9 ms·

Why don't I take military funding? (2004)

209 points by LHopital 8y ago

fjjdkek7 8y ago
Good for him. Disclaimer: I'm a recent PhD grad from MIT doing computer vision for military satellite imaging
- ohithereyou 8y ago
  I did two undergraduate research projects with DARPA funding, and that experience alone made me realize that I did not want military funding, and that I was not the kind of person that would be happy making munitions.
chrissnell 8y ago
"The goal of the military is to settle international conflict through violence." That is misleading. The purpose of the military is to safeguard the interests of our country through its presence and--if necessary--decisive violence. No US military leader wants to fight a war; that notion is absurd. Don't confuse the desires of the military with the occasional desires of its civilian leadership.
- empath75 8y ago
  Well, regardless of what it wants, it’s primary means of achieving those ends is through violence or the threat of violence. The military is not particularly well suited to nation building and other peaceful tasks, as we’ve repeatedly seen.
- pessimizer 8y ago
  To settle international conflict through violence and the threat of violence.
- arka2147483647 8y ago
  With respect, that amount to much of the same with different words. Not that I disagree with you or him, just pointing out that to me you two differ in you points of view, not in substance.
  - zepto 8y ago
    They are definitely not “much the same”. One implies that violence is the goal, the other that the capacity to be violent is necessary even when actual violence is undesirable. These are absolutely different in meaning.
  - ThenAsNow 8y ago
    > With respect, that amount to much of the same with different words. They are describing two different intents; one is to seek to settle conflict through the use of violence, and the other is to accomplish the same end through the ability to inflict violence. The latter does not presume an innate desire to use the instruments of violence, only the will and ability to do so if so instructed. Deterrence is a real thing and not the same thing as being bloodthirsty.
- tommyderami 8y ago
  I'd agree, although I don't think the author is being deliberately misleading, it's probably more an issue of public perception due to Hollywood and anecdotal conversations. DoD members swear to "support and defend the constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic". Sometimes that means brandishing a stick, sometimes that means swinging it, but we're pretty agnostic about the means to achieve that defense.
- hpcjoe 8y ago
  The vast majority of soldiers I know, whom have been blooded in war, do not wish military conflict to occur. "War is politics by other means", paraphrasing von Clausewitz. Its fundamentally backing up one's political positions by force of arms, to impose upon one's adversary. While there are some jingoistic people who relish conflict, they tend not to be the ones making decisions. This isn't always the case, but militaries know what happens when adventurism runs amok. That is, wise generals would prefer (imperfect) political solutions to problems, as compared to imposition of will by force. But simultaneously, they know they may be called upon to impose that force.
- 50656E6973 8y ago
  >No US military leader wants to fight a war; that notion is absurd. It may be absurd but it's not unrealistic; there is historical precedent. Don't underestimate the power of ideology to override rationality. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
  - ambicapter 8y ago
    Operation Northwoods...didn't happen.
- forapurpose 8y ago
  > No US military leader wants to fight a war; that notion is absurd. I think your general point is good, but there are people, including people in government, who see war as a low-cost, acceptable means of achieving ends, including rallying domestic political support. For example, at one point I noticed that over a short time hawkish Republican leaders in the U.S., including John McCain, favored increasing involvement in Afghanistan, attacking Iran (rather than negotiating), increasing involvement in Iraq, intervening in Syria, intervening in Egypt (IIRC), intervening in Sudan (in Darfur, though that might not have been contemporaneous), and intervening in Libya. If you look at a map, that's war in most countries from central Asia to near the middle of Africa's Mediterranean coast. The GOP, starting before Trump, often vocally disdains the alternative to war, diplomacy. The Trump administration has taken it to a policy level worked to undermine the United States' relations with other countries and openly advocated, including in written op-eds from administration members, 'a return to geopolitical competition' - i.e., the state of things before WWII, which led to centuries of wars. They've abandoned treaty after treaty, and damaged the U.S.'s reputation so that they can't be trusted to adhere to future agreements (which I think is intentional, an attempt make the move away from diplomacy irreversible). The Trump administration openly works against the rule-based international order and openly opposes international law; the alternative to law and order is anarchy; the alternative to those mechanisms is war. The Trump administration also has gutted State Department; they've attempted to gut its budget (Congress hasn't always agreed), they've cut and obstructed many programs, forced out a large proportion of talent (my vague memory is that they forced or urged out over a third of the most senior officers, who are, as I understand it, irreplaceable), and disrupted hiring. Why would you destroy the means of diplomacy if you don't seek war?
- jacquesm 8y ago
  Our? I don't recall you speaking for me. And you are presuming you know where the visitors of HN hail from. Guess what, they're all over the world.
  - astura 8y ago
    It's not incorrect to use "our" in this context even though the speaker's audience is international, "our" doesn't always mean "mine and yours" is can also mean "mine and someone else's," that use isn't event uncommon. We talk about "our family" to people outside of the speaker's family and we talk about "our country" to people outside of the speaker's country. It's natural. our /ˈou(ə)r,är/ determiner possesive pronoun: our 1. belonging to or associated with the speaker and one or more other people previously mentioned or easily identified. "Jo and I had our hair cut" belonging to or associated with people in general. "when we hear a sound, our brains identify the source quickly" 2. used by a writer, editor, or monarch to refer to something belonging to or associated with himself or herself. "we want to know what you, our readers, think"
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      Even then it is still incorrect because it presumes a shared viewpoint with other US citizens. Who might disagree.
      - astura 8y ago
        No its not and no it doesn't; it's extremely clear what the speaker meant, you just wanted to get outraged for no reason.
tommyderami 8y ago
