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I never understood the disdain for working in the arms sector. After all, weapons are just tools, it's the politicians who decide what to do with them. You shou

I never understood the disdain for working in the arms sector. After all, weapons are just tools, it's the politicians who decide what to do with them. You should despise the king, not the gunsmith.

3131s 9y ago
Just like the guy pulling the lever in the gas chamber.
- taway_1212 9y ago
  There's a big difference though. A country without a solid defence sector is not really sovereign - it has to buy its weapons from other countries, which can cut the supply at any time, or just refuse to sell you current-gen tech altogether. There simply would be no USA without its defense sector - it is essential to its existence. Citizens of other countries (France, UK, Sweden etc.) understand that and you don't hear them dumping on their defense companies. It's pretty much only Americans who are so out of touch with the realities of the world that they think weapons are evil and rest of the world will just leave them be (even if they can't defend themselves).
  - robin_reala 9y ago
    Well, as a citizen of the UK who’s currently living in Sweden, I’ll provide the counterpoint that I refuse to work with any of our morally corrupt ‘defence’ industries and always bring it up as a red line with any company I interview at.
    - taway_1212 9y ago
      Which industry is not morally corupt then? I can see maybe single companies in given industries not behaving like total assholes, but on the whole I think all industries are rotten.
      - robin_reala 9y ago
        It’s a reasonable point; I stay away from tobacco, and am iffy about gambling and alcohol for the same reasons. But on the whole, the stuff I build is either generally beneficial for the user or at least inoffensive. Buy hey, that’s just my opinion :) You do what you think’s best and I’ll do the same. My point was just that it’s not just the US who has people who are ‘out of touch’ (apparently).
  - 3131s 9y ago
    I'm not universally against weapons manufacturing or the defense sector, but if your company is selling weapons to Saudi Arabia (or the US military, really) you should do some serious introspection about whether you are harming the world for your own profit and / or intellectual curiosity.
- evgen 9y ago
  And in the vast majority of the cases the guy pulling the lever happened to be on that side of the gas chamber door because his nation had a strong defense sector and the government that was supposed to protect the people on the wrong side of that door had a weak defense sector. Maybe ask yourself what side of the door you want to be on before getting up on that high horse.
  - maxerickson 9y ago
    I'd rather die than participate in mass murder. I mean, I don't want to die, but if you are gassing people, you've not really come out ahead of the people you are gassing.
    - taway_1212 9y ago
      > I'd rather die than participate in mass murder. There were relatively few perpetrators of mass murders, while the murdered people counted in millions. In other words - not all Germans "pulled levers of gas chambers", while most of for example Eastern European Jews got gassed (or shot).
      - maxerickson 9y ago
        Sure. I guess my point is that worrying about which side of the gas chamber walls you end up on is a morally feeble position. The goal must be to not have gas chambers.
  - 3131s 9y ago
    What an embarrassing comment for you. Do you even realize that most of those in the gas chambers were Germans? So your comment really makes no sense, in addition to being cowardly. I choose death over murdering the innocent, and I'll take as many of my superiors issuing those orders with me as I can.
    - taway_1212 9y ago
      > Do you even realize that most of those in the gas chambers were Germans? Citation needed? Unless you were talking about the operators, not the victims... (it's not clear for me). > I choose death over murdering the innocent, and I'll take as many of my superiors issuing those orders with me as I can. There is a saying in Polish "we know ourselves only to the degree we've been tested before" - in other words, it's hard to tell beforehand how one would behave in an extreme situation.
thex10 9y ago
Believe it or not, there are some folk who abhor all violence, for whom there is literally no situation where a weapon of arms sector level sophistication could be used for good. In this case, there's simply no justification for the arms sector's existence.
- taway_1212 9y ago
  I suspect these are fringe beliefs though, as they are naturally eliminated via evolution of the human specie.
geomark 9y ago
At first that seems reasonable. But when you know that you are working specifically on weapons systems that are currently being used to do great evil then it no longer seems reasonable. When the rationale becomes so convoluted and twisted as it is now, like drone strikes on families in far away places are acceptable because we must fight terror at any cost, knowing that many of the terrorists were created as part of plans to control regions and overthrow governments by the same government now killing them, it has lost any and all moral basis. If you are a gunsmith developing those systems you share that same derth of morality.

