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Comment by fakescience | Hacker News Reader

To any Google Employees reading this. Don't worry! There are SEVERAL ways you can reduce any cognitive dissonance you might be experiencing as you read more about the evils your company is committing :

+ rationalization of your own behavior : "I'm not doing this work...I'm working on projects that help people. And ads. But ads are pretty neutral compared to bombing people."

+ rationalization of others' behavior : "Bombing people isn't evil, since it's helping the military kill MORE _bad guys_ and LESS good guys. And gals. and children."

+ change your thoughts about yourself : "Maybe I'm not as good of a person as I thought I was..." [note : this one might be hardest to do!]

+ change your own behavior : Quit Google, or even better organize your fellow workers into some form of collective action (strike!) to remake the company into something that better fits your values and ethics.

View on HN

Or accept the reality that we live in a world that feels the need to kill people. I think it would be swell to not need a military but the reality is that we do. If you have qualms about working for Google as a defense contractor, consider the implications of living in the US (or in all likelihood wherever you happen to reside). Can you justify paying your taxes? Can you justify voting for one of a handful of candidates for federal government, all of whom are likely to support some form of military action or other?

If a hostile foreign power was to invade your country, what would you want the response to be? To what ends and what efforts should we support the military?

There are many ethically questionable choices we take for granted, especially those of us that live in the West. Everything we consume has a taint of human exploitation, environmental damage, contributes to oppressive regimes that murder people, etc.

Where does it stop?

On the other hand, it sounds like the work Google was doing here was to improve the relative safety of autonomous drone strikes. Oh, but if these strikes remained risky and unreliable, we wouldn’t do them! Believe me, there are a dozen other large defense contractors out there that will implement this if Google doesn’t, so it’s not like it’s a binary proposition.

My point is, working for Google is not the right target on which to pin arguments for or against the ethics of autonomous drone strikes.

You need a military in order to prevent other people from bombing your country. You absolutely do not need to bomb other people, and if fact if your goal is to not get bombed, not bombing other people might be your best option for a bunch of reasons[1]. If your goal is to systematically rob your population of wealth by dumping insane amounts of money into an otherwise mostly useless industry(you don't really need 12 carriers to defend your country for example, they are mostly useless for defense), bombing other people is a good option.

[1] not making additional enemies, not setting the precedent that it's ok to bomb people, not driving away allies, not undermining your narrative that you're a good guy and therefore attacking you is unjustifiable, etc. These are just off the top of my head.

> You need a military in order to prevent other people from bombing your country. You absolutely do not need to bomb other people, and if fact if your goal is to not get bombed, not bombing other people might be your best option for a bunch of reasons.

And sometimes the best way to save lives of your people is to bomb other people.

That’s very naive. Not all antagonists are rational state actors. Terrorist orgs like Al Qaeda or ISIS aren’t going to stop trying to kill you if you ignore them. The only solution is direct action and only question becomes who’s going to do it, i.e. the USA or a local proxy.

ISIS is a direct consequence of US interventions.

The Post-WWII history of the middle east mostly follows the pattern “US declares $X evil. In its fight against $X, US supports $lesserEvil with money and weapons. $Y years later $lesserEvil has used funding and weapons to grow and become $greaterEvil. US declares $W as $lesserEvil and funds them. Repeat.“

Short term that might seem smart, but do it long enough and you have a region full of well armed splitter groups, are least half of which hate you.

The UdSSR/Russia isn't blameless either, but the most notable positive long term effect of US actions in the middle east seem to be more jobs in the military-industrial-complex.

The pattern you're describing is unfortunately a pretty accurate reflection of the post WWII history of the Middle East. However, consider how these mistakes happened.

First there were the Nazis. They invaded half of Europe while the US remained neutral until it was attacked by Japan in 1941. After the US and its allies won the war, the overwhelming majority of Germans celebrated their liberation and went on to become a prosperous ally of the US. Great success.

