4 ms·

This is a pretty interesting shift. Is it a general trend such as it happening in Engineering, and/or sciences or is it localised to just tech? Perhaps the yo

by Jonnax 8y ago

This is a pretty interesting shift. Is it a general trend such as it happening in Engineering, and/or sciences or is it localised to just tech? Perhaps the younger generation is more anti war? Thoughts?

kurthr 8y ago
And the commentary is limited to the US tech industry (FAAMG).
devoply 8y ago
The US practices a pretty unchecked sort of militarism. The only thing which has caused it to withdraw from war that it often unilaterally starts has been solider casualties. In the future where there are no soldiers on the battlefield what is going to dissuade the US from continuing war?
neonate 8y ago
Antiwar sentiment goes up under Republican presidents and down under Democratic ones, which suggests that it has something to do with domestic politics.
- masonic 8y ago
  Antiwar sentiment goes up under Republican presidents Like 1961-1969? Or 2009-2017?
  - neonate 8y ago
    The anti-Vietnam-War movement was because of the draft. That's a different dynamic. The Obama years, though, fit the pattern well. For example, there was no significant movement against the Libyan war.
thrower123 8y ago
This recent rash of stories has generally involved on the order of dozens to a couple of hundred employees making mild protests, generally not even employees anywhere near the actual defense/government projects. Probably they should just spin those divisions off into a different sister company under the Alphabet umbrella.
- true_tuna 8y ago
  This is not the case for the Google protest. The protest started in the division doing the work and spread to the rest of the company. If I recall correctly the contract was to use machine learning to pre-process video footage for the US drone program in order to identify potential targets, thus freeing up the human labor of the drone pilots to more quickly identify and kill the people they’re hunting. Which I’ll remind everyone they’re doing with a flying killer robot. I don’t think this use-case was on the table when the Machine Learning experts and general software engineers joined. I think it’s quite reasonable to resist weaponizing machine learning. To say “I’m not comfortable making it cheaper and easier to kill large numbers of people at a distance” If you were to do as you suggest and found or spin off a company to work on weapon systems, at least the people who joined would know what they were signing up for. I do hope you’d find it difficult to recruit, and I fear you’d not find it impossible. I would like to think that thoughtful people would be able to see that building terrible weapons moves us closer to a world we shouldn’t be rushing to create.
ALittleLight 8y ago
I think this shift is a result of the immorality of American warfare over recent decades. If the last war we had participated in was WWII and the cold war then who would object to advancing our weaponry in case we had to fight a terrible war again? Conversely, if we are routinely killing civilians in pointless decades long engagements in the Middle East, supporting both sides of civil wars in foreign lands, selling weapon systems to brutal monarchies, etc it's easier to see why people have doubts about participating.
- freewilly1040 8y ago
  The Cold War produced plenty of immoral conflicts. Is it seriously arguable that Viet Nam was a genocide? Justifiable wars since WWII are the exception.
  - azernik 8y ago
    Genocide: "Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." The Vietnam War was immoral in many ways, but it was not a genocide. Throwing that term around willy-nilly cheapens it. Please don't.
    - rounce 8y ago
      Rather astounding that people would downvote a post defending the experience of genocide victims from being confused with subjects of a lazy adjective use. Edit: Oh, I forgot this is HN...
    - freewilly1040 8y ago
      The use of Agent Orange fits your pasted description quite well, as does the My Lai massacre and similar atrocities now anonymous to history.
true_tuna 8y ago
It’s about thinking through the repercussions of your work and the fruits of your labors. This is not a new concept, but it’s nice to see people realizing that they have a responsibility their inventions. People in tech make things more efficient, easier, cheaper. When tech skills are applied to weapons systems, those systems start to get terrifying —the machine does more of the work and it’s better, faster and cheaper. If you make a weapon that makes it easier and cheaper to kill it will be used to do just that. Once the invention leaves the creators hands the inventor gives up the power of choice and can not control if it is used for good or for evil (putting aside for the moment, the question of if it’s possible to kill for good). Is that who you are? Are you a maker of terrible weapons? I can only answer for myself. I have the aptitude, but that’s not who I want to be. I’m not a pacifist, I have anger and fear and the urge to escalate in response to perceived injustice just like anyone else. But I make the conscious effort not to do violence, and not to create weapons. By doing that I decide that’s not who I am. I don’t presume to answer for you, but I encourage everyone at least think it through and decide for themselves.

