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It might be a bit extreme, but I think if you actually have a high moral standard, you should join defense industry. This way you minimize the chance that someone with a lower moral standard taking that job.

I agree with this take. My issue is, I don’t want to deal with the knowledge of my contributions leading to the death of other people (unless of course, the enemy was pdf files).

I can be sure of my own moral standing but I’m part of a team. My boss, their boss, THEIR boss, &c, leading up to the president? I cannot speak for them and often disagree. It’s just a murky sea of gray.

Props to those who have the stomach for these dilemmas.

I've worked in defense, and I don't really see how it matters either way. If you're just a programmer, you have absolutely no control over how your creation is used, and really not much control over what project you work on even (aside from picking and choosing your employer). Your own moral standards aren't going to affect anything as far as I can tell. I suppose if you refuse to work on, for instance, land mines because you think they should all be banned due to the effects they have long after a conflict is over, they'll just find someone else to do that work. This could be bad for your continued employment, but more likely they'll just move you to some other project you don't have such moral qualms with, because skilled engineers with a security clearance are hard to find and expensive to get a clearance for. Anyway, your own moral standards aren't somehow going to magically make your weapons system only useful for just causes.

Snowden was just a contractor but his moral standard definitely affected the decision he made.

Did it actually make a difference to the grand scheme? Was it even worth it? Well I don't know.

The parent is talking about the ability to affect change in the defense industry 'from within' as an individual whereas Snowden was a whistleblower which is quite a bit different.

Here is where I’d point out the other central point of the article which is that systemic problems need systemic change, not heroes - if it were possible to be an individual hero, you’d see a lot more change because there’s tons of good people who would absolutely take such opportunities.

Look at companies like Google. Their overall ethos has next to nothing to do with their employees' ethos. The same is true of the military. If you want to speak to some of the most anti-war and even anti-establishment people imaginable, then speak with vets. Their positioning doesn't change the military in any way, shape, or fashion. All it really does is stop them from being promoted to the levels where they actually could do something, so you're basically entering into a career where you must either sacrifice your values, or just play your role as a cog in a machine of destruction, far more for the sake of geopolitics than any notion of actual "defense."

Indeed, where would the Ukraine, Taiwan, or even South Korea be today if it weren't for the defense industry? Unfortunately the only way to achieve peace is to prepare for war.

What I think what poisons the whole thing is a cultural attitude which poisons all of capitalism: the mantra that any company's job is to maximize shareholder value in any way that's legal (or worse, that they can get away with).

Suppose there are two defense contacting companies. One has the attitude of, "War is terrible, and all of us should do everything we can to minimize it; but in the unfortunate event that war should become necessary, we want to be prepared to win it."

The other has the attitude of, "Our job is to maximize shareholder value. We do that by selling more equipment and better equipment. We sell more equipment when that equipment is being used and/or destroyed, and we sell better equipment when there's a pressing need, like an ongoing war. So to maximize shareholder value, we should by any means we can get away with, encourage war, or at least or the threat of war."

It's the unfortunate way that capitalism works that the second company will probably make more profit, which will give them more power and influence, which will then feed into more war, and will also put financial pressure on the first company to follow suit, and be more hawkish than they would perhaps otherwise be.

So what do you do if you believe in pursuing peace but being prepared for war? Work with a company that is hawkish, and actually encourages war? Or refuse to work for any defense contractor at all?

> Indeed, where would the Ukraine, Taiwan, or even South Korea be today if it weren't for the defense industry?

Are you aware of what's happening in Ukraine today, or the history of South Korea [1] or Taiwan [2]? These aren't fairy tale stories where the "defense" industry came, brought democracy, and everybody lived happily ever after. South Korea went through decades of dictatorial and often brutal rule that only really ended, and turned into the sort of democratic Korea that we know in the 5th republic - formed in 1989! [1] The same is true of Taiwan, which was under martial law from 1949 to 1987! Both nations also engaged in absolute brutality against opposition interests, as a means of pursuing compliance, with things like the Bodo League Massacre in South Korea [3], or the White Terror [4] in Taiwan.

By contrast we completely lost in Vietnam. And what awaited them? Well not much. There were no mass killings of collaborators or anything like that - that the West had predicted, though there were brutal "reeducation camps". But in general Vietnam just developed as its own independent nation. They were in no way whatsoever a e.g. Chinese puppet. They're the country that got rid of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, which had been supported by China. It's a great place to visit, and I'd recommend it to anybody.

Also I think it's increasingly obvious that fertility rates are one of the most critical factors in society today. South Korea and Taiwan will not exist in the future simply because they are not even close to replacing themselves. Their fertility rates (0.55 and 0.85 respectively) make Japan, at 1.3, look like a nation of rabbits, by contrast. In other words South Korea and Taiwan are not sustainable nations, or people, unless something radically changes. Vietnam is struggling at 1.94, but that's a slow bleed decline - as opposed to the self decapitation path that Taiwan and South Korea are on. If these results are a consequence of the cultural shift that resulted from these countries "defense", then all we've done is sign a post-dated death warrant for these nations.