While I don't come to the same conclusion, I think this is a great example of presenting a well reasoned argument for a position that is not widely held. I would love to see more debate over topics like this they doesn't resort to name calling, straw man arguments and all or nothing conclusions.
- Zanni 8y ago
  Agreed. I wish more political discourse followed this model. I too disagree with his stance on the military, but I applaud his decision to take an individual stand without hectoring, hyperbole or bad faith arguments. He states his position clearly for others to take or leave as they see fit.
aratno 8y ago
Many of the reasons he stated can also be applied to VC funding: > One thing that makes the slope so slippery is that you have accumulated responsibility for a lab full of graduate students, and the consequences of a major drop in funding will be even more painful for them than it is for you.
- azhenley 8y ago
  But he would probably be able to support more grad students, that may not otherwise be able to be in grad school, if he took the military funding.
  - aratno 8y ago
    But do you think that the total number of grad students is a measure of good? If so, it makes sense to get funding for them by any means necessary. But if not, there is an amount of unethical, unacceptable funding which trumps the good of the grad students it provides for. Couldn’t some other professor take the available funding, and support those additional students?
- astura 8y ago
  Or any funding of any sort from any source, public or private, for that matter. It's a total garbage argument; anyone can require something you disagree with as a condition for continuation of funding, the military is not special in this regard. It's basically akin to saying "don't get a job because if you do then your boss might eventually ask you to do something (that's legal) that you disagree with." Ridiculous.
  - aratno 8y ago
    I don’t think it’s ridiculous. I think it simply says that people with stringent ethics cannot serve others and cede control. They may bootstrap their own businesses, become their own bosses, or find another way to operate independently. For some, control is relinquished to VCs. For others, it is the funders of their research, or their bosses. Most people are not as picky about their ethics as they are about their diets.
rrggrr 8y ago
> Military action, with its inevitable consequences to civilian populations, creates and fuels deadly threats, and therefore increases the danger that our country faces. Wrong. The United States is inexorably in conflict nations whose domestic policy failures cause them to act in often violent ways that threaten US interests. If academia adopted Kuipers' position we would be no closer to peace, and much closer to living under another country's tyranny. Ask the people of Tibet as just one example.
- forapurpose 8y ago
  I think simplifying the issue distracts us from the real issues, which are complex. The U.S. uses its military for good purposes and for bad. Sometimes war is due to other country's actions, sometimes due to the U.S.'s (e.g., Iraq), and probably usually due to both. For example, the immediate causes of many U.S. wars later turn out to be false, such as the destruction of the Maine which precipitated the Spanish-American War, the Gulf of Tonkin which began full-scale intervention in Vietnam, and the WMD in Iraq. But even wars that are justified lead to bad outcomes, as the author states: What war hasn't had the consequences you quoted? Unfortunately, sometimes, those are the best outcomes available, but it's quite a moral decision to inflict that on others.
i_am_proteus 8y ago
There will always be actors willing to take, by force, whatever they can from those who are unable to defend themselves. History did not "end" when the USSR collapsed.
jasode 8y ago
>, after completing my PhD thesis on cognitive maps, I found that the only funding agency that was interested in supporting my research wanted to build smart cruise missiles that could find their way to their targets. This was not what I wanted my life's work to support. But if the military really really wanted to, couldn't it just "launder" their funding via "worthy humanitarian" causes? The government could find a more socially palatable institution (or possibly create one from scratch) and funnels the research money through that. The unknowing scientist then thinks his cognitive maps is fighting cancer cells or detecting crime but in reality, it's going to ultimately end up in a cruise missile. Like a lot of basic research, the knowledge can be legitimately applied to humanitarian purposes so those laundering schemes are not a total fiction in terms of beneficial results for society. It's impossible to disentangle good-vs-evil uses of knowledge or technology. I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from abandoning their principles but I think the government can invent clever ways of disguising their goals. E.g. A mechanical engineer that wouldn't work on exoskeletons for Army soldiers to help kill people but would feel ethically ok with funding from a charity[0] to help paraplegics gain freedom of movement. Since the scientist can't know the provenance of all funds, maybe he's still helping the Army after all. [0] e.g.: https://www.unitedspinal.org/ https://www.unitedspinal.org/
- peterlk 8y ago
  I think this is too cynical; to the point of being harmful. This argument resonates with me like the argument to not vote because your individual vote doesn't matter. You say that you're not trying to dissuade people from their principles, but the implication of your argument is that Dr. Kuipers' approach is too naive. We do what we can with the knowledge and resources we have. And if people are inspired to action (or inaction in this case, perhaps), then the world changes, even if slowly. If the military is creating organizations to "launder" money to make it look like it's not going to the military, then it seems to me that Dr. Kuipers has been successful in shifting the culture around military research. And that is no small feat. It may also bring about constructive conversations about the balance between hard power and soft power in international (and human) relationships.
  - jasode 8y ago
sneak 8y ago
Also relevant: https://slashdot.org/story/12/04/03/1656224/mitch-altman-parts-ways-with-maker-fair-over-darpa-grant https://slashdot.org/story/12/04/03/1656224/mitch-altman-par... This is a principled stance, and one I vehemently agree with. I wish more in our line of work would so actively reject associating with those who deal in violence (whether “justified” or not).
hjek 8y ago
Theo de Raadt about OpenBSD receiving DARPA funding[0]: > I actually am fairly uncomfortable about it, even if our firm stipulation was that they cannot tell us what to do. We are simply doing what we do anyways - securing software - and they have no say in the matter. I try to convince myself that our grant means a half of a cruise missile doesn't get built. [0]: https://www.smh.com.au/technology/openbsd-loses-funding-due-to-anti-war-statements-20030421-gdgmy4.html https://www.smh.com.au/technology/openbsd-loses-funding-due-...
