Can you imagine being a software engineer and being okay with getting rich by developing technology to out dissidents and have them murdered by some of the most oppressive governments on earth? Like, that's what you choose to spend your time on.
From the perspective of NSO developers, they are helping prevent the next attack against civilians somewhere. I can’t fault them for that.
Most societies make an exception for killing enemies of the state. Soldiers are seen as heroes fighting for their country not as immoral killers.
in some societies it’s “immoral” not to rape someone as punishment or to not kill a “unclean” ethnicity and your definition supports that
They are selling spy software to regimes that are known to kill civilians. Ergo they are not preventing attacks against civilians; they are enabling attacks against civilians. No moral relativism necessary.
Even with respect to Israel’s “counter” terrorism efforts, if the NSO development team’s motivation is to prevent attacks on civilians, then enabling Israel to attack and kill civilians is something for which they are morally culpable.
However, even the lebensraum concept has undertones of defense against a threat rather than pure conquest: the term itself refers to space as a necessity for life rather than the object of simple greed. The lebensraum was considered by Nazi ideology "necessary for the survival" of the German race, against the threat of "inferior and decaying races". As far as I can understand it, the whole Nazi ideology is informed by a vision of history as a zero sum game and by a "triumph or perish" attitude- so that every aggression can be justified as a necessary and ultimately defensive move.
I would presume because they weren't sold the idea that what they were doing had any other express intent-purpose or plausible outcome for use even used by the people they worked for, which alone I think warrants a different group to compare this situation to.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_rocket_a...
The fact, that majority of its population can enjoy relatively peaceful life is thanks to organizational, and technological superiority of Israeli military. Which depends on work of Israeli engineers whose motivation is therefore exactly the same: do military tech to stop anti-Israeli "Axis".
You can argue that it’s not a proportional response, but there’s a clear editorial bias to refer to one side of a force exchange as “civilian” and the other as “deadly”.
Fixed that for you.
When's the last time your country restrained itself after being hit by 460 rockets in one day?
> the IDF has barely done anything besides bomb empty buildings.
The immediate retaliation for those rocket strikes killed three people. How is that "barely anything?"
???????
Say what now?
The Israeli combatant to non-combatant death ratio is among the best in the world, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio
If anything developing such software would be a moral imperative, not something to be upset about.
So, what other options does Israel have? Let the combatants do whatever they want?
Are you seriously implying someone should not work for the Israeli military because of civilian accidents?
What's your endgame here? Israel should give up and let millions of people be murdered?
abalone has a severely skewed moral filter to say "this does not absolve NSO's software engineers from moral culpability" - he would rather millions of Israeli citizens get murdered?
I really hope you are not in any way agreeing with him because it is a truly loathsome thing to say, and I was absolutely shocked to see someone just causally speak like that.
The only moral thing to do here is do an even better job at this type of software to make the civilian casualty ratio even better.
Israel regularly shoots and kills unarmed civilians for standing too close to a fence.
>So, what other options does Israel have? Let the combatants do whatever they want?
They are unarmed civilians, standing near a fence.
>Are you seriously implying someone should not work for the Israeli military because of civilian accidents?
Yes, one should not involve themselves in a violent force that regularly murders civilians for standing too close to a fence.
>What's your endgame here? Israel should give up and let millions of people be murdered?
They can start by not murdering the desperate civilians protesting the blockade and destruction of their homes by standing too close to a fence.
>he would rather millions of Israeli citizens get murdered?
Millions of Israelis are not at risk of being murdered by the unarmed civilians standing near fences.
>The only moral thing to do here is do an even better job at this type of software to make the civilian casualty ratio even better.
The most moral thing to do would be to pressure Israel to stop murdering civilians for standing too near a fence.
Or maybe these https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/959z60/hamas... ?
This "story" that they were a bunch of unarmed civilians near a fence is completely fictional. It was actually a bunch of combatants mixed in with civilians, and Israel worked very hard to be selective. The accidents are terrible, no doubt about it, but no other army in the history of war has done better.
If there were no attacks on civilians, that certainly makes you wonder if they could've avoided conflict by simply not sending their troops there.
And then Hamas agents would breach the fence and enter Israel. And you think that's a good idea, why exactly?
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.haaretz.com/amp/israel-news/...
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-video-shows-pal...
https://mobile.twitter.com/dcipalestine/status/1017882226275...
That first step is a bit hard, but I assume you have some plan for that, considering it was your idea?
Neither Israel nor Sweden kill vast amount of civilians. The fact that you write that is very concerning.
And the fact that you think it's Israel's fault that Arabs want to exterminate it is just ......... I don't even know what to write to someone like you.
If you can't think of anything to say in response, might I suggest that you either don't know the subject as well as you think, or you know the person you are arguing with is right and you have no retort.
That way its neighbours actually enjoy their presence in the region.
But, as long as Israelis continue to justify the wanton murder of civilians as their 'right as Israelis', then there will be calls for the destruction of their state. Whether this is moral or not, is as yet undecided...
Certain types of software engineering attract these kinds of mindsets, in fact. Totalitarian-authoritarianism is a big problem in the technology world; its subtle effects all too easy to ignore, subjectively, when the mindset starts to take hold ..
and the technologies generally weren't trendy, PRIORITIES
It's a great question. Sadly, people have been making money on such things since the first tools were invented. Think about all the weapons manufacturers, for example. Think of the oppressors, killer, and torturers that rule and that serve the regimes - are they a different species than software engineers?
But the question is, why? What leads people to do it? I don't buy simplistic answers such as, 'they don't care'.
Cash Rules Everything Around Me -- Wu-Tang.