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A bit OT, but I wonder how I'd feel if I was offered a job working on software for missiles. I'm sure the technical challenge would be immensely interesting, a

A bit OT, but I wonder how I'd feel if I was offered a job working on software for missiles. I'm sure the technical challenge would be immensely interesting, and I could tell myself that I cared more about accuracy and correctness than other potential hires... but from a moral standpoint, I don't think I could bring myself to do it. I realise of course that the military uses all sorts of software, including line of business apps, and indeed several military organisations use the B2B security software that my microISV sells, but I think it's very different to directly working on software for killing machines.

ezoe 7y ago
Well, there is a SAM system which is designed to kill missiles, not the humans. That said, I think any software development which involves the government aren't fun at all for all the bureaucracies and inefficiency.
cushychicken 7y ago
I recently interviewed, and was offered a job at, Draper Labs in Cambridge MA. The technical work was super interesting. Everyone I spoke to was plainly super sharp, and not morally bankrupt. I fielded similar moral concerns as you, but truthfully, I don't really have much of a personal ethical problem with it. I was a little more concerned at having to explain it to all of my friends, many of whom are substantially more liberal leaning in political views than I am. Perception, and the pay cut I'd have to take from my current work, ended up being the major things that stopped me from taking it.
- TedDoesntTalk 7y ago
  First time I’ve heard of someone accepting or not accepting a job based on peer perception. Maybe you should re-evaluate who your peers are if they can’t accept you for your career choices?
  - DavidVoid 7y ago
    Or maybe they trust/value their peer's judgement despite the fact that they themselves don't have any strong views on the subject?
    - TedDoesntTalk 7y ago
      Relying on other's opinions to make one of the most important decisions in your life -- where you will spend 40 hours or more week -- is pathetic. It's one thing to "trust/value" their peer's judgement, but it's quite another for their opinions to make your decisions for you. Good luck with that. Haha.
  - cushychicken 7y ago
    That's a pretty reductive and reactionary comment, and I feel like I'm succumbing to some of my worst impulses by responding to it four days later. But, clearly, some point in there has touched a nerve, so here goes: For one thing: it missed (or ignored, but I'll default to "missed") my point about the large pay cut involved. For another: it stack ranked peer perception as being more important in my decisionmaking than the pay cut. My original comment certainly appears to value perception over pay. That's a huge miscommunication of my priorities, and my fault. I wasn't about to take a 30% pay cut. The fact that I'd also have to withstand the negative scrutiny of my friends and family just made it that much easier to decline. For a third: we all hope to do work that we can be proud of. Part of that pride is to be able to hold up the fruits of our labor to others and take pride in having participated in it. I don't think I could have done that without thinking twice had I taken that job - and I'm not just talking about the security clearance angle here. Dealing with the negative reactions from my friends and family would have been a problem for me. Not the biggest one, but a problem. Acceptance is a big precursor to feeling safe, and self actualized. I feel the acceptance of a group of peers now. I do not want to trade that for more intellectually challenging work with an ethical component that my friends and family find questionable. I'd apply this reasoning in equal part to a role where I was paid more, but just as questionable. (I don't want to get rich building technology that enables the next Bernie Madoff, for example.) Perhaps I'm of a weaker intellectual constitution than you are to be so easily influenced by the opinion of other people. However, I view that mental flexibility as a strength. I also trust the opinion (and, by extension, the underlying moral character) of my peers, who have been a positive moral force in my life. Hence, it was important to me not to compromise their trust and acceptance of me, and my career choices.
mopsi 7y ago
