People in tech tend to take extreme positions in the debate about supplying tech to the military. But the extreme positions -- whether they be pacifist and assu

People in tech tend to take extreme positions in the debate about supplying tech to the military. But the extreme positions -- whether they be pacifist and assume all military engagement is bad, or militarist and stick to "my country right or wrong" -- ignore the real issues. Even the author seems to present a false dichotomy: either tech is benevolent to society or it is driven entirely by the profit motive. Tech can have several motives at once, and one of them may include ensuring the national security of the country that allows large tech companies to operate smoothly and peacefully in a relatively uncorrupt and democratic society. Does tech make money off of defense? Of course. That should come as news to no one. The DoD is the Fortune 1, the largest customer in the world. There's nothing wrong with selling to them per se. And there's nothing inherently wrong with being "compliant", even though the author seems to consider that a fault.[0][1] We should assume that all major tech companies are fully compliant. The exist in a matrix of laws they must obey. One of the important questions we should be asking is: Do we want the US defense establishment to run on good, modern tech or crappy, outdated tech? Large sections of it still run on VAX and Cobol, and they will for the foreseeable future. It's my personal belief that society is engaged in a global asymmetric war against militant groups, in a technological context where individual actors have access to more and more powerful weapons of destruction. I would hope that the organizations in charge of defending civilians would have the best technology at their disposal to detect and prevent attacks. It's also clear that Western liberal society in particular is under attack by hostile state actors intent on destabilizing the EU and the US democratic system. The field of battle is online, and if you don't have good tech in that fight, you lose. I'm not saying the US military is right all the time, or undeserving of criticism. But I would ask people who think good technology should not be supplied to the US military: what outcome do you want? Have you considered the scenario where West liberal democracy loses, and we replace the imperfect system we have with a much worse, authoritarian system without democratic feedback loops. Because that's the endgame if we lose, and we lose without good tech. [0] "Major companies had complied with—and profited from—government demands for unwarranted data collection." [1] "...tech companies will be forced to choose whether they can feasibly continue to preach the values of liberal-minded innovation and independence from big government while serving as its well-paid and compliant partners."