by Jonnax 8y ago

kurthr 8y ago

And the commentary is limited to the US tech industry (FAAMG).

devoply 8y ago

The US practices a pretty unchecked sort of militarism. The only thing which has caused it to withdraw from war that it often unilaterally starts has been solider casualties. In the future where there are no soldiers on the battlefield what is going to dissuade the US from continuing war?

neonate 8y ago

Antiwar sentiment goes up under Republican presidents and down under Democratic ones, which suggests that it has something to do with domestic politics.

masonic 8y ago
Antiwar sentiment goes up under Republican presidents Like 1961-1969? Or 2009-2017?
- neonate 8y ago
  The anti-Vietnam-War movement was because of the draft. That's a different dynamic. The Obama years, though, fit the pattern well. For example, there was no significant movement against the Libyan war.

thrower123 8y ago

This recent rash of stories has generally involved on the order of dozens to a couple of hundred employees making mild protests, generally not even employees anywhere near the actual defense/government projects. Probably they should just spin those divisions off into a different sister company under the Alphabet umbrella.

true_tuna 8y ago
This is not the case for the Google protest. The protest started in the division doing the work and spread to the rest of the company. If I recall correctly the contract was to use machine learning to pre-process video footage for the US drone program in order to identify potential targets, thus freeing up the human labor of the drone pilots to more quickly identify and kill the people they’re hunting. Which I’ll remind everyone they’re doing with a flying killer robot. I don’t think this use-case was on the table when the Machine Learning experts and general software engineers joined. I think it’s quite reasonable to resist weaponizing machine learning. To say “I’m not comfortable making it cheaper and easier to kill large numbers of people at a distance” If you were to do as you suggest and found or spin off a company to work on weapon systems, at least the people who joined would know what they were signing up for. I do hope you’d find it difficult to recruit, and I fear you’d not find it impossible. I would like to think that thoughtful people would be able to see that building terrible weapons moves us closer to a world we shouldn’t be rushing to create.

ALittleLight 8y ago

I think this shift is a result of the immorality of American warfare over recent decades. If the last war we had participated in was WWII and the cold war then who would object to advancing our weaponry in case we had to fight a terrible war again? Conversely, if we are routinely killing civilians in pointless decades long engagements in the Middle East, supporting both sides of civil wars in foreign lands, selling weapon systems to brutal monarchies, etc it's easier to see why people have doubts about participating.

freewilly1040 8y ago
The Cold War produced plenty of immoral conflicts. Is it seriously arguable that Viet Nam was a genocide? Justifiable wars since WWII are the exception.
- azernik 8y ago
  Genocide: "Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." The Vietnam War was immoral in many ways, but it was not a genocide. Throwing that term around willy-nilly cheapens it. Please don't.
  - rounce 8y ago
    Rather astounding that people would downvote a post defending the experience of genocide victims from being confused with subjects of a lazy adjective use. Edit: Oh, I forgot this is HN...
  - freewilly1040 8y ago
    The use of Agent Orange fits your pasted description quite well, as does the My Lai massacre and similar atrocities now anonymous to history.

true_tuna 8y ago

It’s about thinking through the repercussions of your work and the fruits of your labors. This is not a new concept, but it’s nice to see people realizing that they have a responsibility their inventions. People in tech make things more efficient, easier, cheaper. When tech skills are applied to weapons systems, those systems start to get terrifying —the machine does more of the work and it’s better, faster and cheaper. If you make a weapon that makes it easier and cheaper to kill it will be used to do just that. Once the invention leaves the creators hands the inventor gives up the power of choice and can not control if it is used for good or for evil (putting aside for the moment, the question of if it’s possible to kill for good). Is that who you are? Are you a maker of terrible weapons? I can only answer for myself. I have the aptitude, but that’s not who I want to be. I’m not a pacifist, I have anger and fear and the urge to escalate in response to perceived injustice just like anyone else. But I make the conscious effort not to do violence, and not to create weapons. By doing that I decide that’s not who I am. I don’t presume to answer for you, but I encourage everyone at least think it through and decide for themselves.