Then there was the cold war, which was essentially an attempt to prevent the Soviets from achieving their avowed goal of world domination. Again, the US and its allies won that conflict and the overwhelming majority of Eastern Europeans are greatful for it. (Let's not get into a debate about the merits of Socialism here. Soviet style totalitarianism and Stalinism isn't what most on the left want nowadays. At least my Marxist friends don't)

So there were two very important historical episodes during which a refusal of the US to do anything more than defend the homeland would have been catastrophic. Unfortunately, this has lead to a doctrine of uncritical and imprudent interventionism and to a refusal to learn from the many mistakes that were made during the cold war, most importantly in the Middle East (but also in Latin America).

My point is, even though your criticism of failed interventionist policies is correct, it means little without also discussing the crucially important successes of global US military power.

Not just the Middle East. You could say the USSR itself was in fact partially an example of this pattern. The US donated enormous quantities of resources to the Soviet Union during WW2 to beat the Nazis, including significant railway infrastructure; the Cold War began virtually the moment both US and Soviet troops were in Berlin. While it is true that most Soviet weaponry was home-grown, arguably they would not have won without US aid.

In all the major conflicts after that - Vietnam, Korea, Middle East - the US was supporting opponents of the Soviet Union.

>And sometimes the best way to save lives of your people is to bomb other people.

Sometimes, yes.

But those "preventative" bombings in recent decades are the very reason those people want to kill those in other countries. They directly say that they're attacking the west as retaliation, but the vast majority of people plug their ears, dismiss them as absolutely crazy and irrational, and say we'll never understand their motives. Maybe if a few weddings weren't bombed there'd be a few less terrorist attacks around the world.

Terrorist orgs like Al Qaeda and ISIS are relatively recent organizations. They didn't evolve in a bubble. They evolved in a place struggling with the damage of foreign intervention. To many people there, it's irrational not to support the group that opposes the what seems to be (and when looked at objectively) nonsensical intervention between two outside forces. The shit stirring there started as an attempt to push out Soviet influence. The mess in Syria continuing because Russia wants a sphere of influence and the west can't have that.

The tendency of dismissing enemies as irrational is the problem here. Groups don't grow so large with a complete lack of rationality. They have just enough that they persuade a considerable number of people, but they eventually go off the rails.

Mostly, I think a 'terrorist' can be a rational person. If you know for a fact that the USA killed one or multiple people from your family; when you live in fear of clear skies as a male of military age, and as insult to injury (if you're rich enough to know about it all) know that those responsible for your fear and loss say that _you_ are the bad guy. Well, I can very clearly understand the hatred some people feel towards the west/usa/nato.

You should perhaps read on what led to creation of these terrorist organizations. BBCs 'Hypernormalisation' would be a good start.

The single easiest way to create terrorists is to invade another country. Terrorism is a law enforcement problem, it is not a military problem.

> And sometimes the best way to save lives of your people is to bomb other people.

Hello, it's 2030 calling. Yeah, that recent nasty terror attack? Carried out by people born between 2005 and 2012. They grew up in the wartorn cities of Baghdad, Kabul, in the mountains of Afghanistan, in the little towns hit with little "pinpricks" of drone strikes for the past 20 years because the big brains in the USA thought that "BOMBING THEM FIRST" was the best plan. Those young kids who carried out that attack have known nothing but war, while you have known nothing but peace and have the gall to suggest that they and their neighbors should be subject to constant, round-the-clock, death-from-the-sky TERROR. They've known people who got hit by drones. They've known people who were collateral. They've seen the craters. Arms and legs blown off. Brains. Dead bodies. Charred remains. From machines in the sky, operated by people sitting in airconditioned offices half a world away. You don't think they know that? That drone operators sit in airconditioned offices and blow people up? War is fucking hell. And that's been their reality. And our reality has been playing video games. They fucking hate us. God damn, how could they not?

Welcome to the endless cycle of violence your myopia brings.

If you think the best way to defeat ISIS and Al Qaeda is by blowing up random people who seem important now is a good plan, then it's going to be a fail. Al Qaeda and ISIS need to be defeated and expunged by and from CIVILIZATION--their networks dismantled and defunded by detective work, cooperation with local governments, the rule of law, and lots of arrests. They are going to be defeated when the local population is sick of their shit and doesn't believe what they believe. They are going to be defeated when being part of Al Qaeda is a poor alternative in life, because life offers you so much better alternatives, and their ain't shit to be that damn mad about.