davebryand 8y ago
Suspending judgement on this individual's stance, it's refreshing to see someone that is basing their actions on clearly articulated principles.
beefeater 8y ago
If this idiot got his way, we'd all be speaking Japanese right now. Kuipers is further proof that the only computer scientists who go into academia are those who can't hack it in private industry. What a fundamentally unintelligent human being.
fouric 8y ago
The United States could certainly be less war-happy, in my opinion, but what happens if some group decides to declare war on another, or commit atrocities, and absolutely refuses to negotiate? Or what if negotiations take months or years, and more human lives are lost in that time than would be through war? I'm not saying that most or even a significant fraction of the US's wars up until this point have been justified, but professor Kuipers seems to be of the opinion that violence should never be used to settle international conflicts.
- hintymad 8y ago
  Exactly! I don't quite get the sentiment that military is nothing but evil, either. Hasn't history taught us enough? How many peace-loving civilization got destroyed by those who had no interests in producing but looting? Look at Song Dynasty. Look at Ming Dynasty. Look at European cities when Mongolian invaded. Hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered. Hundreds of cities were looted, burnt down, and destroyed. Millions of people were slaved for generations. Trade were banned. Civilization was set back by hundreds of years. Americans and Europeans may have been in peace and prosperity for so long and got so comfortable that they started to hate everything their forbears have built and fought for. I'm not sure about you guys, but I certainly cherish the literature, the math, the science, then engineering, the philosophy, the political systems (not that they are flawless, but it took us a long time to get where we are), and more. What a shame.
- DenisM 8y ago
  >what happens if some group decides to declare war on another, or commit atrocities, We don't have to guess - Ygoslavian war in the 90s was exactly that. Atrocities continued until US&UK dropped on the theater. OTOH there is no shortage of situations where US involvement was the atrocity. So maybe it's not the military per se, it's how you use it.
dwheeler 8y ago
This individual recommends that society do nothing even though there are other military powers. I don't agree. Edmund Burke had something to say about two centuries ago: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Absence of a military means a commitment to doing nothing. If all Americans don't take military funding, the result will not be a nicer world. The result of US society following this advice would be the subjugation of the US, and possibly all western democracies, by other countries. Where possible, militaries should not be used, because violence is a terrible thing... and that is something most military personnel already know. But absence of a military often produces means slaughter by another. In practice, countries only independently exist if (1) they have a military or (2) they have an ally with a military who is willing to use it on their behalf. If a country is unwilling to work out its defense, another country will be happy to take it over.
- Eupolemos 8y ago
  This could be true, but I don't think it is. There's a lot of money to be made in making weapons if there's a war. And the US is constantly waging wars, rarely with victory-conditions thought out in advance. As long as the money-makers continue to find excuses rather than reasons for waging war, I think there's solid grounds for not wanting to participate.
- colonelxc 8y ago
  I read it differently. They are not advocating against the military, just that they will not participate. They are not trying to say that all CS (or any field) should wholly shun military work, just that they have. Choice quote: """Do you try to keep others from taking military funding? No. Mine is an individual testimony, and each person makes an individual decision about how they will spend their life's work."""
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - marcoperaza 8y ago
    I think there's something to Kant's first formulation of the Categorical Imperative: Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law. Edit: to address a common confusion: this has nothing to do with imposing a rule on others. This formulation only says that you ought to act in conformance with rules that you would want all others to act by as well.
dang 8y ago
A good discussion from 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11478951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11478951
writepub 8y ago
I'd like to propose a counter to the "military==evil" argument. Specifically > "I believe that non-violent methods of conflict resolution provide the only methods for protecting our country against the deadly threats we face in the long run. " Western free society is a hierarchical entity, much like a tech stack. While in tech, the lowest foundation layer is hardware, it is "security" for civil society. The fact is that the rest of society completely collapses if people, companies, and civil structure cease to be secure. History, statistics & a scientific analysis of conflict provides strong evidence for the reliance on military might for building layers of civilization over it. It is disingenuous to state, as the author has, that this is fully and completely achievable without a military, or use of force. It is also appalling, that while the author's day job is rooted in evidence, science & peer-review, those principles have been ignored in deriving his "truths" about civil society. What we should be concerned about is the misuse of military power. The way the US is setup, military/executive branch are a lot more accountable to it's citizens than other structures of governance. It allows law-makers (who represent the electorate) to tweak or check abuse and while this may NOT be perfect, it certainly forms the foundation for betterment.
tommyderami 8y ago
One thing I thing that is worth considering regarding whether or not to accept DoD funding is what kind of research/end goal it supports. Many research projects seek to improve the precision of lethal actions or the quality of intelligence that informs those actions ie In WWII if the only blunt tool you had hit the enemy was carpet bombing their cities that contained production facilities or government officials, then that's what we did, but with the advent of precision-guided munitions we have the opportunity to limit civilian collateral when striking targets. Similarly, if there was a technology that allowed us to see through walls to see if armed bad guys were on the other side, we could avoid pre-emptively clearing the room with a flash-bang or grenade when it instead housed a family. Certainly, most weapons can be turned into tools of malfeasance, so we shouldn't assume that any advancement will result in lowering the human cost of conflict, but if you accept that violence will happen whether or participate in it or not, some may choose to add scientific knowledge that could make that violence more humane/limited.
