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Comment by ThemalSpan | Hacker News Reader

I find this issue much more pressing in the defense industry. I (thankfully) have the freedom to choose where I work. I will never willingly work on weapon systems. There are those that do though. Engineers who design things to kill other people. What the actual fuck.

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That's great that you've got a set of principles that you live by, and are able to stick to them. However, your principles are not everyone's principles, and what you consider moral and ethical is not universal. Grellas had a great comment on working for the military industrial complex a few days ago, that I think is worth a read:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16759324

There's some things that are considered immoral or unethical that are fairly universal, especially in developed countries. We're against slavery, rape, murder, etc. Sure, there are perpetrators, but don't wave them off and say "Oh, they just thought differently, give them a break!" We punish them, which is all that can be hoped for.

Some things exist in a gray area (for now) so while some people might argue that its righteous or necessary to do something, there's no problem with an opposition to such an ideal shoving it back.

Lots of words in the linked comment, but it still amounts to making machines that mechanise the process of killing people.

"Lots of words"?!

You just reduced the linked comment - a nuanced, neutrally presented argument that there are significant practical and philosophical difficulties inherent to refusing to develop technology for military application - to "lots of words", followed by what is effectively a rhetorical sneer.

You don't have to agree with every comment asserting an opposing view, but at least give them a modicum of respect if they put in as much intellectual effort as that one. Why even bother commenting if you're just going to issue a middle-brow dismissal without a substantive critique?

Read the comments in reply to that unnecessarily verbose comment. The follow-up comments destroy the original comment quickly.

So what is your alternative solution? If it ends up with "someone else can have better weapons than me"...I think you may want to reconsider.

The alternative is the military can insource these jobs and change their policies so they can hire the people they need to do defense work instead of coopting organizations that do other sensitive work for the public.

I grew up in Maryland, which probably has the most defense contractors in the country and I decided in college that I didn't want to work in defense for ethical reasons. But there is another side of it, some people genuinely believe that the work they are doing is helping to keep the country safe.

I also used to work in defense, and thankfully not on weapons systems. I would like to point out some mild hilarity in your comment though:

Engineer used to (hundreds of years ago) literally mean someone who worked on designing weapons of war and/or defensive structures. How times have changed, hah.

So the fact that Galkovskiy, the engineer who perfected the Katyusha rocket launcher, decided to work on a weapon that played a major role in defeating Nazi Germany offends you?

Your argument is not on great footing if you have to reach 70 years back to WW2 in order to find an ethical example of working for the War Industry.

That argument is actually on strong footing in principle, because only one counterexample is required to demonstrate that something isn't universally true a priori.

On the other hand, your argument is weak because 1) you attack a strawman (the commenter did not indicate by their choice of example that it is the most recent), and 2) you did not substantiate why developing military technology then would be different to developing military technology now, in such a way that precludes beneficial use.

Do you also object to having armed forces?

Um you are aware of why SV exists - massive defense spending.

Right - so questioning "defense" is biting the hand that feeds me? Sorry, I don't follow.

So let me get this straight: You expect the police and military to use their weapons to defend you. You're willing to pay taxes to pay for those weapons. But you're too ethical to get paid to make them? I just want to be clear where on the spectrum your outrage falls.

When was the last time the military defended anyone in this country from an external threat? WWII? edit

I’m saying that deterrence and defense are different words with different meanings, and you used the word, “defend” somput down the goal posts.

Simply the existence of our military has kept us from being attacked. You're saying we don't need a military?

The existence of our nuclear arsenal does it without having to invade a country every decade or so. Are you saying we need more than 5K+ nukes to be secure?

Look at an electronics engineer working in aviation. They can work on military stuff, or civilian stuff.

It's not clear to me which one will cause more human death. Civillian aircraft is a significant cause of anthropgenic climate change.

> Engineers who design things to kill other people. What the actual fuck.

The popular rationalizations are "it will help save lives of armed services" or "prevent the big terrorist attack". Ther are dozens of reasons people make up to convince themselves and others that it's ok.

Judgement as to whether their reasons hold up to the light of day are left as an exercise to reader.

which you seem to think automatically is exactly the position you believe :-)

So you have read Aquinas and have a reasoned argument against the concept of Jus ad bellum - please I am sure hn readers would like to see your argument.

While my tone may imply it, I don't think everyone will (or needs to) agree with me.

The "just war" argument can be taken to places it's not fit for, is all I'm saying. I'm not denying that it has it's place and time.

It is simply too powerful/useful to be assumed to be legit all the time.

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