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> or Google (with the "killer drones" recently) It's because you assume that every software engineer has the same political opinion as you on that matter. In r

> or Google (with the "killer drones" recently) It's because you assume that every software engineer has the same political opinion as you on that matter. In reality, there are people who could consider working on "killer drones" their patriotic duty and are ready to accept low compensation just because they feel they make the world a better place doing it instead of just selling ads. I know such people personally both from US and other countries as well, eager to work for military and intelligence agencies of their respective countries, from NSA to 8200 to FIS. You may not agree with their political opinions and I respect that, but denying existence of such people is just plain stupid.

Fnoord 8y ago
I do sincerely hope, wish, and ultimately assume [1] that intelligent people (which is what I'd find fair to describe the people at Google who were supposed to work on "killer drones") do have high ethical standards. Of unintelligent people, its less surprising. I don't deny the existence of people who don't have the same ethical standard as me though. I never claimed or argued those people did or did not exist at Google; all I was saying is that "only" 12 resigned. Who knows how big that team was. [1] Else I get rather negative with my faith in humanity...
- golergka 8y ago
  > high ethical standards Ethical standards are do not lie on a single dimension and words "high" and "low" don't sufficiently describe them. Ethics and morality is a complicated mess of game theory, neuroscience, evolutionary biology and logic. The same people that you implicitly describe as having "low" ethical standards are making that decision contrary to their immediate self-interest, out of very noble considerations, thinking about their friends and family, their children, their countrymen and the world. It's just their logic is very different from yours.
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    My ethical standard is closer that an American life (or Dutch, for that matter) is worth a human life than the general population, sure, but there's a bottom line, too. If you don't have high ethical standards you shouldn't be put in a position where you can exercise power. It is that simple. If your ethical standard is to shoot civilians from an Apache, and cover it up accordingly, you have no place in the military. In any military. Its not so much a trolley problem or equivalent, what we discuss is downright racism/discrimination.
- atemerev 8y ago
  Working on drones saves soldiers’ lives. Working for intelligence saves civilian lives by preventing terrorist plots. People who work for the military and the intelligence usually see themselves as paragons of high ethical standards.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    > Working for intelligence saves civilian lives Well, apart from all those airstrikes on schoolbuses.
    - golergka 8y ago
      You have to look at the net result. If you're 50% certain that a schoolbus with 30 children has a leader of a terrorist cell that will on average perform one attack with ~100 casualties 1-2 times a year, and otherwise this terrorist is expected to have a life expectancy of 3-5 years, and without him this cell has a 60-70% probability of disintegrating, it's a very clear cut case. I don't personally work in intelligence and I don't have first-person experience with this calculations. Of course, I expect that in reality they are much more complex and carry a lot more uncertainty - at least those I've read in detail certainly are, but I wouldn't be able to describe them in sufficient detail in a single HN comment. But refusing to make such a choice is still making a choice, and not always a best one. Any conflict known to man have had loss of innocent lives by both sides. If you try to avoid it at all costs, all that you'll manage is loose, with more innocent lives destroyed, most of them on your side.
      - andrepd 8y ago
        Your analysis is predicated on the fact that the war is being done to protect against terrorism, when in fact its a war being waged for economic gain and geopolitical influence.
      - pjc50 8y ago
        I find it hard to imagine it ever being that clear-cut, even with the panopticon. Besides, the Geneva convention doesn't allow you to do this, on either side; the US has simply unilaterally declared that "terrorist" is a new category of person who's neither military nor civilian, so they can be murdered at will (as if they were military) but aren't subject to the laws relating to PoWs (which would affect Guantanamo). The "double tap" practice of murdering first responders with a second missile strike is definitely a war crime. The whole thing relies on the certainty that nobody in the US will ever be prosecuted no matter how gratuitously they murder those deemed to be "enemy".
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

Fnoord 8y ago

I do sincerely hope, wish, and ultimately assume [1] that intelligent people (which is what I'd find fair to describe the people at Google who were supposed to work on "killer drones") do have high ethical standards. Of unintelligent people, its less surprising. I don't deny the existence of people who don't have the same ethical standard as me though. I never claimed or argued those people did or did not exist at Google; all I was saying is that "only" 12 resigned. Who knows how big that team was. [1] Else I get rather negative with my faith in humanity...

golergka 8y ago
> high ethical standards Ethical standards are do not lie on a single dimension and words "high" and "low" don't sufficiently describe them. Ethics and morality is a complicated mess of game theory, neuroscience, evolutionary biology and logic. The same people that you implicitly describe as having "low" ethical standards are making that decision contrary to their immediate self-interest, out of very noble considerations, thinking about their friends and family, their children, their countrymen and the world. It's just their logic is very different from yours.
- Fnoord 8y ago
  My ethical standard is closer that an American life (or Dutch, for that matter) is worth a human life than the general population, sure, but there's a bottom line, too. If you don't have high ethical standards you shouldn't be put in a position where you can exercise power. It is that simple. If your ethical standard is to shoot civilians from an Apache, and cover it up accordingly, you have no place in the military. In any military. Its not so much a trolley problem or equivalent, what we discuss is downright racism/discrimination.
atemerev 8y ago
Working on drones saves soldiers’ lives. Working for intelligence saves civilian lives by preventing terrorist plots. People who work for the military and the intelligence usually see themselves as paragons of high ethical standards.
- pjc50 8y ago
  > Working for intelligence saves civilian lives Well, apart from all those airstrikes on schoolbuses.
  - golergka 8y ago
    You have to look at the net result. If you're 50% certain that a schoolbus with 30 children has a leader of a terrorist cell that will on average perform one attack with ~100 casualties 1-2 times a year, and otherwise this terrorist is expected to have a life expectancy of 3-5 years, and without him this cell has a 60-70% probability of disintegrating, it's a very clear cut case. I don't personally work in intelligence and I don't have first-person experience with this calculations. Of course, I expect that in reality they are much more complex and carry a lot more uncertainty - at least those I've read in detail certainly are, but I wouldn't be able to describe them in sufficient detail in a single HN comment. But refusing to make such a choice is still making a choice, and not always a best one. Any conflict known to man have had loss of innocent lives by both sides. If you try to avoid it at all costs, all that you'll manage is loose, with more innocent lives destroyed, most of them on your side.
    - andrepd 8y ago
      Your analysis is predicated on the fact that the war is being done to protect against terrorism, when in fact its a war being waged for economic gain and geopolitical influence.
    - pjc50 8y ago
      I find it hard to imagine it ever being that clear-cut, even with the panopticon. Besides, the Geneva convention doesn't allow you to do this, on either side; the US has simply unilaterally declared that "terrorist" is a new category of person who's neither military nor civilian, so they can be murdered at will (as if they were military) but aren't subject to the laws relating to PoWs (which would affect Guantanamo). The "double tap" practice of murdering first responders with a second missile strike is definitely a war crime. The whole thing relies on the certainty that nobody in the US will ever be prosecuted no matter how gratuitously they murder those deemed to be "enemy".
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]