You don't even have to get 1/4 of the way through the article to see that 3,000 Google employees disagree with you about that. Do you think you can find 2,999 other people to share your "go pound sand" argument, or do you think you're an outlier?
It isn't Peace Corps. keeping the world at relative peace.
What would happen if the US government poured as much money/effort into keeping the peace as they did towards disrupting the peace?
Nation-states require people working on real problems, especially if we are continuing to shoulder the burden of securing the rest of the western world. We cannot run on maintenance-mode without a technical team.
If we are to do something we should do it well. Otherwise we should own the alternative of turning inward, reducing our obligations to NATO and the UN, and shrinking the size/scope of the federal government.
Are Google employees an unbiased sample now? Also, regardless of what authority / stature they may have, the "call to authority" fallacy would apply if you use that data-point as the crux of your argument.
Lastly, accuracy <> popularity - an argument can be right or wrong regardless of how many people agree with you.
There is no guarantee that the Department of State will not use said technology in a non-tyrannical fashion. In fact, we have decades of evidence that it will use it in a tyrannical fashion (And then lie their pants off about it), whenever it serves their interests.
I don't think I will ever understand this sentiment. At the time of WW2, the US still legally discriminated against colored people. The UK had a sprawling empire whose colored citizens were not given full rights or representation. France was also similar; in fact France tried to claw its empire back which led to some ugly wars in IndoChina (Vietnam) and Algeria.
Let me say that Nazism and Fascism were surely forces that needed to be defeated and put down. But the Allies were hardly the perfect coalition of "free people" or the "free world" that people today glorify them to be. They were at best a "better side that was moving in the right direction".
That is democracy. Fascism and communism were the worse sides that were moving in the wrong direction, and allowing those factions to gain a military advantage would have been morally indefensible. The UK and France abandoned their empires in the 20th century; the Soviets expanded theirs.
I think it's wonderful that liberal democracies have a rich culture of self-criticism when it comes to their flaws and imperfections. That's what makes it so important to preserve them.
Its a difficult question and its sad to see how technology created originally for benefiting humanity can sometimes be re purposed for its destruction. In a world where sovereign nations are not bound by arms restrictions though, its hard to see how this endless march of destruction can be stopped.
The SALT and other arms-reduction treaties b/w the US and erstwhile USSR where, IMO, a very good compromise. I find it hard to do something similar in the future if we continue to have dysfunctional administrations governing the US though.
After 1945 (arguably 1953 at the latest), there were absolutely no direct wars between any two major powers. Nuclear weapons did make war too destructive to ever risk.
And I agree with OP's statement.