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.
Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year
71–80 of 159 posts
Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year
#72Unfortunately, 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…
> Unfortunately, the divide between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon will be bad for national security in the long run I work for Google, opinions are my own. I agree. However I think in the case of Google and most other companies, the issue is a little more.. awkward? Besides the fact we have offices in other countries, we also employ many people in the US from other countries. Obviously those people may have very di…
> [at Google] we also employ many people in the US from other countries. Obviously those people may have very different feelings about working on a project for US national security. I don't think I've been on a single team at Google which did not have people from abroad.
I honestly think the US military would have more problems with having foreign nationals working on a military project than many of the foreign nationals themselves. I think it's difficult to get a security clearance if you're not a citizen, and it may even be hard if you're a dual citizen.
I would think that naturalized US citizens would have the same interest in US national security as native-born Americans. It's a little racist to suggest that they don't, and it would be a little disingenuous for them not to.
Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seem to be implying that it's perfectly fine for the US to bomb a family home if a terrorist is in there, accepting civilian casualties, because they might harm the population? Who gets to make that determination? A random drone pilot? An officer? Also please don't pretend any of the US military engagements since WW2 had any other purpose than serving national interest.
> Who gets to make that determination? We do. Because we can. That is how the world works. If you don't make the decision, it gets made for you in the other direction. > Also please don't pretend any of the US military engagements since WW2 had any other purpose than serving national interest. This is a pretty childish sentiment. Reasons for war are complex. The world is actually a complicated place, and admits multi…
> Reasons for war are complex.
Yes they are. I only said that the motivation always was national self interest not benevolence.
> We do. Because we can.
I think that exhausted my tolerance for further discussion with you.
Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article makes it feel like these changes happened because less people are enlisting or know people enlisting. I think that’s just another symptom of how some military programs lost a lot of legitimacy in the minds of some of my generation who were coming of age around the war on terror. It’s hard to feel like the good guys in a lot of these issues like drone warfare against non-combatants, and so the military was…
I think the media has a lot to do with that. They run stories about how the military bombs some civilians while fighting jihadists, but not about how those same jihadists routinely round up and torture children, kill scores of locals, etc. Outside of Iraq, which fuck Bush, can you name something about the "War on Terror" you think we'd be better off not doing? I think it's a really shallow view to say it's better to…
Almost everything about the war on terror I think we'd be better off not doing. I supported going into Afghanistan, but nation building/occupation was a non-starter. We started (CIA pushed the Arab Spring) the civil war in Syria, which has already cost a half a million lives and likely will scale over a million. So that was a terrible idea. We're still selling weapons to Saudi Arabia so they can genocide Yemen, where there's now open air slave markets.
It's really hard to name a single good thing to come out of the war on terror.
Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article makes it feel like these changes happened because less people are enlisting or know people enlisting. I think that’s just another symptom of how some military programs lost a lot of legitimacy in the minds of some of my generation who were coming of age around the war on terror. It’s hard to feel like the good guys in a lot of these issues like drone warfare against non-combatants, and so the military was…
I think the media has a lot to do with that. They run stories about how the military bombs some civilians while fighting jihadists, but not about how those same jihadists routinely round up and torture children, kill scores of locals, etc. Outside of Iraq, which fuck Bush, can you name something about the "War on Terror" you think we'd be better off not doing? I think it's a really shallow view to say it's better to…
Part of it is also how we teach history. US schools have a tendency to only focus on the wars in which we are clearly the "good guys" until you get to the post-WWII wars in which things become much more clouded morally. This gives off the impression that the US and its military have sort of lost our way in the last half century or so. The truth is that all war is generally bad and only our perception of it has changed. Look through the Wikipedia page of US conflicts and you will see a long history of wars in which our actions were morally questionable that we are never taught about in school. And even our "heroic wars" like WWII include plenty of war crimes at the hands of the US.
Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Unfortunately, the divide between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon will be bad for national security in the long run I work for Google, opinions are my own. I agree. However I think in the case of Google and most other companies, the issue is a little more.. awkward? Besides the fact we have offices in other countries, we also employ many people in the US from other countries. Obviously those people may have very di…
> [at Google] we also employ many people in the US from other countries. Obviously those people may have very different feelings about working on a project for US national security. I don't think I've been on a single team at Google which did not have people from abroad. I honestly think the US military would have more problems with having foreign nationals working on a military project than many of the foreign natio…
You're thinking of xenophobia, not racism.
Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
You seem to be implying that it's perfectly fine for the US to bomb a family home if a terrorist is in there, accepting civilian casualties, because they might harm the population? Who gets to make that determination? A random drone pilot? An officer? Also please don't pretend any of the US military engagements since WW2 had any other purpose than serving national interest.
> Who gets to make that determination? We do. Because we can. That is how the world works. If you don't make the decision, it gets made for you in the other direction. > Also please don't pretend any of the US military engagements since WW2 had any other purpose than serving national interest. This is a pretty childish sentiment. Reasons for war are complex. The world is actually a complicated place, and admits multi…
We do. Because we can. That is how the world works
That's all well and good, but I don't want to hear a lot of whining from your corner when the next 9/11 happens.
Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't let the perfect stand in the way of the good. If the treaties help prevent 90% of the usage, they seem worth having.
That doesn't work in the real world where the remaining 10% of countries are willing to use their superior military technology to dominate others. The only way for a country to be truly free is to be either equal in power to other countries - or barring that, the most powerful country on the block. Since the former is impossible due to the nature of reality, all countries aim for the latter.
In practice that top 10% is generally the one holding itself accountable to arms treaties, it's normally smaller groups that go for the cheap-and-horrible.
Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year
#79>The second runner-up was South Korean president Moon Jae-in. He was nominated for promoting improved Inter-Korean relations and a renewed dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang on denuclearization and peace that has led to a number of significant steps to decrease tensions, including a North Korean moratorium on long-range missile and nuclear testing, a halt to U.S.-South Korean military exercises, and steps to avoid military incidents along the demilitarized zone that divides North Korea and South Korea.
IMO this is the only one that matters in the list. The Pentagon will get another US Based Tech company to aid them in the pursuit of new weapons because there is just too much money to ignore it. Meanwhile peace talks between South and North Korea actually reduces the chance of a thermonuclear war between two nations. We can only hope that other nations follow suit.
Re: Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year
#80Unfortunately, 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…
Google is actively helping the Chinese military by opening their AI center in China. Every bit of the IP they develop in China will be in the hands of the government and thus weaponized by the Chinese military. Yet I haven't heard a peep of protest from the same people who criticized project Maven
https://taskandpurpose.com/google-china-artificial-intellige...
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/13/alphabets-google-opens-china...