tech101_2 8y ago
It's just a matter of time before technology is used to the worst and best of it's capabilities... Someone will always be there to take the money, but I applaud you, sir.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
_emacsomancer_ 8y ago
Or one could do the Chomsky thing and take military funding and use it for research that doesn't actually have clear military applications but looks like it might.
- gaius 8y ago
  This was Chomsky's approach to all research.
ryanmarsh 8y ago
Refusing to take military funding does not prevent war, or even make it significantly harder to prosecute such that there will be fewer wars. You cannot induce some sort safe stalemate by not accepting military funding. This no-military-funding meme prevalent in tech circles is virtue signaling writ large. War happens when leaders choose to go to war. Technology does not directly lead to new wars.
kazinator 8y ago
I suspect you have to read between the lines here. Kuipers says that "the goal of the military is to settle international conflict through violence", but of course, as someone of far above average intelligence, he understands that if you have no military, then (1) a hostile, belligerent foreign power has no incentive to use the tools of peaceful conflict resolution with you no matter how available they are and (2) your sovereignty may well succumb to violence. Rather, I suspect, what he really means here is that the goal of the American military is to settle other countries' international conflicts through violence, participating in conflicts in which the USA is not even remotely under attack. If you believe such a thing, then you have a rationally founded reason to refuse military funding of USA origin.
- randcraw 8y ago
  Kuipers states directly that he believes solving disagreements through violence is ineffective and wrong. He is not talking about other countries, only about the possible sources of funding for his research, namely the US military (and possibly their intelligence agencies). As someone committed to nonviolence, and keenly aware that America has a long history of exporting violence to supposedly solve problems on foreign soil (but never seems todo so), I think he sees his duty as extending to the practicality of violent solutions, not just the philosophical bases, as you suggest. I'd agree with him on this point. I can't think of a conflict since Korea that was solved (thoroughly and lastingly and without major loss of civilian life) using the US military to invade.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    > I can't think of a conflict since Korea that was solved (thoroughly and lastingly and without major loss of civilian life) using the US military to invade. Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Panama, and Grenada.
selimthegrim 8y ago
I think Phil Rogaway at UC Davis has a similar page.
- tanderson92 8y ago
  You're probably thinking of this: http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/moral.html http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/moral.html
  - deleted 8y ago
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gaius 8y ago
I am genuinely curious as to the author’s proposed non-violent means of settling with Al Queda et al, but he doesn’t go into any details. If you listened to OBL’s speech after 9/11 what he was most upset about was the downfall of the Caliphate in Turkey some 80 years previous. Similarly ISIS mission was to provoke a war with “Rome” to fulfill the prophecy of the 13th Imam (I may be hazy on the details). There’s literally no peaceful solution that any Western government could offer them.
- peisistratos 8y ago
  The problem is that Al Queda and Osama bin Laden are the fruits of American military funding as well. The "chickens coming home to roost" as Obama's former pastor put it. The US desired to overthrow Afghanistan's secular government in the 1970s and 1980s so it funded and armed Osama bin Laden and various jihadists to launch a terrorist campaign against the Saur government. Bin Laden had the same principles in the 1970s as he did to the end - when the Pakistani high command handed him over to the Americans (read Seymour Hersh or the Urdu Pakistani press on the handover, the US press printed fictious news on his death ). What angered the Arabs who flew a plane into the Pentagon was imperial acts such as the US military occupation of Arabia. Propping up the Saud dictatorship which is currently supporting massacres in Yemen and slicing up Washington Post journalists in their embassies. Bin Laden is a creation of US military funding, he does not make a good Boogeyman for more US military funding.
- lostlogin 8y ago
  Where does this argument factor in a century of the civilised west bombing the region and arming some of the worst governments in the modern world.
  - gaius 8y ago
    Umm, because there is no such thing as a time machine? Any serious proposals have to start with the state of the world as it presently is.
    - lostlogin 8y ago
nec4b 8y ago
In my mind he is similar to anti-vaxxers. He can afford his position, only because actions of a large majority of other people are keeping him safe.
- bb611 8y ago
  The large majority of Americans work for the military industrial complex?
  - nec4b 8y ago
    I think you are asking me the wrong question here. If we keep things in context, the right question is: Does the large majority of people who get the chance to be funded by the military accept its offer? The answer is yes.
mcguire 8y ago
Ben Kuipers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Kuipers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Kuipers, http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~kuipers/ http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~kuipers/) is an incredibly nice man and good professor, and while I was at UT Austin he was the department chairman at least once. I never took a class from him and I don't even have any funny or embarrassing stories about him. In person, he's sounds very much like he writes here.
- themattmans 8y ago
  I read this piece before taking a class of his at UM and very much respected him for the thoughtfulness of his position in this post. From what I recall I never remember him bringing this up during class. He made for one of the most intellectually stimulating foundational CS courses I took in college. This post still resonates with me to this day.
  - mcguire 8y ago
    He doesn't talk about himself much. I didn't know he was a Quaker until someone else mentioned it.
mkhattab 8y ago
Perhaps we need to distinguish, if at all possible these days, between the military and the military industrial complex. I don't believe the military is inherently evil but think it's necessary to the defense of the country. The military industrial complex, on the other hand, is in the business of warfare and perhaps not as necessary as we might think.

