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Where things stand with the Department of War

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Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#571

Post by booleandilemma »

keiferski wrote: post #367
ryandrake wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. (spoiler alert) Wasn't this one of the plot points of the Val Kilmer movie Real Genius ? They had to trick the students into creating a weapon by siloing them off from each other and having them build individual but related components? How far…

Many prominent tech and science leaders have been disparaging philosophy for decades now. Not surprising that in the absence of any serious ethical thought, “make money = good” is the default position.

Excellent point. Philosophy (really anything not math-related) is seen as a waste of time by most people I know in tech. You end up getting a bunch of smart but unethical or misguided people. Engineering types end up being used as pawns in wider political games. Look at all the terrorists who are engineers, for example:

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/12/magazine/12FOB-IdeaLab-t....

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#572

Post by szmarczak »

orsenthil wrote: post #379

At this moment, I think we should have politics in left, right and center of our workplaces and life discussions everywhere. If you are not explicit with your stance then you are going to dragged along without your choice.

Politics has nothing to do with this. Simply put, spying on citizens or letting machines autonomously kill people is immoral, bad, and a crime against humanity.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#573

Post by booleandilemma »

_--__--__ wrote: post #80
hamdingers wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I continue to be surprised how many people haven't heard term until now, it's been in common use in the US for 20+ years. To me the most Orwellian thing is everyone using the newspeak name for the DoD.

DoW is the opposite of newspeak, it is much more transparent and honest about what that organization is and has been for my entire life

The person you're responding to probably hasn't read the book and is just parroting the word. That's kinda where we're at right now in society. I see the comments by malfist and abustamam are similar. No idea what newspeak means, just parroting and saying "that's not its name".

The problem will get worse as we have a generation raised by LLMs.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#574

Post by sph »

tw04 wrote: post #110
DesaiAshu wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Department of Defense was named as such after the detonations of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki We - as a humanity - collectively recognized the weight of our creation, and decided to walk back Discussing “AI alignment” in the same breadth as aligning with a “Department of War” (in any country) is simply not an intellectually sound position None of the countries we’ve attacked this year pose an existen…

> Why aren’t there more dissidents among the researcher ranks? Because they’ve likely all lost faith in humanity watching Trump get reelected and now just want to get rich and hope to insulate their families from the reality we’re all living in.

Not disagreeing with you but “I lost all faith in humanity so I might as well run the gas chambers” is the delusion of a psychopath and completely inexcusable.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#575

Post by olivierestsage »

hamdingers wrote: post #69
CurtHagenlocher wrote: post #34

Nothing brings home the Orwellian nature of USA 2026 more for me than the word "warfighter".

I continue to be surprised how many people haven't heard term until now, it's been in common use in the US for 20+ years. To me the most Orwellian thing is everyone using the newspeak name for the DoD.

Well, I’m in the US and have been following politics closely for the entire time window you mention, and this year marks the first time I’ve heard it. It is very jarring and a notable rhetorical shift from the concept of “service”.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#577

Post by pjmlp »

bdangubic wrote: post #540
pjmlp wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was it? I am not on US. 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.

this isn’t true either, 2024 election saw the highest number of people voting - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_United_States...

So what happened to those 34.7% voters that had better things to do than cast a vote?

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2025/2024-pre...

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#578

Post by hereme888 »

lkey wrote: post #442
hereme888 wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just patently false. Tons of executives and board members in industry absolutely care. Some are in it just for philanthropic purposes.

Oh? Name them, with receipts for actions taken , not vague gestures towards morality. The actual logical end point of most of the 'for the good of humanity' folks in the bay area is: 'Only I can be trusted with the money, power, and weapons that I believe will break the world, but I promise it is for the best. No system or power should hold me to account in the event I am wrong or change my mind. Trust me.'

I know many of them personally, and I will not name any of them, so that virtue-signaling radical leftists on the internet cannot harass them.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#579

Post by qsera »

laserlight wrote: post #568
qsera wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What does objectivity have to do with the value of x? It does not have anything to do with objectivity. I thought it to be futile to discuss that since, as you implied, predicting future can't be 100% objective, and thus decisions to avert a bad future outcome always need to be based on subjective decisions. So this is another question where I want to ask you how you would make a subjective call.

Got it. Looks like we're on the same page. Everyone makes a subjective call.

Yes, we are on the same page, and you have got one question to answer.

Make your call.

Re: Where things stand with the Department of War

#580

Post by malfist »

dotancohen wrote: post #349
the_af wrote: post #340

Earlier 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.

[flagged]

Perhaps Trump shouldn't have ripped up the treaty Obama achieved with Iran. The one where we could pop in unannounced at any time to inspect facilities to make sure there's no nuclear bomb making capabilities.
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