I am very much a pro-capitalist person, but I'm also in no way whatsoever jingoistic about such. Not only is there room for many systems in this world, but many systems must be trialed. Because if it turns out that one system, which sounds good on paper, just leads to collapse - then a world with many different systems ensures that the overall impact is relatively minimal.

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[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Korea

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan#Martial_law_era_(1949%E...

[3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodo_League_massacre

[4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)

> Are you aware of what's happening in Ukraine today, or the history of South Korea [1] or Taiwan [2]?

Nonetheless:

1. South Korea, and Taiwan right now are democracies (though flawed to varying degrees), and enjoy a higher standard of living and more freedoms than the neighbor who wants to "unify" with them; and that was true of the Ukraine before Russia invaded. (War tends to reduce your standard of living somewhat.)

2. If every competent engineer in "the West" (including the US, Canada, and Europe) suddenly left the defense sector, those countries would soon be invaded by their neighbors, significantly reducing their standard of living and their freedoms.

> Also I think it's increasingly obvious that fertility rates are one of the most critical factors in society today.

Not sure what this has to do with the proposition that "Preparing for war is necessary to achieve peace".

> I am very much a pro-capitalist person

Personally I think capitalism is pretty terrible: there are constant forces pushing power into the hands of fewer and fewer people, leaving more and more people wage slaves, and it takes Sisyphean effort and vigilance to prevent it. But so far everything else has been worse.

"Right now" came decades after the "defense" industry was brought to these countries. So associating one with the other is not reasonable, even though that's what everybody does.

What followed the "defense" interventions of these countries was decades of dictatorships, repressions, and purges. Of course you'd argue that the same is still happening in North Korea and I'd agree. But why? What is different in those countries? I think one interesting nuance is that the US has spent decades essentially trying to destroy North Korea, but all these decades of sanctions and economic/diplomatic warfare have done is weaken the people of North Korea. At some point I'm sure the idea was that suffering people would then revolt, but it should be obvious by now that instead suffering people tend to be more focused on just feeding themselves, and are far more inclined to rally around their government rather than side with the group working to starve them. Bringing wealth to North Korea would probably do far more to end the tyranny there than another century of sanctions would.

And no, the idea that the "West" is going to be invaded is absurd. There's a reason since 1945 there's been zero major unrestrained wars between nuclear powers. As that era passes beyond conscious memory of our society, I think people forget how truly awful nuclear weapons are. One bomb in Hiroshima killed hundreds of thousands - instantly. And that was a tiny little bomb - 16kt. Modern tactical weapons (weapons intended for battlefield use) can have yields exceeding 100kt. Strategic weapons (weapons intended to end other civilizations) go into the thousands of kt. The strongest weapon ever tested being "Tsar Bomba" which had a yield of 55,000kt. You can't fight a war against an enemy with such weapons at their disposal. It simply doesn't work. For some modern contrast the "Mother of All Bombs / MOAB / GBU-43" that we detonated in Afghanistan was the largest conventional weapon ever fielded, weighed more than 20,000lbs and was 30+ft long. It had a yield of 0.01kt. Here [1] is what that looked like.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6rSxJnpGNg

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The point of the fertility comments was about the fate of nations. Nations with catastrophically low fertility rates are dying and will die unless something changes, fast. So speaking of the health, or desirability of these nations, is inappropriate. It's akin to speaking positively of the health of somebody who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

The whole framing for miltech in the article is infantilizing. The billions of defense R&D spending over decades are right now defending people in the most morally unambiguous war of the recent times. Every dusty Cold War piece of gear developed under the much derided motto of "protecting the free world" is now out there doing exactly that.

You are downvoted (right now) but correct.

I recently switched jobs and one refreshing attitude of my current employeer is that unlike my previous one they are happy to let us work on defense projects.

That is refreshing in 2024.

The article falls apart because its written for the communist heart.

The entire point of the article is promoting cancel culture in a roundabout way as if its justified, and suggesting inducements into frames of thinking that are not healthy (or rational), but still plausible. It has many structures commonly used in thought reform. Cancel culture is also just one more derivation of Marxism and other Critical Theory.

The problem with anything derived from these dubious origins is that it has no basis in reality, and doesn't follow rational thought. They lie more than they tell the truth; and who would bother wasting time on people that do that.

To them, its all about power dynamics, manipulative emotional ploys, dissembling opinions, and other deceits such as associative priming (relating unrelated things so you can't even carry a conversation without thinking the other thing) or the foregone conclusion (another fallacy), that and a formulaic mix of truth with fiction in about a 49-51% split.

This is clearly soft propaganda meant to entice those uneducated, and of weak heart and mind into supporting communism only without calling it that.

Its fairly obvious for anyone who has developed any significant measure of discernment. It hits all the common rhetoric talking points.