209 points by LHopital 8y ago

fjjdkek7 8y ago

Good for him. Disclaimer: I'm a recent PhD grad from MIT doing computer vision for military satellite imaging

ohithereyou 8y ago
I did two undergraduate research projects with DARPA funding, and that experience alone made me realize that I did not want military funding, and that I was not the kind of person that would be happy making munitions.

chrissnell 8y ago

"The goal of the military is to settle international conflict through violence." That is misleading. The purpose of the military is to safeguard the interests of our country through its presence and--if necessary--decisive violence. No US military leader wants to fight a war; that notion is absurd. Don't confuse the desires of the military with the occasional desires of its civilian leadership.

empath75 8y ago
Well, regardless of what it wants, it’s primary means of achieving those ends is through violence or the threat of violence. The military is not particularly well suited to nation building and other peaceful tasks, as we’ve repeatedly seen.
pessimizer 8y ago
To settle international conflict through violence and the threat of violence.
arka2147483647 8y ago
With respect, that amount to much of the same with different words. Not that I disagree with you or him, just pointing out that to me you two differ in you points of view, not in substance.
- zepto 8y ago
  They are definitely not “much the same”. One implies that violence is the goal, the other that the capacity to be violent is necessary even when actual violence is undesirable. These are absolutely different in meaning.
- ThenAsNow 8y ago
  > With respect, that amount to much of the same with different words. They are describing two different intents; one is to seek to settle conflict through the use of violence, and the other is to accomplish the same end through the ability to inflict violence. The latter does not presume an innate desire to use the instruments of violence, only the will and ability to do so if so instructed. Deterrence is a real thing and not the same thing as being bloodthirsty.
tommyderami 8y ago
I'd agree, although I don't think the author is being deliberately misleading, it's probably more an issue of public perception due to Hollywood and anecdotal conversations. DoD members swear to "support and defend the constitution of the United States, against all enemies, foreign and domestic". Sometimes that means brandishing a stick, sometimes that means swinging it, but we're pretty agnostic about the means to achieve that defense.
hpcjoe 8y ago
The vast majority of soldiers I know, whom have been blooded in war, do not wish military conflict to occur. "War is politics by other means", paraphrasing von Clausewitz. Its fundamentally backing up one's political positions by force of arms, to impose upon one's adversary. While there are some jingoistic people who relish conflict, they tend not to be the ones making decisions. This isn't always the case, but militaries know what happens when adventurism runs amok. That is, wise generals would prefer (imperfect) political solutions to problems, as compared to imposition of will by force. But simultaneously, they know they may be called upon to impose that force.
50656E6973 8y ago
>No US military leader wants to fight a war; that notion is absurd. It may be absurd but it's not unrealistic; there is historical precedent. Don't underestimate the power of ideology to override rationality. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
- ambicapter 8y ago
  Operation Northwoods...didn't happen.
forapurpose 8y ago
> No US military leader wants to fight a war; that notion is absurd. I think your general point is good, but there are people, including people in government, who see war as a low-cost, acceptable means of achieving ends, including rallying domestic political support. For example, at one point I noticed that over a short time hawkish Republican leaders in the U.S., including John McCain, favored increasing involvement in Afghanistan, attacking Iran (rather than negotiating), increasing involvement in Iraq, intervening in Syria, intervening in Egypt (IIRC), intervening in Sudan (in Darfur, though that might not have been contemporaneous), and intervening in Libya. If you look at a map, that's war in most countries from central Asia to near the middle of Africa's Mediterranean coast. The GOP, starting before Trump, often vocally disdains the alternative to war, diplomacy. The Trump administration has taken it to a policy level worked to undermine the United States' relations with other countries and openly advocated, including in written op-eds from administration members, 'a return to geopolitical competition' - i.e., the state of things before WWII, which led to centuries of wars. They've abandoned treaty after treaty, and damaged the U.S.'s reputation so that they can't be trusted to adhere to future agreements (which I think is intentional, an attempt make the move away from diplomacy irreversible). The Trump administration openly works against the rule-based international order and openly opposes international law; the alternative to law and order is anarchy; the alternative to those mechanisms is war. The Trump administration also has gutted State Department; they've attempted to gut its budget (Congress hasn't always agreed), they've cut and obstructed many programs, forced out a large proportion of talent (my vague memory is that they forced or urged out over a third of the most senior officers, who are, as I understand it, irreplaceable), and disrupted hiring. Why would you destroy the means of diplomacy if you don't seek war?
jacquesm 8y ago
Our? I don't recall you speaking for me. And you are presuming you know where the visitors of HN hail from. Guess what, they're all over the world.
- astura 8y ago
  It's not incorrect to use "our" in this context even though the speaker's audience is international, "our" doesn't always mean "mine and yours" is can also mean "mine and someone else's," that use isn't event uncommon. We talk about "our family" to people outside of the speaker's family and we talk about "our country" to people outside of the speaker's country. It's natural. our /ˈou(ə)r,är/ determiner possesive pronoun: our 1. belonging to or associated with the speaker and one or more other people previously mentioned or easily identified. "Jo and I had our hair cut" belonging to or associated with people in general. "when we hear a sound, our brains identify the source quickly" 2. used by a writer, editor, or monarch to refer to something belonging to or associated with himself or herself. "we want to know what you, our readers, think"
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    Even then it is still incorrect because it presumes a shared viewpoint with other US citizens. Who might disagree.
    - astura 8y ago
      No its not and no it doesn't; it's extremely clear what the speaker meant, you just wanted to get outraged for no reason.

tommyderami 8y ago

While I don't come to the same conclusion, I think this is a great example of presenting a well reasoned argument for a position that is not widely held. I would love to see more debate over topics like this they doesn't resort to name calling, straw man arguments and all or nothing conclusions.