> I'm sure the technical challenge would be immensely interesting, and I could tell myself that I cared more about accuracy and correctness than other potential hires... but from a moral standpoint, I don't think I could bring myself to do it. Why? The more precise missiles are, the better. If no-one agreed to build missile guidance systems, we'd still have carpet bombing and artillery with 100m accuracy.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  People might use them less, though.
  - TedDoesntTalk 7y ago
    How naive. More likely they’d be used just as often, but more civilians would die. See the v1 and v2 nazi rockets, for example, which didn’t have any software.
jmpman 7y ago
Straight out of college, I was offered a job writing software for missiles. Extremely interesting area, working for my adjunct professor’s team, who I highly admired and whose class was the best of my college career. The pay was on par with all my other offers. I didn’t accept for two reasons. First, I logically agreed that the missiles were supporting our armed services and I believed that our government was generally on the right side of history and needed the best technology to continue defending our freedoms. However, a job, when executed with passion, becomes a very defining core of your identity. I didn’t want death and destruction as my core. I support and admire my college friends who did accept such jobs, but it just wasn’t for me. Second, I had interned at a government contractor, (not the missile manufacturer), and what I saw deeply disturbed me. I came on to a project which was 5 years into a 3 year schedule, and not expected to ship for another 2 years. Shocked, I asked my team lead “Why didn’t the government just cancel the contract and assign the work to another company?”, her reply, “If they did that, the product likely wouldn’t be delivered in under two years, so they stick with us”. I understood that this mentality was pervasive, and would ultimately become part of me, if I continued to work for that company. That mentality was completely unacceptable in the competitive commercial world, and I feared the complacency which would infect me and not prepare me for the eventual time when I’d need to look for a job outside that company. As a graduating senior, I attended our college job fair, and when speaking with another (non missile) government contractor, I told the recruiter that I was hesitant working for a his company because I thought it wouldn’t keep me as competitive throughout my career. I repeated the story from my internship, and asked if I’d find the same mentality at his company. His face dropped the cheerful recruiter facade, when he pulled me aside and sternly instructed “You should never repeat that story”. I took that as an overwhelming “yes”. So, my concern was that working for this missile manufacturer, this government contractor mentality would work its way into their company (if it hadn’t already), and it would be bad for my long term career. I wanted to remain competitive on a global commercial scale, without relying upon government support.
- Razengan 7y ago
  > he pulled me aside and sternly instructed “You should never repeat that story” We really need more exposure for the things that people like that want to silence..
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
GuB-42 7y ago
There are different kinds of killing machines. And accurate missiles are among the least bad. With the exception of nuclear weapons (that's another topic), missiles are designed to destroy one particular target of strategic importance and nothing more. They are too expensive as mass killing weapons, but they are particularly appropriate for defense. Without missiles, you may need to launch an assault, destroying everything on your way to the target, risk soldier lives, etc... Less accurate weapons mean higher yield to compensate, so more needless destruction. War is terrible, but I'd rather have it fought with missiles than with mass produced bombs, machine guns, and worst of all, mines.
- BiteCode_dev 7y ago
  On the other hand, making killing a target easier to do gives you the incentive to do just this instead of trying to find an alternative solution. Case in point: currently the country with the best army in the world is also the one going the most at war.
jpmattia 7y ago
> but from a moral standpoint, I don't think I could bring myself to do it. I've been in a similar situation, and I think there is something important to think about: Assuming you'd be working for the defense of a country with a track record of decency (at least a good fraction of the time anyway), you have to decide what people you want taking those jobs. Is it better that all of the people with qualms refuse to take the positions? ie Do you want that work being done by people with no qualms? Because that sounds pretty terrible too.
