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Ultimately, though, aren't you helping soldiers stay safer so they can continue to kill others? I'm not saying that in a judgmental way, but that is the reality

Ultimately, though, aren't you helping soldiers stay safer so they can continue to kill others? I'm not saying that in a judgmental way, but that is the reality of war and military-related work.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago
This is incredibly tone deaf. I'm not sure why every thread about the DoD on Hacker News always ends up with the most extreme comments that lead to: "even if you're sending cards to the soldiers you're lifting their spirits to kill more people therefore you should feel bad about yourself". I get it. You hate war. Most people hate war, even the soldiers in our army hate it. You want change? Vote and get outside and protest. Don't shit on a DoD contractor while sitting there doing nothing. Real change requires real effort.
- geofft 10y ago
  I mean, I'm doing something. I have a job that doesn't involve working for the DoD. I understand the need for people to have jobs. I'm not unhappy about individual soldiers, individual cops, individual TSA workers deciding that's how they want to get employment. (I'm sort of unhappy at society-as-a-whole for making the military such a good career decision for many people, but the fact remains that it is a good career decision, and I won't begrudge that.) I'm not unhappy about you, because I have no idea what your job is or what your life is like. But this article is about a person who had an extremely good job at Google deciding that he wasn't doing enough for the world and that he could make the world a better place by working for the DoD. He could have stayed at Google; he could have even worked for the USDS for any of the non-war functions of government, if he really wanted to. I think that's fair to criticize.
  - robbiep 10y ago
    How Ayn Rand do you want to go? By the same logic working for a company that pays taxes that supports the military is also helping things along. Best to withdraw entirely the efforts of your labour from the machine?
    - merraksh 10y ago
      How taxes support the military is decided by lawmakers. We vote candidates based on their programs. If a candidate promised to lower contributions to defense, (s)he'd have my vote. You can have labour that doesn't feed the military.
    - geofft 10y ago
      My logic included an explicit allowance for those people whose best career decision is to work for the military (or for the police, or the TSA, or whatever). I don't expect a general strike, no matter how much I want the workers of the world to lose their chains. So the same logic would be okay with people where all reasonable career decisions require working for a company that pays taxes to the military, and both Matt Cutts and I seem to be in that situation. But I think we're both in the situation where we have plenty of reasonable options other than working for the military directly. And it specifically sounds like he took an option that is worse for him personally, because he thinks it's better for the world. I disagree it's better for the world, simple as that. (Whether this logic would forbid working for companies that support the military indirectly is an interesting question, and I think 'BinaryIdiot has convinced me that it should.)
    - nairboon 10y ago
      You're technically correct. If we subscribe to a morality based on causal links of one's actions, then you'd partially responsible for the actions of your government, when paying any taxes to them. If they're involved in a war, so are you. However, even in "peaceful" countries you'd have a hard time avoiding that, as most of them have some sort of mandatory pensions system, who in turn most likely fund arms production, which will then sometimes be sold to be used for war.
  - krapp 10y ago
    It's not as if Google doesn't do work on behalf of the State Department and Department of Defense to begin with. Let's not split hairs here - by your rationale Matt Cutts was already tangentially involved in helping the US government kill people while at Google.

Ultimately, though, aren't you helping soldiers stay safer so they can continue to kill others? I'm not saying that in a judgmental way, but that is the reality of war and military-related work.

BinaryIdiot 10y ago

This is incredibly tone deaf. I'm not sure why every thread about the DoD on Hacker News always ends up with the most extreme comments that lead to: "even if you're sending cards to the soldiers you're lifting their spirits to kill more people therefore you should feel bad about yourself". I get it. You hate war. Most people hate war, even the soldiers in our army hate it. You want change? Vote and get outside and protest. Don't shit on a DoD contractor while sitting there doing nothing. Real change requires real effort.

geofft 10y ago
I mean, I'm doing something. I have a job that doesn't involve working for the DoD. I understand the need for people to have jobs. I'm not unhappy about individual soldiers, individual cops, individual TSA workers deciding that's how they want to get employment. (I'm sort of unhappy at society-as-a-whole for making the military such a good career decision for many people, but the fact remains that it is a good career decision, and I won't begrudge that.) I'm not unhappy about you, because I have no idea what your job is or what your life is like. But this article is about a person who had an extremely good job at Google deciding that he wasn't doing enough for the world and that he could make the world a better place by working for the DoD. He could have stayed at Google; he could have even worked for the USDS for any of the non-war functions of government, if he really wanted to. I think that's fair to criticize.
- robbiep 10y ago
  How Ayn Rand do you want to go? By the same logic working for a company that pays taxes that supports the military is also helping things along. Best to withdraw entirely the efforts of your labour from the machine?
  - merraksh 10y ago
    How taxes support the military is decided by lawmakers. We vote candidates based on their programs. If a candidate promised to lower contributions to defense, (s)he'd have my vote. You can have labour that doesn't feed the military.
  - geofft 10y ago
    My logic included an explicit allowance for those people whose best career decision is to work for the military (or for the police, or the TSA, or whatever). I don't expect a general strike, no matter how much I want the workers of the world to lose their chains. So the same logic would be okay with people where all reasonable career decisions require working for a company that pays taxes to the military, and both Matt Cutts and I seem to be in that situation. But I think we're both in the situation where we have plenty of reasonable options other than working for the military directly. And it specifically sounds like he took an option that is worse for him personally, because he thinks it's better for the world. I disagree it's better for the world, simple as that. (Whether this logic would forbid working for companies that support the military indirectly is an interesting question, and I think 'BinaryIdiot has convinced me that it should.)
  - nairboon 10y ago
    You're technically correct. If we subscribe to a morality based on causal links of one's actions, then you'd partially responsible for the actions of your government, when paying any taxes to them. If they're involved in a war, so are you. However, even in "peaceful" countries you'd have a hard time avoiding that, as most of them have some sort of mandatory pensions system, who in turn most likely fund arms production, which will then sometimes be sold to be used for war.
- krapp 10y ago
  It's not as if Google doesn't do work on behalf of the State Department and Department of Defense to begin with. Let's not split hairs here - by your rationale Matt Cutts was already tangentially involved in helping the US government kill people while at Google.