Zanni 8y ago
Agreed. I wish more political discourse followed this model. I too disagree with his stance on the military, but I applaud his decision to take an individual stand without hectoring, hyperbole or bad faith arguments. He states his position clearly for others to take or leave as they see fit.

aratno 8y ago

Many of the reasons he stated can also be applied to VC funding: > One thing that makes the slope so slippery is that you have accumulated responsibility for a lab full of graduate students, and the consequences of a major drop in funding will be even more painful for them than it is for you.

azhenley 8y ago
But he would probably be able to support more grad students, that may not otherwise be able to be in grad school, if he took the military funding.
- aratno 8y ago
  But do you think that the total number of grad students is a measure of good? If so, it makes sense to get funding for them by any means necessary. But if not, there is an amount of unethical, unacceptable funding which trumps the good of the grad students it provides for. Couldn’t some other professor take the available funding, and support those additional students?
astura 8y ago
Or any funding of any sort from any source, public or private, for that matter. It's a total garbage argument; anyone can require something you disagree with as a condition for continuation of funding, the military is not special in this regard. It's basically akin to saying "don't get a job because if you do then your boss might eventually ask you to do something (that's legal) that you disagree with." Ridiculous.
- aratno 8y ago
  I don’t think it’s ridiculous. I think it simply says that people with stringent ethics cannot serve others and cede control. They may bootstrap their own businesses, become their own bosses, or find another way to operate independently. For some, control is relinquished to VCs. For others, it is the funders of their research, or their bosses. Most people are not as picky about their ethics as they are about their diets.

rrggrr 8y ago

> Military action, with its inevitable consequences to civilian populations, creates and fuels deadly threats, and therefore increases the danger that our country faces. Wrong. The United States is inexorably in conflict nations whose domestic policy failures cause them to act in often violent ways that threaten US interests. If academia adopted Kuipers' position we would be no closer to peace, and much closer to living under another country's tyranny. Ask the people of Tibet as just one example.

forapurpose 8y ago
I think simplifying the issue distracts us from the real issues, which are complex. The U.S. uses its military for good purposes and for bad. Sometimes war is due to other country's actions, sometimes due to the U.S.'s (e.g., Iraq), and probably usually due to both. For example, the immediate causes of many U.S. wars later turn out to be false, such as the destruction of the Maine which precipitated the Spanish-American War, the Gulf of Tonkin which began full-scale intervention in Vietnam, and the WMD in Iraq. But even wars that are justified lead to bad outcomes, as the author states: What war hasn't had the consequences you quoted? Unfortunately, sometimes, those are the best outcomes available, but it's quite a moral decision to inflict that on others.

i_am_proteus 8y ago

There will always be actors willing to take, by force, whatever they can from those who are unable to defend themselves. History did not "end" when the USSR collapsed.

jasode 8y ago

>, after completing my PhD thesis on cognitive maps, I found that the only funding agency that was interested in supporting my research wanted to build smart cruise missiles that could find their way to their targets. This was not what I wanted my life's work to support. But if the military really really wanted to, couldn't it just "launder" their funding via "worthy humanitarian" causes? The government could find a more socially palatable institution (or possibly create one from scratch) and funnels the research money through that. The unknowing scientist then thinks his cognitive maps is fighting cancer cells or detecting crime but in reality, it's going to ultimately end up in a cruise missile. Like a lot of basic research, the knowledge can be legitimately applied to humanitarian purposes so those laundering schemes are not a total fiction in terms of beneficial results for society. It's impossible to disentangle good-vs-evil uses of knowledge or technology. I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from abandoning their principles but I think the government can invent clever ways of disguising their goals. E.g. A mechanical engineer that wouldn't work on exoskeletons for Army soldiers to help kill people but would feel ethically ok with funding from a charity[0] to help paraplegics gain freedom of movement. Since the scientist can't know the provenance of all funds, maybe he's still helping the Army after all. [0] e.g.: https://www.unitedspinal.org/ https://www.unitedspinal.org/

peterlk 8y ago
I think this is too cynical; to the point of being harmful. This argument resonates with me like the argument to not vote because your individual vote doesn't matter. You say that you're not trying to dissuade people from their principles, but the implication of your argument is that Dr. Kuipers' approach is too naive. We do what we can with the knowledge and resources we have. And if people are inspired to action (or inaction in this case, perhaps), then the world changes, even if slowly. If the military is creating organizations to "launder" money to make it look like it's not going to the military, then it seems to me that Dr. Kuipers has been successful in shifting the culture around military research. And that is no small feat. It may also bring about constructive conversations about the balance between hard power and soft power in international (and human) relationships.
- jasode 8y ago

sneak 8y ago

Also relevant: https://slashdot.org/story/12/04/03/1656224/mitch-altman-parts-ways-with-maker-fair-over-darpa-grant https://slashdot.org/story/12/04/03/1656224/mitch-altman-par... This is a principled stance, and one I vehemently agree with. I wish more in our line of work would so actively reject associating with those who deal in violence (whether “justified” or not).