- GordonS 7y ago
  > Assuming you'd be working for the defense of a country with a track record of decency (at least a good fraction of the time anyway) Yes, this is the kicker for me. My country does not have such a record. If it did, the hypothetical quandry would still exist, but would be much diminished.
dahart 7y ago
I had a family friend who worked on missiles and drones and other defense systems. He was really one of my dad’s running buddies, and he was a super nice guy, had 4 kids, went to church, etc. One day, I believe during the Iraq occupation, maybe ~12 or 13 years ago, I asked him very directly how he felt about working on these killing machines and whether it bothered him. He smiled and asked if I’d rather have the war here in the U.S.. He also told me he feels like he’s saving lives by being able to so directly target the political enemies, without as much collateral damage as in the past. New technology, he truly believed was preventing innocent civilians from being killed. It certainly made me think about it, and maybe appreciate somewhat the perspective of people who end up working on war technology, even if I wouldn’t do it. This point of view assumes we’re going to have a war anyway, and no doubt the ideal is just not to have wars, so maybe there’s some rationalization, but OTOH maybe he’s right that he is helping to make the best of a bad situation and saving lives compared to what might happen otherwise.
- alex_young 7y ago
  Costa Rica hasn’t had a standing military since 1948. They are in one of the most politically unstable parts of the world and do just fine without worry of invasion. The US hasn’t been attacked militarily on its own soil in the modern era. The US military monopoly hasn’t prevented horrific attacks such as 9/11 executed by groups claiming to be motivated by our foreign military campaigns. I think there is a valid question about the moral culpability of working in this area.
  - dahart 7y ago
    Of course there is a valid question about the morals of war technology. You are absolutely right about that, and I am not even remotely suggesting otherwise. Like I said, I don’t think I would ever choose to work on it. There’s a vast chasm in between right and wrong though. There can be understanding of others’ perspectives, regardless of my personal judgement. And there is also a valid question and tightly related question here about the morals of mitigating damage during a military conflict, especially if the mitigation prevents innocent deaths. If there’s a hard moral line between doctors and cooks and drivers and snipers and drone programmers, I don’t know exactly where it lies. Doctors are generally considered morally good, even war doctors, but if we are at war, it’s certainly better to prevent an injury than to treat one. The best goal in my opinion is no war.
kebman 7y ago
Oh, I'm sure you'd make a killing! :D <3
enriquto 7y ago
> A bit OT, but I wonder how I'd feel if I was offered a job working on software for missiles. Unless you are an extreme pacifist (which is a perfectly reasonable thing to be), you'll acknowledge the legitimate need for the existence of an army in your country. In that case, the army better be equipped by missiles than by youths carrying bayonets. Then, there's nothing wrong in providing these missiles with technologically advanced guiding systems. On the other hand, if I worked in "algorithmic trading" or fancy "financial instruments" I would not be able to sleep at night without a fair dose of drugs.
- GordonS 7y ago
  It's not that I'm a pacifist, but more that I don't trust my government (UK, but I have the same issues with the US gov too) to do justifiable things with them. If they were for defense only, I might be able to do it. But instead they are sold to any government with the means to pay, regardless of their human rights record or how they will be used (e.g. Saudi). Aside from selling them on, they are used in conflicts that are hard to justify, beyond filling the coffers of the rich and powerful. Take the latest Iraq war for example: started based on falsified evidence, hundreds of thousands dead, atrocities carried out by the west, schools bombed, incidents covered up... Given these realities, I just couldn't do it. My original musing was more thinking along the lines of an ideal world, where I trusted my government; I'm still not sure I could do it.
- fancyfredbot 7y ago
