food for a body of concepts about human life or culture.

Second, it's not my fault that my views are flamebait - feminism is flamebait for Men's Rights Activists. Do we not talk about feminism now? Is the rule basically "Don't make anyone on the internet unhappy" ??

Third (well, more part of the second) the fact that my comment pissed off so many people - even though there is nothing inaccurate about it - is probably actually constructive, because it might encourage people to think about the consequences of their actions on other people, rather than banally participate in what directly affects people around the world every single day.

Just to back up one of these things in my comment: coffee.

Coffee is the second most widely traded commodity in the world, next to oil. Most of the people on this forum have no clue where their coffee comes from. It's just sitting in their office break room, apparently for free. There is no indication which farm it came from, in which country, or how much the farmer was paid per kilo of that coffee.

It (usually) shows no indication of whether it was acquired through a fair trade agreement, or an agreement not to damage sensitive ecosystems, or whether a cooperative was involved to help the farmer obtain a fair rate, or whether a glut of coffee in one country and a drought in another will effectively cut the price paid to farmers in another country to near zero, and that they have no savings or other income, so they will literally starve for a year. It usually doesn't show these things because usually it's just about selling it for the lowest price, and all these other things are not even concerns.

Starbucks specifically has been nudged toward giving you some hint about these details, as well as trying to slowly improve conditions, but that would never happen unless someone (like myself, if I can be allowed some ego here) pointed it out repeatedly and loudly to the people who are benefitting.

Maybe I'm a vandalous flame-baiting ideologue, but I find it at least somewhat evil to take this apparently free coffee and not even once ask where this came from, or how, or whether it was acquired in a fair way. Much like sweat shop labor making cheaper t-shirts, we profit from the labor of people we will never see, and would never know about, lest someone shove it in our faces.

Perhaps this opinion I have, based on viewing the process of how people at the low end of the coffee spectrum are treated, makes me a wretched person. If so, fine, I am guilty. I am trashing the site with my horrible opinions. In which case you should definitely ban me for life, because I'm not changing my opinion just because you dislike it. I am willing to have my opinion changed by intellectual debate. But you're right, in that echo chambers for those who aspire to an elite socioeconomic class that never needs to think about the above-mentioned details, is probably the wrong forum for it.

Re: Google helps Pentagon analyze military drone footage–employees “outraged”

#39

I think this is a good example of how their old ethos of "Do no evil" was a narrow-minded fantasy by privileged white people who never had to face the world they were born into. Sitting in your expensive apartment (raising rents so that the former neighbors can no longer afford to live here), sipping your Starbucks (a global commodity dependent on trade deals to somewhat stabilize paying farmers around the world abou…

It's possible to participate in injustice in a multiplicity of implicit, difficult-to-see ways and yet still object to participating in explicit, obvious injustices. Doing so is still far preferable to not objecting to obvious injustices, regardless of what you're up to in your spare time.

I see what you're saying, but you must see the flaw in this logic. This theoretical person objects to the explicit injustice, because it's right in front of them. But then they still do nothing about the implicit injustice, because it's not right in front of them.

It is my opinion that most of us in society are well informed enough to know about those implicit injustices. We read about it in the newspaper, or hear about it on TV, or in movies, or from our peers, or leaders. And then, as if by jedi mind-wipe, we just change the channel.

In my own humble opinion, this kind of outrage at the explicit is disingenuous. I think it stems from at least a faint idea, a possibility, that this person is complicit, but desperately wants not to be. I think that the way we live our lives proves how much we really care about the injustice. The outrage is just so much theater, and we're both the actors and the audience.

Re: Google helps Pentagon analyze military drone footage–employees “outraged”

#40

I think this is a good example of how their old ethos of "Do no evil" was a narrow-minded fantasy by privileged white people who never had to face the world they were born into. Sitting in your expensive apartment (raising rents so that the former neighbors can no longer afford to live here), sipping your Starbucks (a global commodity dependent on trade deals to somewhat stabilize paying farmers around the world abou…

I probably occupy a considerably more marginalized/precarious position in society than you do, but while your observations are largely well-founded you chose an amazingly pompous way to articulate them.

You are probably very right - I was describing myself.
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