hjek 8y ago

Theo de Raadt about OpenBSD receiving DARPA funding[0]: > I actually am fairly uncomfortable about it, even if our firm stipulation was that they cannot tell us what to do. We are simply doing what we do anyways - securing software - and they have no say in the matter. I try to convince myself that our grant means a half of a cruise missile doesn't get built. [0]: https://www.smh.com.au/technology/openbsd-loses-funding-due-to-anti-war-statements-20030421-gdgmy4.html https://www.smh.com.au/technology/openbsd-loses-funding-due-...

davebryand 8y ago

Suspending judgement on this individual's stance, it's refreshing to see someone that is basing their actions on clearly articulated principles.

beefeater 8y ago

If this idiot got his way, we'd all be speaking Japanese right now. Kuipers is further proof that the only computer scientists who go into academia are those who can't hack it in private industry. What a fundamentally unintelligent human being.

fouric 8y ago

The United States could certainly be less war-happy, in my opinion, but what happens if some group decides to declare war on another, or commit atrocities, and absolutely refuses to negotiate? Or what if negotiations take months or years, and more human lives are lost in that time than would be through war? I'm not saying that most or even a significant fraction of the US's wars up until this point have been justified, but professor Kuipers seems to be of the opinion that violence should never be used to settle international conflicts.

hintymad 8y ago
Exactly! I don't quite get the sentiment that military is nothing but evil, either. Hasn't history taught us enough? How many peace-loving civilization got destroyed by those who had no interests in producing but looting? Look at Song Dynasty. Look at Ming Dynasty. Look at European cities when Mongolian invaded. Hundreds of thousands of people were slaughtered. Hundreds of cities were looted, burnt down, and destroyed. Millions of people were slaved for generations. Trade were banned. Civilization was set back by hundreds of years. Americans and Europeans may have been in peace and prosperity for so long and got so comfortable that they started to hate everything their forbears have built and fought for. I'm not sure about you guys, but I certainly cherish the literature, the math, the science, then engineering, the philosophy, the political systems (not that they are flawless, but it took us a long time to get where we are), and more. What a shame.
DenisM 8y ago
>what happens if some group decides to declare war on another, or commit atrocities, We don't have to guess - Ygoslavian war in the 90s was exactly that. Atrocities continued until US&UK dropped on the theater. OTOH there is no shortage of situations where US involvement was the atrocity. So maybe it's not the military per se, it's how you use it.

dwheeler 8y ago

This individual recommends that society do nothing even though there are other military powers. I don't agree. Edmund Burke had something to say about two centuries ago: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Absence of a military means a commitment to doing nothing. If all Americans don't take military funding, the result will not be a nicer world. The result of US society following this advice would be the subjugation of the US, and possibly all western democracies, by other countries. Where possible, militaries should not be used, because violence is a terrible thing... and that is something most military personnel already know. But absence of a military often produces means slaughter by another. In practice, countries only independently exist if (1) they have a military or (2) they have an ally with a military who is willing to use it on their behalf. If a country is unwilling to work out its defense, another country will be happy to take it over.

Eupolemos 8y ago
This could be true, but I don't think it is. There's a lot of money to be made in making weapons if there's a war. And the US is constantly waging wars, rarely with victory-conditions thought out in advance. As long as the money-makers continue to find excuses rather than reasons for waging war, I think there's solid grounds for not wanting to participate.
colonelxc 8y ago
I read it differently. They are not advocating against the military, just that they will not participate. They are not trying to say that all CS (or any field) should wholly shun military work, just that they have. Choice quote: """Do you try to keep others from taking military funding? No. Mine is an individual testimony, and each person makes an individual decision about how they will spend their life's work."""
- deleted 8y ago
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- marcoperaza 8y ago
  I think there's something to Kant's first formulation of the Categorical Imperative: Act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law. Edit: to address a common confusion: this has nothing to do with imposing a rule on others. This formulation only says that you ought to act in conformance with rules that you would want all others to act by as well.

dang 8y ago

A good discussion from 2016: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11478951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11478951

writepub 8y ago

I'd like to propose a counter to the "military==evil" argument. Specifically > "I believe that non-violent methods of conflict resolution provide the only methods for protecting our country against the deadly threats we face in the long run. " Western free society is a hierarchical entity, much like a tech stack. While in tech, the lowest foundation layer is hardware, it is "security" for civil society. The fact is that the rest of society completely collapses if people, companies, and civil structure cease to be secure. History, statistics & a scientific analysis of conflict provides strong evidence for the reliance on military might for building layers of civilization over it. It is disingenuous to state, as the author has, that this is fully and completely achievable without a military, or use of force. It is also appalling, that while the author's day job is rooted in evidence, science & peer-review, those principles have been ignored in deriving his "truths" about civil society. What we should be concerned about is the misuse of military power. The way the US is setup, military/executive branch are a lot more accountable to it's citizens than other structures of governance. It allows law-makers (who represent the electorate) to tweak or check abuse and while this may NOT be perfect, it certainly forms the foundation for betterment.

tommyderami 8y ago

One thing I thing that is worth considering regarding whether or not to accept DoD funding is what kind of research/end goal it supports. Many research projects seek to improve the precision of lethal actions or the quality of intelligence that informs those actions ie In WWII if the only blunt tool you had hit the enemy was carpet bombing their cities that contained production facilities or government officials, then that's what we did, but with the advent of precision-guided munitions we have the opportunity to limit civilian collateral when striking targets. Similarly, if there was a technology that allowed us to see through walls to see if armed bad guys were on the other side, we could avoid pre-emptively clearing the room with a flash-bang or grenade when it instead housed a family. Certainly, most weapons can be turned into tools of malfeasance, so we shouldn't assume that any advancement will result in lowering the human cost of conflict, but if you accept that violence will happen whether or participate in it or not, some may choose to add scientific knowledge that could make that violence more humane/limited.