  I suppose we have the 2008 crisis to thank for creating a popular view that finance is an entirely morally corrupt industry. Perhaps it's not surprising given the role "fancy financial instruments" played there. All the same, it strikes me as strange to find moving risk around to be more morally difficult than designing a missile - moving risk around is at least sometimes straightforwardly beneficial for everyone involved, a missile strike less so...
TedDoesntTalk 7y ago
To offer a contrarian point of view: I’d jump at such an opportunity... to work in such a technically interesting area AND help keep my country technologically relevant. It’s a no-brainer.
- GordonS 7y ago
  For me (and I would imagine a lot of people), it's far from a no-brainer. While it would undoubtedly be interesting from a technical standpoint, there is a serious moral conundrum - even if it was an ideal world where you trusted your government not to start wars based on flimsy or falsified evidence, start wars for profit, or sell weapons to less scrupulous governments.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    Would you rather live in a world dominated by USA or USSR or China or Nazi Germany? Remember you don't get to take away everyone's missiles.
    - GordonS 7y ago
      The world isn't binary; I don't think the options you laid out are the only possibilities. I take your point though, and I'd have much less of a dilemma if the missiles in question were not to be sold to other governments, and only to be used for domestic defence or a clear world-threat type scenario. Which for many Western countries is of course not going to happen.
  - TedDoesntTalk 7y ago
    That’s fine. I am expressing my opinion and you yours. I don’t trust my government with everything, but I’d much rather keep the status quo than see China or another country reign in my lifetime.
lainga 7y ago
Cue the picture of the protestors holding a sign reading "this machine kills innocents!"... next to a MIM-104. There are many types of missiles.
tomcam 7y ago
I mean all due respect with this question. Not an attack. Do you think your country should have such missiles? If not, how would you handle the defense case in which your country is attacked but does not have them? Also note that most of Europe is defended by these missiles made in the USA.
- GordonS 7y ago
  I've mentioned this a few times already in other comments, but I'd be in much less of a quandry about missiles used for defense purposes. Especially so if they could only be used for shooting down other missiles.
- int_19h 7y ago
  In the real world, the dilemma is more often, "do you think your country, and all other countries it considers allies, should have such missiles"? Right now, for example, Saudi Arabia is bombing Yemen with American-made bombs, and Turkey is using German tanks and Italian drones to grind Kurdish towns and villages into rubble in Syria.
Twirrim 7y ago
> A bit OT, but I wonder how I'd feel if I was offered a job working on software for missiles. At one stage in my career I had an opportunity to go work for Betfair. I knew several people there and could bypass most or all of the interview process. At the time a rapidly growing on-line gambling company, wasn't quite the major company it is now. They were paying about half as much again over my existing salary, and technology wise it would have been a good opportunity. I ended up having quite a long conversation with a few co-workers around the morality of it. I was against it, for what I thought were pretty much obvious reasons. The house always wins, gambling is an amazing con built up on destroying lives. I don't want to be a part of that, much like I wouldn't work for a tobacco company, oil company etc. Co-workers were taking what they saw as more pragmatic perspective: Gamblers gonna gamble, doesn't matter if the site is there or not.
- jmpman 7y ago
  The reality behind corporate casinos is a bit more disheartening. Using analytics, from their “players club” cards, they know what zip code you’re from, and based upon that, they approximate your income. They know that if you lose too much, then your wife isn’t going to allow you to return to Vegas. Each income level has a certain pain threshold for how much you can lose in a year. The casino’s work very hard to ensure you don’t go over that limit. If you’re on a bad losing streak, they’ll send a host over to offer you tickets to a show or a buffet. The goal is to get you AWAY from gambling. They know you’re an addict, but want to keep the addiction going. That’s where they cross the ethical line.