There won't be Al Qaeda when people chill the fuck out, on all sides. Instead, everyone has absolutely lost their minds; they are incapable of seeing threats at their true scale. But no, some kind of insanity has taken over the thinking in the military and intelligence agencies where every threat is clear and present, and every single terrorist anywhere is just five days from hitting NYC with a nuclear bomb....

> Those young kids who carried out that attack have known nothing but war, while you have known nothing but peace and have the gall to suggest that they and their neighbors should be subject to constant, round-the-clock, death-from-the-sky TERROR. They've known people who got hit by drones. They've known people who were collateral. They've seen the craters. Arms and legs blown off. Brains. Dead bodies. Charred remains. From machines in the sky, operated by people sitting in airconditioned offices half a world away. You don't think they know that? That drone operators sit in airconditioned offices and blow people up? War is fucking hell. And that's been their reality. And our reality has been playing video games. They fucking hate us. God damn, how could they not?

There's a great quote by Machiavelli that explains this: "There can be no proper relation between one who is armed and one who is not. Nor it is reasonable to expect that one who is armed will voluntarily obey one who is not."

> Welcome to the endless cycle of violence your myopia brings.

Myopia is thinking the world is nothing but sunshine and lollipops. There are people in this world who's entire existence is based on the destruction of everyone else with a different way of life. ISIS falls into that camp and anything short of utter destruction of them and anyone that gives aid or comfort to them will allow them to continue. A cancer like that needs to be fully excised to prevent it from returning.

> If you think the best way to defeat ISIS and Al Qaeda is by blowing up random people who seem important now is a good plan, then it's going to be a fail.

I never suggested that "blowing up random people" is a good idea. I was making that point that in the interests of saving lives of your own people, it can make sense to bomb (and presumably kill) other people. It's not that there won't be any loss of life. It's that doing so will save lives on your side.

> Al Qaeda and ISIS need to be defeated and expunged by and from CIVILIZATION--their networks dismantled and defunded by detective work, cooperation with local governments, the rule of law, and lots of arrests. They are going to be defeated when the local population is sick of their shit and doesn't believe what they believe. They are going to be defeated when being part of Al Qaeda is a poor alternative in life, because life offers you so much better alternatives, and their ain't shit to be that damn mad about.

Sure it's bombs alone that will solve the problem of Al Qaeda and ISIS. Nor did I suggest that they would. But putting pressure on the locals by splitting the world into "with us or with them" camps isn't that crazy either.

> There won't be Al Qaeda when people chill the fuck out, on all sides.

I can assure you that nobody in either Al Qaeda or ISIS will ever "chill the fuck out". Given the opportunity to maim, hurt, or kill anyone in Western society, or more generally anyone that's not they're specific sub-sect of Sunni Islam, then they will seize on it.

I think you're the naive one. How do you think ISIS got started?

You do realize that the actions of the US ended up creating both Al Qaeda and ISIS, right ?

> you don't really need 12 carriers to defend your country for example, they are mostly useless for defense

There is also the deterrence theory.

Yes, the arguments you outline would also be ways to reduce cognitive dissonance as well ("if we didn't do it, others would").

I don't think Google would stop all wars by not contributing to this project. But Google, and the employees who work at Google, has power - a kind of power that's very, very different from my power as an individual when paying taxes or when voting for a federal employee (behaviors that create dissonance for me because they contribute to the war machine). I think that power can, and should, be used to prevent wars - not to make them "cleaner". The small attempt at organizing protests made by some employees at the company was a good step, but the only one I have heard of (maybe there have been others?) and I want the people who have the most access to power to start thinking about what they are doing and trying to make more positive changes.

Consume less. Be more mindful of environmental damage. Speak out against the oppressive regimes that help murder people.

I basically agree with the last points. As to the drone strikes, I believe there is potential there for decent things. Who is to say these would not grant the power to stop a war by executing key individuals in a scenario where a manned strike would be prohibitive? And yet there is a clear moral hazard of facilitating murder. I’m not wise enough to see where the balance lies. I choose not to work on projects like that but I have trouble condemning some of these things out of hand.

> I’m not wise enough to see where the balance lies.

Oh, there is actually a very clearcut line for this; it's coincisively described by the following headline:

"If a Drone Strike Hit an American Wedding, We'd Ground Our Fleet"[⁰]

[⁰] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/12/if-a-dr...

