4 ms·
Mostly that it's a zero-sum endeavor that in the aggregate, doesn't make the world a better place. Imagine if worldwide knowledge of science regressed to 1900
by whack 11y ago
Mostly that it's a zero-sum endeavor that in the aggregate, doesn't make the world a better place.
Imagine if worldwide knowledge of science regressed to 1900 levels. Imagine if worldwide engineering capabilities regressed to 1900 levels. Imagine if worldwide educational opportunities regressed to 1900 levels. We would consider any of these things to be disastrous.
Now imagine if worldwide weapons technology regressed to 1900 levels... that doesn't really seem all that bad, does it. You could even come up with a strong argument for it being a good thing.
Investing money and effort into making weapons is the literal definition of an arms race. A zero-sum game. If everyone does it, everyone loses. This would obviously never happen but if every single engineer in the world refused to work on developing new weapons, the world would be a better place tomorrow.
- lgieron 11y agoThe exact same thing can be said about marketing and advertisting - it's a zero-sum arms race game that consumes tons of resources and doesn't contribute anything. And yet, people don't have that much moral reversations about working at Google or Facebook.
- whack 11y agoAmong creative folks, there actually is a strong aversion to working in marketing/advertising. Most writers/artists consider such a career to be "selling out." It's their equivalent to engineers working on weapons technology. Regarding Google: They work on a ton of products that genuinely make the world a better place. Gmail, google search, google news etc etc. That does give the company as a whole a halo. Regarding Facebook: I somewhat agree with you that social media in general is overrated, but many others do genuinely believe that it improves their quality of life. I may not buy it myself, but Facebook can make a strong case for how they are making the world a better place by better connecting people.
- tamana 11y agoThat's a negative sum race, not a zero sum race.