Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, a point of view without an ethical backbone, at least in the context of American society. I suppose they could be a Chinese or Russian national considering it ethical to harm the United States, but I don't see a point of drawing that distinction.
Being blanket against CBP is a position without an ethical backbone. It’s just a childish burying head in the sand. Every semi stable country enforces its immigration laws and checks passports of visitors. Claiming the US doing so is somehow unethical is completely misaligned with a sustainable welfare and government services system.
Where things stand with the Department of War
461–470 of 862 posts
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#462Around 10 years ago, in college, in Calculus class I had a very ambitious classmate, wanted to go to DARPA and work on Robotics. I asked if he was thinking it through solely from technical perspective or considering ethics side as well. Clearly, he didn't understand the question and I directly inquired - what if the code you write or autonomous machine you contribute to used for killing? His response - that's not my…
See in your case with the military you can directly say, hey my code will be used to bomb other people possibly. But in today's times it isn't (I am sure even then) so cut and dry. I worked in AdTech industry (like 60% of the bay area techies). So the ad tech I write gets shown to millions/billions. What about ads influencing elections and then politicians waging wars? Anti-vax ads which influence people and then kil…
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#463Earlier quoted context omitted.
War is not moral. It may be necessary, but it is never moral. The only best choice is to fight at every turn making war easy. Our adversaries will, or likely already have, gone the autonomous route. We should be doing everything we can to put major blockers on this similar to efforts to block chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The logical end of autonomous targeting and weapons is near instant mass killing dec…
> War is not moral. It may be necessary, but it is never moral. This is the right answer. When war becomes inevitable, we are forced to choose between morality and survival. I pass no judgement on those who choose survival.
Nobody who starts a war today acknowledges that they do this for other reasons than "survival", e.g. for stealing various kinds of resources from the attacked.
It has become difficult to distinguish those who truly fight for survival from those who only claim to do this.
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#464Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#465Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#466Earlier quoted context omitted.
We deserve to know if Claude was involved with targeting the girls’ school that was bombed in the first hours of the attack on Iran. 50-100+ girls are reported to have been killed. Claude is integrated into Palantir’s Project Maven targeting system. The Pentagon has touted how many more targets they were able to attack with this system (1,000’s). NY Times: Analysis Suggests School Was Hit Amid U.S. Strikes on Iranian…
Reuters now reporting "U.S. military investigators believe it is likely that U.S. forces were responsible for an apparent strike on an Iranian girls' school that killed scores of children" https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-investigation-p...
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#467It is incredible how far the overton window has moved on this issue. When I graduated in 2007, it was common for tech companies to refuse to let their systems be used for war, and it was an ordinary thing when some of my graduating classmates refused to work at companies that did let their systems be used for war. Those refusals were on moral grounds. Now Anthropic wants to have two narrow exceptions, on pragmatic an…
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#468Earlier quoted context omitted.
None of the recently attacked countries posed an imminent threat to the US. In what kind of deranged world are we living that people are fighting against the notion that waging war on another country should be a costly decision !? My, the Overton window has indeed shifted far.
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Claiming now that this other attack has the same purpose makes certain that USA has lied either at the previous attack or at the current attack.
When the government of a country is a proven liar, no allegations about how dangerous another country is are credible.
Moreover, just before the attack, during the negotiations between USA and Iran it was said that Iran accepted most of the new American requests regarding their nuclear capabilities, which had the goal to prevent them from making any weapons, but their willingness to make concessions did not help them at all to avoid a surprise attack before the end of the negotiations.
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#469Earlier quoted context omitted.
As Gen-Xer I fully agree, I don't get the way things are with obedience, the rediculous situation that American families can lose their kids by having them playing alone in the garden, how everyone sells out for money (Punk would not happen today), the always smile and say no negatives at work being rediculous false (this one really drives me crazy),....
And yet Gen X is the demographic that fell hardest for Trump.
If anything it is all about boomers, gen z and rednecks on YT and TikTok when going over MAGA and Project 2025 videos.
As far as I am aware, the people that didn't gave a damm to elections and ignored their right to vote, are the main reason.
Re: Where things stand with the Department of War
#470Earlier quoted context omitted.
The late 90s were full of media that questioned reality and authority - like X-Files, The Matrix, Dark City, all sorts of websites about conspiracy theories and UFOs, etc. The zeitgeist was full of speculation about hidden truths. The cultural mood was defiant and sardonic. There was rap, rap-rock, Beavis and Butthead, Fight Club, Office Space... One of the most popular pro wrestlers in the world played a character w…
The release date of the show 24 is fun.