ezoe 7y ago

Well, there is a SAM system which is designed to kill missiles, not the humans. That said, I think any software development which involves the government aren't fun at all for all the bureaucracies and inefficiency.

cushychicken 7y ago

I recently interviewed, and was offered a job at, Draper Labs in Cambridge MA. The technical work was super interesting. Everyone I spoke to was plainly super sharp, and not morally bankrupt. I fielded similar moral concerns as you, but truthfully, I don't really have much of a personal ethical problem with it. I was a little more concerned at having to explain it to all of my friends, many of whom are substantially more liberal leaning in political views than I am. Perception, and the pay cut I'd have to take from my current work, ended up being the major things that stopped me from taking it.

TedDoesntTalk 7y ago
First time I’ve heard of someone accepting or not accepting a job based on peer perception. Maybe you should re-evaluate who your peers are if they can’t accept you for your career choices?
- DavidVoid 7y ago
  Or maybe they trust/value their peer's judgement despite the fact that they themselves don't have any strong views on the subject?
  - TedDoesntTalk 7y ago
    Relying on other's opinions to make one of the most important decisions in your life -- where you will spend 40 hours or more week -- is pathetic. It's one thing to "trust/value" their peer's judgement, but it's quite another for their opinions to make your decisions for you. Good luck with that. Haha.
- cushychicken 7y ago
  That's a pretty reductive and reactionary comment, and I feel like I'm succumbing to some of my worst impulses by responding to it four days later. But, clearly, some point in there has touched a nerve, so here goes: For one thing: it missed (or ignored, but I'll default to "missed") my point about the large pay cut involved. For another: it stack ranked peer perception as being more important in my decisionmaking than the pay cut. My original comment certainly appears to value perception over pay. That's a huge miscommunication of my priorities, and my fault. I wasn't about to take a 30% pay cut. The fact that I'd also have to withstand the negative scrutiny of my friends and family just made it that much easier to decline. For a third: we all hope to do work that we can be proud of. Part of that pride is to be able to hold up the fruits of our labor to others and take pride in having participated in it. I don't think I could have done that without thinking twice had I taken that job - and I'm not just talking about the security clearance angle here. Dealing with the negative reactions from my friends and family would have been a problem for me. Not the biggest one, but a problem. Acceptance is a big precursor to feeling safe, and self actualized. I feel the acceptance of a group of peers now. I do not want to trade that for more intellectually challenging work with an ethical component that my friends and family find questionable. I'd apply this reasoning in equal part to a role where I was paid more, but just as questionable. (I don't want to get rich building technology that enables the next Bernie Madoff, for example.) Perhaps I'm of a weaker intellectual constitution than you are to be so easily influenced by the opinion of other people. However, I view that mental flexibility as a strength. I also trust the opinion (and, by extension, the underlying moral character) of my peers, who have been a positive moral force in my life. Hence, it was important to me not to compromise their trust and acceptance of me, and my career choices.

mopsi 7y ago

> I'm sure the technical challenge would be immensely interesting, and I could tell myself that I cared more about accuracy and correctness than other potential hires... but from a moral standpoint, I don't think I could bring myself to do it. Why? The more precise missiles are, the better. If no-one agreed to build missile guidance systems, we'd still have carpet bombing and artillery with 100m accuracy.

saagarjha 7y ago
People might use them less, though.
- TedDoesntTalk 7y ago
  How naive. More likely they’d be used just as often, but more civilians would die. See the v1 and v2 nazi rockets, for example, which didn’t have any software.

jmpman 7y ago

Straight out of college, I was offered a job writing software for missiles. Extremely interesting area, working for my adjunct professor’s team, who I highly admired and whose class was the best of my college career. The pay was on par with all my other offers. I didn’t accept for two reasons. First, I logically agreed that the missiles were supporting our armed services and I believed that our government was generally on the right side of history and needed the best technology to continue defending our freedoms. However, a job, when executed with passion, becomes a very defining core of your identity. I didn’t want death and destruction as my core. I support and admire my college friends who did accept such jobs, but it just wasn’t for me. Second, I had interned at a government contractor, (not the missile manufacturer), and what I saw deeply disturbed me. I came on to a project which was 5 years into a 3 year schedule, and not expected to ship for another 2 years. Shocked, I asked my team lead “Why didn’t the government just cancel the contract and assign the work to another company?”, her reply, “If they did that, the product likely wouldn’t be delivered in under two years, so they stick with us”. I understood that this mentality was pervasive, and would ultimately become part of me, if I continued to work for that company. That mentality was completely unacceptable in the competitive commercial world, and I feared the complacency which would infect me and not prepare me for the eventual time when I’d need to look for a job outside that company. As a graduating senior, I attended our college job fair, and when speaking with another (non missile) government contractor, I told the recruiter that I was hesitant working for a his company because I thought it wouldn’t keep me as competitive throughout my career. I repeated the story from my internship, and asked if I’d find the same mentality at his company. His face dropped the cheerful recruiter facade, when he pulled me aside and sternly instructed “You should never repeat that story”. I took that as an overwhelming “yes”. So, my concern was that working for this missile manufacturer, this government contractor mentality would work its way into their company (if it hadn’t already), and it would be bad for my long term career. I wanted to remain competitive on a global commercial scale, without relying upon government support.