I think it is just another entry in the genre of "why I get to enjoy everything capitalism has to offer, but still am actually opposing it".

Calling a propaganda piece might be a stretch. I read this article and briefly skimmed the latest article on their site (about AI). My conclusion is that this person just enjoy making nothing-burger.

Not really. When the structures and elements are observable and present, it is fair to call something exactly what it is so long as it is from a rational basis.

Also, these types don't tell the truth often, and regularly seek to dissemble, mislead, and muddy the water. Noise is harmful to signals and communication systems in general.

There's only one way to deal with liars. You accept they have no credibility and stop paying attention, and you hold them to full account when they inevitably cross the line from free speech into traitorous action that is actually punishable.

There is no goodfaith presumption warranted in defense of destructive false ideologies.

As I say, as often as it is contextually appropriate to say, no one opposed to the US defense apparatus (and protected by it) would rather live under the counterfactual of an isolated, weak US. Other countries are not coming to liberate you, the world is not locked arm in arm singing kumbaya but for the US. You are going to be a shipbuilder for 100 hours a week under communism, not preaching theory on a soapbox in Dolores Park.

si vis pacem, para bellum.

I don't think that's how the article read at all. It barely mention defence after the first couple of paragraphs.

Well you must read a different article, since whenever it mentions defense, its pretty damning from some made up virtual higher ground. Have to agree with the others, that person lives in naive fairy tale world, she should probably travel hard ie backpacking in 3rd world countries to understand it better.

I come from Europe, actually eastern part of it, having Ukraine as a neighbor. My country, my parents and grandparents, just like literally everybody else, were enslaved by soviets cough cough russians for over 40 years. Their military bases everywhere, people being regularly shot/electrocuted/torn apart by dogs on the border with Austria/Germany for the horrible crime wanting to escape that communist paradise. Non-conforming were put into gulags, uranium mines etc to die slowly. Those more visible were squished by regime ie by forced manual working (if you didn't have a job thats a straight ticket to long jail), and so were their whole families including children.

What russia is currently doing is an outright attack on whole western world and they don't even hide it, just listen to them, and only its lack of real military capabilities prevent them to steamroll across whole Europe.

Thats a naivety thats outright dangerous these days, and caused more stupid European leaders like Merkel to basically give up on army, so current Wehrmacht is a proper joke, ie current Polish armed forces would steam-roll them in a weekend. Why Polish? Well they have a wonderful history of persecution and murder from both russians and germans. Some nations learn from history and watch whats happening around them, some don't...

In my opinion its likely not naivety at all but a campaign following standard socialist ploys in subversion (cultural contagion).

They hit most of the common rhetoric talking points, and its common knowledge in some circles that these types promote narratives that attempt or build support for various stages of divide and conquer under communism.

Be it, demoralization, destabilization, crisis, or re-normalization (genocide).

The article promotes cancel culture, which is just another derivation of marxism. Reads like some of the more skilled propaganda pieces I've seen.

Knowing this, I wouldn't trust the author for anything that requires credibility.

Well, I'm struggling with this myself. Should we be cynical because the world around us has been cynical historically? I prefer not to be cynical - to be blunt I don't mean to belittle anyone, but being cynical is just boring. I am an empathical being so I understand that some people might think "boring" is inapropriate, but I try to elevate the discussion. Sadly Russia often through history has chosen to be cynical and the war in Urkaine is of course no exception. Cynism is a yoke that enslaves and prevents innovation. Humans are able to follwo different patterns of behavior, lets call one pattern the "clan vs clan" pattern. In the "clan vs clan" pattern hierarchies are created through violience and groups fight against each other for power. This pattern is what runs the matrix that criminal gangs operate in. The pattern is "self balancing" since its basically the people with most violence capital that calls the shots. However, this pattern fails to provide for the many, abundance flows to those with power and there's not so much cause for innovating for your own sake since your work will just end up in the hands of the powerful. I beleive you can see in Russia and in countries where cartels run the business that they are less effective in providing for the many. In Russia the answer to this is to work with spirituality - the Russian orthodox church has been tied into the power structures and Russia tries to promote its orthodoxy abroad in attempts to gain influence, but just like the rest of the power structures it is corrupt. I beleive that Europe deserves a better future than falling into cynicism, not least the eastern parts. Its like resuming the dark ages. Its hard to predict the future and I don't know what will happen. Sadly weapons and armed conflict will most likely play a role, but I think that we must reason more broadly to really solve the conflict. Beating cynicism with cynicism is just cynical. People have an abillity, even if it may be suppressed in some people, to be reasonable.

Sure but the article wasn't focus on defence, it was talking more broadly. If you wanted it to somehow rationalise building weapons for warmongering nations i think it would be a hard job.

Perfectly put. I only disagree with the "hostile nations" part of it, which is more along the lines of "there are zero sum games in this world; and we don't want to be on the losing side of it."