I never understood the disdain for working in the arms sector. After all, weapons are just tools, it's the politicians who decide what to do with them. You should despise the king, not the gunsmith.

3131s 9y ago

Just like the guy pulling the lever in the gas chamber.

taway_1212 9y ago
There's a big difference though. A country without a solid defence sector is not really sovereign - it has to buy its weapons from other countries, which can cut the supply at any time, or just refuse to sell you current-gen tech altogether. There simply would be no USA without its defense sector - it is essential to its existence. Citizens of other countries (France, UK, Sweden etc.) understand that and you don't hear them dumping on their defense companies. It's pretty much only Americans who are so out of touch with the realities of the world that they think weapons are evil and rest of the world will just leave them be (even if they can't defend themselves).
- robin_reala 9y ago
  Well, as a citizen of the UK who’s currently living in Sweden, I’ll provide the counterpoint that I refuse to work with any of our morally corrupt ‘defence’ industries and always bring it up as a red line with any company I interview at.
  - taway_1212 9y ago
    Which industry is not morally corupt then? I can see maybe single companies in given industries not behaving like total assholes, but on the whole I think all industries are rotten.
    - robin_reala 9y ago
      It’s a reasonable point; I stay away from tobacco, and am iffy about gambling and alcohol for the same reasons. But on the whole, the stuff I build is either generally beneficial for the user or at least inoffensive. Buy hey, that’s just my opinion :) You do what you think’s best and I’ll do the same. My point was just that it’s not just the US who has people who are ‘out of touch’ (apparently).
- 3131s 9y ago
  I'm not universally against weapons manufacturing or the defense sector, but if your company is selling weapons to Saudi Arabia (or the US military, really) you should do some serious introspection about whether you are harming the world for your own profit and / or intellectual curiosity.
evgen 9y ago
And in the vast majority of the cases the guy pulling the lever happened to be on that side of the gas chamber door because his nation had a strong defense sector and the government that was supposed to protect the people on the wrong side of that door had a weak defense sector. Maybe ask yourself what side of the door you want to be on before getting up on that high horse.
- maxerickson 9y ago
  I'd rather die than participate in mass murder. I mean, I don't want to die, but if you are gassing people, you've not really come out ahead of the people you are gassing.
  - taway_1212 9y ago
    > I'd rather die than participate in mass murder. There were relatively few perpetrators of mass murders, while the murdered people counted in millions. In other words - not all Germans "pulled levers of gas chambers", while most of for example Eastern European Jews got gassed (or shot).
    - maxerickson 9y ago
      Sure. I guess my point is that worrying about which side of the gas chamber walls you end up on is a morally feeble position. The goal must be to not have gas chambers.
- 3131s 9y ago
  What an embarrassing comment for you. Do you even realize that most of those in the gas chambers were Germans? So your comment really makes no sense, in addition to being cowardly. I choose death over murdering the innocent, and I'll take as many of my superiors issuing those orders with me as I can.
  - taway_1212 9y ago
    > Do you even realize that most of those in the gas chambers were Germans? Citation needed? Unless you were talking about the operators, not the victims... (it's not clear for me). > I choose death over murdering the innocent, and I'll take as many of my superiors issuing those orders with me as I can. There is a saying in Polish "we know ourselves only to the degree we've been tested before" - in other words, it's hard to tell beforehand how one would behave in an extreme situation.

thex10 9y ago

Believe it or not, there are some folk who abhor all violence, for whom there is literally no situation where a weapon of arms sector level sophistication could be used for good. In this case, there's simply no justification for the arms sector's existence.

taway_1212 9y ago
I suspect these are fringe beliefs though, as they are naturally eliminated via evolution of the human specie.

geomark 9y ago

At first that seems reasonable. But when you know that you are working specifically on weapons systems that are currently being used to do great evil then it no longer seems reasonable. When the rationale becomes so convoluted and twisted as it is now, like drone strikes on families in far away places are acceptable because we must fight terror at any cost, knowing that many of the terrorists were created as part of plans to control regions and overthrow governments by the same government now killing them, it has lost any and all moral basis. If you are a gunsmith developing those systems you share that same derth of morality.