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Comment by ahmeneeroe-v2 | Hacker News Reader

One more comment:

>"And the companies that did have expertise, like Google, like Facebook, like Apple, were refusing to work with the U.S. national security community."

Idk if this is true. I suspect they--at a minimum--cooperate with the "soft" side of the defense industry (e.g. NSA). However, if they don't, I think there will come a time when we will have to bring them to heel. The world won't have the luxury of supporting fat corps who aren't aligned with respective hegemons (e.g. US, China, Russia). They will find themselves supporting the effort or cut off from resources and unable to continue operating.

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Who is “we” in “we will have to”? As a citizen, I would strongly reject any increased national security involvement in tech; and as an employee, this may be the thing that pushes me to unionize.

We = The people with guns who control the nation and access to the inputs and trade networks (e.g. ports, sea-lanes, highways), and informations systems (e.g. fiber) that these companies rely on.

I also have no doubt that you personally might refuse to participate, but enough of your peers will re-orient to enable the corporation to keep moving.

At least for now, these kinds of things are decided by voters and their representatives, not “people with guns,” and plenty of those voters reject increased proliferation of the national security apparatus. I would argue that if that ever changes, this country will no longer be worth defending.

I don't control any of that. I work for one of those big name tech cos.

My comment isn't about being tough, it's about facing the reality that these companies won't be allowed to remain neutral (and my original comment expressed doubt that they're even neutral right now).

edit: my comment makes less sense in light of your edit

Comment edited to remove snark. Thought to get it in before a reply came in, but got there too late. Sorry.

ty! That was very gracious

There was a period of time where employees of companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google were protesting in order to prevent their companies from taking military contracts.

That seems to have mostly died down and all of those companies have contracts with the DoD.

Ultimately, I agree with your sentiment. Alibaba can't tell China no. And while US corporations have that freedom. It isn't one they should exercise because the US military's ability to remain competitive is in the vital interest of all that live in the US. Even if you don't always agree with the government's use of the military.

Contrary to that viewpoint I think there is much to be said for separating peaceful non military companies from military ones. Some reasons:

Google FB etc are inherently global. Military is inherently regional.

Mixing military and civilian tends to cause messes. See Boeing doing military stuff and now their planes and ISS shuttles don't work. Also so Cheney transferring the military biodefense budget to Fauci and the NIH and now we have lab leaks and covid.

> See Boeing doing military stuff and now their planes and ISS shuttles don't work.

Explain please. How does one lead to the other?

> Also so Cheney transferring the military biodefense budget to Fauci and the NIH and now we have lab leaks and covid

That’s a bold claim.

I'm not quite sure with Boeing but they have different economic structures.

By the way re covid there's some of the story here from the chair of the Lancet covid comission https://youtu.be/JS-3QssVPeg?t=6495

I mean it's not conclusively proven, but probable.

> Google FB etc are inherently global. Military is inherently regional

Military is often global, too. We have the term "world wars" for a reason. Boeing has been doing military work long before it's contemporary issue. Most aerospace companies do. In fact a lot of tankers and airborne radars are built on top of civilian aircraft frames.

Google had an employee revolt over project Maven. However, there were suggestions that this was overblown and mostly driven by foreign national employees. Which, to be clear, does not make their opinions invalid but it does mean it's not necessarily representative of the whole if for example lots of mainland Chinese employees aren't enthusiastic about working for American military capabilities.

> I think there will come a time when we will have to bring them to heel.

So what you're saying is that we need to restrain their freedom so we can protect their freedom?

No, I'm not saying that at all.

Then what are you saying? If I as an individual don't want to "work with the national security community", that's my right. If they want to compel me to do so, they have to go through the judicial system and get a warrant. At what organizational size should a corporation be "brought to heel" and the right to refuse to do something for the government (without sufficient legal reason) go away?

Many (most? all?) nation-states have compulsory service, either triggered in a "draft" or always ongoing (e.g. all young people serve in some way after high school). So no, I don't believe that you as an individual have the right to not work with your nation's national security apparatus, regardless of where you reside. You may think this is only for young people but I think that's just been typical practice/need, not a matter of law.

Similarly, corporations have obligations to the state. In the US I believe this largely falls under the "Defense Production Act". My personal assumption is that most companies are more pragmatic than individuals and would accept some suggestions/requests to aid the state rather than risk disruption from a formal order to support the state; and the state has a lot of levers to make themselves persuasive.

> Many (most? all?) nation-states have compulsory service

"The following 113 countries and territories have been identified as having no enforced conscription"

"The following fifteen countries have been identified as having a civilian, unarmed or non-combatant service optional alternative to compulsory military service"

"The following 19 countries have been identified as having no defense forces or as having no standing army but having very limited military forces"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_service

... no compulsory service until the bombs start dropping.

The United States is on the list as having no enforced conscription. I assure you that we do have it. The definition they used for this chart is highly suspect.

Edit: also trying to quantify this using "Count of Nations" rather than "Sum of Populations" is wildly misguided. Saying that Vatican City doesn't have a defense force adds nothing to the conversation.

The government is way ahead of you.

Not even the women will be spared in defence of democracy in the ME and Ukraine.

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/4730560-senate-democrats-...

I guess we'll see if equality is something that we really will follow through to the end or we only do it when it is convenient.

A company like Google (or Apple for that matter), with their own freewheeling project systems, would rather jump into an olympic pool filled with razor blades and used condoms before taking any amount of money from the hellish morass that is the defense procurement system. The instant you enter the MIC, kiss goodbye to any of your internal business systems - you will be re-writing the way you work every second of every day. And not for the better, I might add. I think Google looked at the costs of that, looked at the contract, and said, nah, thanks, I'm good. Then went back to feeding NSA/NRO for black money delivered by men in coats.

Of course, now, post-ZIRP, things are a wee bit different.

Agreed on defense procurement revenue vs their current revenue streams. But they are given national-level amounts of resources (eg gigawatts for their data centers). In a wartime footing that would go away unless they re-oriented to serve common effort.

I thought Google purchased things like gigawatts for their data centers on the open market? Can you link to something that shows its bring give to them from the government for free?

I'm struggling to connect your response to what I actually said in my comment.

Google does do work for the military.

Here is one source of many that came up from a quick Google search: https://techinquiry.org/?article=google-aerial

Yeah, that's via an OTA, which is basically - comparatively - free money. It's not a PoR (Program of Record). PoRs are where (many naive people think) all the money is. All those people are incorrect. It is, however, the PoR which will ruin your goddamn business when you sign it. Congratulations, that is now all you do.

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