I don't think its that simple. Weddings may constitute a collection of individuals key to a war effort and in striking a wedding one might prevent the devastation of a prolonged conflict. Also Middle Eastern weddings can occasionally be mis-interpreted as militant given the propensity for arms fire in celebration.

If a drone strike hit an American wedding they would ground their _home_ fleet. Its a key difference. The information for an electorate of a democratic state to make more empathetic choices are available its just a question of whether:

* The electorate are wilfully ignorant of foreign suffering (as its tortuous to read)

* The electorate are kept ignorant intentionally or unintentionally as a product of the conflict for eye balls between media institutions.

* The electorate are not able to make impactful choices due to the type of democracy they have.

I'd argue its a bit of every one of those things.

I prefer to measure things in outcomes and I would posit the major difference in supplying or not supplying arms to a conflict is merely the level of guilt from the origin of supply. People are still going to die be it by drone, missile, mortar, ak-47 or spear. We could argue that arms sales can enable conflict by giving one side an apparent advantage that they choose to capitalise on but that's a messy problem to investigate. Surely to wish to capitalise means that someone has already drawn the lines and is considering hostilities. What makes a war? The lines being drawn or the weapons or a combination of many factors multiplied over time and key events or decisions made by actors on either side? One may decide to war without advantage, one may choose not to war with advantage. So I don't think its as clear cut as weapon sales == war.

>> I don't think its that simple. Weddings may constitute a collection of individuals key to a war effort and in striking a wedding one might prevent the devastation of a prolonged conflict.

Same for a hospital (patching up wounded enemy combatants) or a school (educating future insurgents).

Or a nursery, football stadium, shopping mall, etc etc...

don't be so flippant. That's not at all what I was saying.

I'm not being flippant. You commented that there might be legitimate reasons to bomb a wedding. Well, there are similar reasons to bomb hospitals etc, yet we don't accept that this should be done.

If I misunderstood your original comment, please clarify.

you suggested bombing schools to "prevent future generations of insurgents". You're advocating genocide.

You were being flippant but now you're acting innocent over it which belies a fabricated ignorance that is further insulting.

Conflict and arms is a complex topic and simplifying it to "just don't kill people lol" is crass at best. Either engage with the arguments or go to a school about to be bombed in this perceived reality you've fabricated where I represent your perfect demon to squabble with.

If that wasn't clear enough: I am not fucking advocating genocide.

You said there may be merit to bombing weddings. Why is it any different to bombing hospitals, nurseries, scholyards etc? Those are all civilian targets.

Edit: In the spirit of reconcilliation, I would like to explain that I didn't accuse you of anything, much less advocating genocide (I don't even think that bombing a school is genocide; infanticide, at scale, maybe- but, genocide? I don't see that).

I felt you are trying to do something extremely risky, to justify killing Y civilians by the number X of combatants that would also be killed. I don't think Y > 0 can ever be morally justified and I don't think that a targeted strike against any number of enemy combatants in a civilian area is, either, no matter the tactical outcome. Dropping bombs on the heads of people going about peacefull activities is just wrong, any way you cut it. Hence my comment- we don't accept the bombing of hospitals, regardless of their tactical value as targets, so why would we accept bombing weddings to kill some terrorists?

It's clear you find the idea of bombing hospitals or schools revolting, yet you're OK with bombing a wedding? I don't understand that.

If its a wedding where a large number of key figures will be then its arguable.

Somehow I see that as far more rational outcome than a meeting of key figures in a nursery or a schoolyard unless you're going to war against babes or schoolchildren which suggests you have bigger problems.

Introducing the school/nursery begs the question though:

> If someone surrounds themselves with children 24/7 but commands an army or commits otherwise potentially savage deeds are they immortal in your eyes from a direct attack?

The blurring of combatants and non-combatants happens often in practice, especially as the scales tilt strongly toward one actor. Its easy to argue your point when your the scales are even and between completely non-civilian and professional armies but when those lines are blurred your position makes one completely incapable of action.