tech101_2 8y ago

It's just a matter of time before technology is used to the worst and best of it's capabilities... Someone will always be there to take the money, but I applaud you, sir.

deleted 8y ago
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_emacsomancer_ 8y ago

Or one could do the Chomsky thing and take military funding and use it for research that doesn't actually have clear military applications but looks like it might.

gaius 8y ago
This was Chomsky's approach to all research.

ryanmarsh 8y ago

Refusing to take military funding does not prevent war, or even make it significantly harder to prosecute such that there will be fewer wars. You cannot induce some sort safe stalemate by not accepting military funding. This no-military-funding meme prevalent in tech circles is virtue signaling writ large. War happens when leaders choose to go to war. Technology does not directly lead to new wars.

kazinator 8y ago

I suspect you have to read between the lines here. Kuipers says that "the goal of the military is to settle international conflict through violence", but of course, as someone of far above average intelligence, he understands that if you have no military, then (1) a hostile, belligerent foreign power has no incentive to use the tools of peaceful conflict resolution with you no matter how available they are and (2) your sovereignty may well succumb to violence. Rather, I suspect, what he really means here is that the goal of the American military is to settle other countries' international conflicts through violence, participating in conflicts in which the USA is not even remotely under attack. If you believe such a thing, then you have a rationally founded reason to refuse military funding of USA origin.

randcraw 8y ago
Kuipers states directly that he believes solving disagreements through violence is ineffective and wrong. He is not talking about other countries, only about the possible sources of funding for his research, namely the US military (and possibly their intelligence agencies). As someone committed to nonviolence, and keenly aware that America has a long history of exporting violence to supposedly solve problems on foreign soil (but never seems todo so), I think he sees his duty as extending to the practicality of violent solutions, not just the philosophical bases, as you suggest. I'd agree with him on this point. I can't think of a conflict since Korea that was solved (thoroughly and lastingly and without major loss of civilian life) using the US military to invade.
- philwelch 8y ago
  > I can't think of a conflict since Korea that was solved (thoroughly and lastingly and without major loss of civilian life) using the US military to invade. Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Panama, and Grenada.

selimthegrim 8y ago

I think Phil Rogaway at UC Davis has a similar page.

tanderson92 8y ago
You're probably thinking of this: http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/moral.html http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/moral.html
- deleted 8y ago
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gaius 8y ago

I am genuinely curious as to the author’s proposed non-violent means of settling with Al Queda et al, but he doesn’t go into any details. If you listened to OBL’s speech after 9/11 what he was most upset about was the downfall of the Caliphate in Turkey some 80 years previous. Similarly ISIS mission was to provoke a war with “Rome” to fulfill the prophecy of the 13th Imam (I may be hazy on the details). There’s literally no peaceful solution that any Western government could offer them.

peisistratos 8y ago
The problem is that Al Queda and Osama bin Laden are the fruits of American military funding as well. The "chickens coming home to roost" as Obama's former pastor put it. The US desired to overthrow Afghanistan's secular government in the 1970s and 1980s so it funded and armed Osama bin Laden and various jihadists to launch a terrorist campaign against the Saur government. Bin Laden had the same principles in the 1970s as he did to the end - when the Pakistani high command handed him over to the Americans (read Seymour Hersh or the Urdu Pakistani press on the handover, the US press printed fictious news on his death ). What angered the Arabs who flew a plane into the Pentagon was imperial acts such as the US military occupation of Arabia. Propping up the Saud dictatorship which is currently supporting massacres in Yemen and slicing up Washington Post journalists in their embassies. Bin Laden is a creation of US military funding, he does not make a good Boogeyman for more US military funding.
lostlogin 8y ago
Where does this argument factor in a century of the civilised west bombing the region and arming some of the worst governments in the modern world.
- gaius 8y ago
  Umm, because there is no such thing as a time machine? Any serious proposals have to start with the state of the world as it presently is.
  - lostlogin 8y ago

nec4b 8y ago

In my mind he is similar to anti-vaxxers. He can afford his position, only because actions of a large majority of other people are keeping him safe.

bb611 8y ago
The large majority of Americans work for the military industrial complex?
- nec4b 8y ago
  I think you are asking me the wrong question here. If we keep things in context, the right question is: Does the large majority of people who get the chance to be funded by the military accept its offer? The answer is yes.

mcguire 8y ago

Ben Kuipers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Kuipers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Kuipers, http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~kuipers/ http://web.eecs.umich.edu/~kuipers/) is an incredibly nice man and good professor, and while I was at UT Austin he was the department chairman at least once. I never took a class from him and I don't even have any funny or embarrassing stories about him. In person, he's sounds very much like he writes here.

themattmans 8y ago
I read this piece before taking a class of his at UM and very much respected him for the thoughtfulness of his position in this post. From what I recall I never remember him bringing this up during class. He made for one of the most intellectually stimulating foundational CS courses I took in college. This post still resonates with me to this day.
- mcguire 8y ago
  He doesn't talk about himself much. I didn't know he was a Quaker until someone else mentioned it.

mkhattab 8y ago

Perhaps we need to distinguish, if at all possible these days, between the military and the military industrial complex. I don't believe the military is inherently evil but think it's necessary to the defense of the country. The military industrial complex, on the other hand, is in the business of warfare and perhaps not as necessary as we might think.