For example, if an army took its entire family onto the battlefield as civilians how would you respond? Would you consider the non-combatants civilian? Would you authorise the user of air-power against enemy positions? If a standing army has no barracks and operates from their respective family homes are their families still effectively civilians or just non-combatants and as murderable as an army technician or medic?

>> Its easy to argue your point when your the scales are even and between completely non-civilian and professional armies but when those lines are blurred your position makes one completely incapable of action.

I don't disagree. The current situation is that we're trying to find a balance between the perceived necessity of warfare and the undeniable horror of the consequences of it to civilian populations. It's absurd to think that we can nicely and cleanly separate war against a nation's army from war aginst that nation's people.

The obvious solution would be to not accept the necessity of warfare anymore. But I guess, we're very far from that.

> The obvious solution would be to not accept the necessity of warfare anymore. But I guess, we're very far from that.

One could argue that conflict is a consequence of human behaviour so I don't see that ever being a likely outcome. Nice to see we can somewhat agree. I just feel that coming down hard on either side is missing out on discussing the detail.

I don't see the conflict in Yemen as just but at the same time I feel like countries should have the freedom to declare war on neighbouring countries, especially given an uprising.

Sure, between the lines the Saudi Kingdom is trying to retain its puppet government but this is what we get from having allies that we don't see eye-to-eye with.

Historically, the primary tactic of organised armies was to attack the enemy's infrastructure, including their civilian base. For instance, in ancient times, military campaigns typically ended with the winning side pillaging and razing the defeated enemy's city and taking its civilian population as slaves (the ones who were docile enough- the rest were put to the knife). That was the case for the more merciful campaigners. Others simply slaughtered everyone and burned everything (e.g. the Mongols).

In recent years, we have this notion of battlefield morality, where armies are supposed to fight each other and an invading force is expected to occupy the enemy's territory _without_ proactively harming its civilians. Whether this is actually achieved in practice or not is a different matter (it is not- civilian populations are still the ones that bear the brunt of any invasion).

The thing is, modern morality leans very strongly away from attacking civilians with militaries. Again, whether this is at all possible in practice is a completely different issue, but what is certainly not equivocal, or "arguable" is that civilians must not be attacked deliberately.

You will notice for instance that even when the US bombs weddings or other civilian targets (it's usually the US) they never, ever, under any circumstances try to justify the killings. Instead, they explain the civilian deaths as a mistake and try to explain the mistake (the wedding participants were firing their AK-47s into the air as per custom, the bride's gown looked like an Islamic oriflame, the groom had a suspiciously long beard, or something equally absurd).

In other words, you might consider that bombing a wedding to kill an enemy lieutenant visiting it is "arguable"- but you are very certainly into a minority.

And like I say, that's some very dangerous arithmetic. We don't accept that innocent people should suffer in order to harm a legitimate target. You seem to be arguing that it's just a matter of how many innocents and how many legitimate targets we're talking about. There can clearly be no definitive answer, which opens the gates for a lot of what we currently recognise as war crimes.

Edit: removed a bit about genocide, to avoid further misunderstandings. Apologies.

You were suggesting killing civilians, in order to may be get a 'bad guy', which amounts to a war crime.

and when you bomb a military base you are killing non-combatants. Cooks, mechanics, administrators, a completely un-associated postie or truck driver might be delivering a parcel or supplies to the base.

These do not constitute war crimes but occupy this nebulous grey area named "collateral damage" at best and "war crimes" at worst.

In this case we are assuming that several if not many enemy commanders are attending a wedding and the question is asked whether the loss of lives at the wedding are "worth" the loss of lives through a protracted war that would arguably be the outcome if the enemy commanders continued operations.

I do not claim to have the answers but to merely state that this is not the solved mathematical and ethical conversation that some people assume it to be.

Well, consider where these drones would be most likely used, a lot of these recent bombing campaigns are taking place in Yemen these days, a country that has not attacked the U.S. and yet the U.S. is assisting Saudi Arabia there to conduct the strikes, even the ones where they know the majority would be civilians, including in the use of double-taps.

I'd argue that when you're the aggressor and are assisting a country that is one of the biggest human rights abusers on the planet, you do not get to claim moral superiority or any sort of gray area, you're just wrong and a war criminal, that's why I used the terminology.

I don't think the U.S. is in any position to judge how much someone's life is "worth", especially when not acting in self-defense, as in the case of Yemen, (or any recent U.S. intervention for that matter).

I can sort of see you point in the more general case, but in this case, where this drone would be used by the U.S. for illegal invasions, I can't.

Yeah, I think we have a fundamental difference in our beliefs about the effectiveness of violence (i.e. assassination via drones) to promote world peace. Hard to know what wars have been prevented via assassination, but if you might look into all the evidence of violence continuing or escalating after assassinations (how many "heads" of ISIS have been killed in drone strikes? and check out all the US activity in Latin America...). But that discussion goes beyond the graveyard of a hacker news comments section. In any case, thanks for the thoughtful responses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlO2gcs1YvM

> Or accept the reality that we live in a world that feels the need to kill people.

We dream day and night about inventing self-driving cars and about reaching Mars (which are both nice things but without which I can easily live) but we've given up on trying to stop killing each other, and worse of all, we regard it as futile. It hasn't always been like that, for example just look at the Catholic Church's push to bring back peace in the war-torn world of the early Middle Ages (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_peace_traditions#The_...). For example just look at one of Thomas Aquinas's arguments regarding this:

> Peace must be a central motive even in the midst of violence

Now, look at Google, an almost $1 trillion company which is one of the most successful business entities on this planet and tell me if you can say that "peace is a central motive" for them in the midst of the quest for profit. It isn't.

Thank you. This reminds me of Maria Montessori's words: If one has grown up with a veneration for humanity, one will not consent to become an unconscious, destructive force to destroy humanity. Men will not lend themselves to those erroneous ways which foolishly destroy the creators and maintainers of everything that provides for their existence. They will be unwilling to use the supernatural and universal powers which they possess for a cosmic cataclysm to destroy the fruits of civilisation. Having developed a conscience and sentiment towards human life, they will be incapable of cruelty; for cruelty belongs to a dead soul.

> Where does it stop?

Wherever you want it to. This all-or-nothing approach to morality is stupid. Just because not every decision in your life may be 100% morally justifiable, that does not mean “throw all ethics over board”.

Thank you.

I think as an individual we can decline working on things we consider immoral or evil even if they are legal.

As an individual you may not want your name to be associated to evil(subjective) and you may want peace of mind. Say if my boss would ask me to do something I consider evil but it is legal I think I am strong enough and won't do it, and even advocate for my position. I also think that I have the right to talk with my colleagues and ask what they think and what can we do.

The fact that it should be illegal to kill people remotely without a trial or a declaration of war is a different problem of employees opposing working on "evil" things.

You should go after targets over which you have some leverage.

As a google engineer, you have the ability to impact this particular program in a way that you can’t impact what other military programs do.

Just as an American citizen you have more ability to impact American policy than you do Russian policy.

Make an impact where you have the power to make an impact.

I just quit my job because I was working on a DHS contract and it was getting harder and harder to ignore what they were doing to immigrants.

It’s small, but I don’t want to have to answer for what I was doing to my children.

>> Believe me, there are a dozen other large defense contractors out there that will implement this if Google doesn’t, so it’s not like it’s a binary proposition.

Or for example, if I don't mug this old lady and take her handbag someone else will.

Then again, if I don't do it and you don't do it and nobody else does it, then nobody will do it at all.

Same for AI weapons- if nobody makes them there won't be none.

Nobody? The Chinese military industrial complex is certainly developing AI weapons and will sell them to almost any nation state around the world. They're only a few years behind on technology and catching up fast.

Google was the one that told everyone "Don't be evil". They are a perfectly ripe target for attacks on "ethics".

>> If a hostile foreign power was to invade your country, what would you want the response to be?

This has nothing to do with the use of AI in weapons systems- like it has nothing to do with cluster munitions, landmines, biological or radiological weapons etc.

The US (or any country really) can "defend" itself and its overseas interests without having to resort to such tactics.

Sure. But then, if you live in the "west", please realize the cost of turning on your light bulb or driving your car or wearing your shoes, or turning on the AC, or buying frozen meat. Realize the cost our lifestyle imposes on people elsewhere. The regimes that are protected and the lives we ruin in exchange for us being able to live the lifestyle that we have.

Please don't make me say what I didn't. I'm just asking, as a non googler, am I much better than someone working at google on some of their darker project ? Objectively, everytime I do one of the things I listed above, I kill more people.

My point being, your 4 points don't only apply to google employees. Indeed, at the very least, I feel they also apply to me, a non google, chillin at my house with AC and cold water.

I pick your third bullet point. Because 1 would be lying to myself, I don't believe in 2, and I'm too weak to pick 4: I won't stop using my AC. I conclude I must be a much worst person I thought I was.

On to watching netflix, I need to know what happens next in this one very important show.

I’ll just copy-paste a comment (not mine) from a different subthread: “This all-or-nothing approach to morality is stupid. Just because not every decision in your life may be 100% morally justifiable, that does not mean “throw all ethics over board”.”

> Sure. But then, if you live in the "west", please realize the cost of turning on your light bulb or driving your car or wearing your shoes, or turning on the AC, or buying frozen meat. Realize the cost our lifestyle imposes on people elsewhere. The regimes that are protected and the lives we ruin in exchange for us being able to live the lifestyle that we have.

Ah the old veiled blame capitalism and blame the west argument. Except for the fact that capitalism has been nothing but a boon for the entire globe, even the non-westerners, and that western traditions and values (which are not necessarily coupled to capitalism) have been instrumental in introducing ideas and institutions that have freed a lot people globally for the first time in all human history.

Capitalism overall has been nothing but a force of good for the world:

- The number of people living in extreme poverty worldwide declined by 80 percent from 1970 to 2006.

- Poverty worldwide included 94 percent of the world's population in 1820. In 2011, it was only 17 percent.

- Globally, those in the lower and middle income brackets saw increases in pay of 40 percent from 1988 to 2008.

- The world is 120 times better off today than in 1800 as a result of capitalism.

- Mortality rates for children under the age of five declined by 49 percent from 1990 to 2013.

Doesn't sound like its ruining too many lives to me. All those people should feel terrible though? Do you think the non-western Chinese sit around and pine about how terrible their people/culture is for turning on lights, wearing shoes, and enjoying climate controlled spaces? No they don't, and they shouldn't, because its ridiculously naive point of view on the world. Instead they are proud of what they've accomplished. Meanwhile some in the west are sitting at Starbucks on their mac books or smart phones whining about how terrible the "west" is while checking to see if their steady paycheck was direct deposited before they uber back to their furnished home or apartment, all without being arrested by secret police for their negative post upon arrival. Fancy that.

As opposed to that parallel universe without capitalism where no improvements happened?

You can't just point to improvements and say "look the system is good". If feudalism had remained the dominant system then we'd still have had some improvements in quality of life, and I'm sure the aristocracy of this hypothetical world would be pointing to that and saying "look feudalism has been nothing but a boon!" just as confidently as you.

The question is, could another system be better? And given that by pretty much any measure, we've had the resources to lift everyone out of poverty for years, and yet haven't used them to do that, I think it's not unreasonable to suggest that another way of allocating resources might be an improvement.

>Meanwhile some in the west are sitting at Starbucks on their mac books or smart phones whining about how terrible the "west" is while checking to see if their steady paycheck was direct deposited before they uber back to their furnished home or apartment, all without being arrested by secret police for their negative post upon arrival. Fancy that.

Meanwhile many people in the west can't afford most of these things, don't have a steady paycheck because they do shift work, live in a trailer, and are often harassed by the non-secret police for no reason. And they're the ones lucky enough to be born in developed economies.

If Google employees strike over this, we must find ways to show solidarity with them. An end to the war machine is within our power!

Alternatively: Military decisions (in the US) are already overseen and approved by political leaders and they can make judgements on a case-by-case basis, rather than blanket war=good/bad.

The US has not had a great track record here, even in my lifetime, but in a world where our adversaries are not going to have these same qualms, I think it is necessary for the US to build this technology, and if you accept that it is necessary for someone to build it, I think holding your nose and saying you want to be as far away from it as possible seems hypocritical.

The convenient part is that many Google employees are already experts at 1-3, since they've been working on mass public surveillance for years.

+ I choose ignorance. “Flying armed drones being trained to think. I can’t see anything going wrong here

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