Razengan 7y ago
> he pulled me aside and sternly instructed “You should never repeat that story” We really need more exposure for the things that people like that want to silence..

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

GuB-42 7y ago

There are different kinds of killing machines. And accurate missiles are among the least bad. With the exception of nuclear weapons (that's another topic), missiles are designed to destroy one particular target of strategic importance and nothing more. They are too expensive as mass killing weapons, but they are particularly appropriate for defense. Without missiles, you may need to launch an assault, destroying everything on your way to the target, risk soldier lives, etc... Less accurate weapons mean higher yield to compensate, so more needless destruction. War is terrible, but I'd rather have it fought with missiles than with mass produced bombs, machine guns, and worst of all, mines.

BiteCode_dev 7y ago
On the other hand, making killing a target easier to do gives you the incentive to do just this instead of trying to find an alternative solution. Case in point: currently the country with the best army in the world is also the one going the most at war.

jpmattia 7y ago

> but from a moral standpoint, I don't think I could bring myself to do it. I've been in a similar situation, and I think there is something important to think about: Assuming you'd be working for the defense of a country with a track record of decency (at least a good fraction of the time anyway), you have to decide what people you want taking those jobs. Is it better that all of the people with qualms refuse to take the positions? ie Do you want that work being done by people with no qualms? Because that sounds pretty terrible too.

GordonS 7y ago
> Assuming you'd be working for the defense of a country with a track record of decency (at least a good fraction of the time anyway) Yes, this is the kicker for me. My country does not have such a record. If it did, the hypothetical quandry would still exist, but would be much diminished.

dahart 7y ago

I had a family friend who worked on missiles and drones and other defense systems. He was really one of my dad’s running buddies, and he was a super nice guy, had 4 kids, went to church, etc. One day, I believe during the Iraq occupation, maybe ~12 or 13 years ago, I asked him very directly how he felt about working on these killing machines and whether it bothered him. He smiled and asked if I’d rather have the war here in the U.S.. He also told me he feels like he’s saving lives by being able to so directly target the political enemies, without as much collateral damage as in the past. New technology, he truly believed was preventing innocent civilians from being killed. It certainly made me think about it, and maybe appreciate somewhat the perspective of people who end up working on war technology, even if I wouldn’t do it. This point of view assumes we’re going to have a war anyway, and no doubt the ideal is just not to have wars, so maybe there’s some rationalization, but OTOH maybe he’s right that he is helping to make the best of a bad situation and saving lives compared to what might happen otherwise.

alex_young 7y ago
Costa Rica hasn’t had a standing military since 1948. They are in one of the most politically unstable parts of the world and do just fine without worry of invasion. The US hasn’t been attacked militarily on its own soil in the modern era. The US military monopoly hasn’t prevented horrific attacks such as 9/11 executed by groups claiming to be motivated by our foreign military campaigns. I think there is a valid question about the moral culpability of working in this area.
- dahart 7y ago
  Of course there is a valid question about the morals of war technology. You are absolutely right about that, and I am not even remotely suggesting otherwise. Like I said, I don’t think I would ever choose to work on it. There’s a vast chasm in between right and wrong though. There can be understanding of others’ perspectives, regardless of my personal judgement. And there is also a valid question and tightly related question here about the morals of mitigating damage during a military conflict, especially if the mitigation prevents innocent deaths. If there’s a hard moral line between doctors and cooks and drivers and snipers and drone programmers, I don’t know exactly where it lies. Doctors are generally considered morally good, even war doctors, but if we are at war, it’s certainly better to prevent an injury than to treat one. The best goal in my opinion is no war.

kebman 7y ago

Oh, I'm sure you'd make a killing! :D <3

enriquto 7y ago

> A bit OT, but I wonder how I'd feel if I was offered a job working on software for missiles. Unless you are an extreme pacifist (which is a perfectly reasonable thing to be), you'll acknowledge the legitimate need for the existence of an army in your country. In that case, the army better be equipped by missiles than by youths carrying bayonets. Then, there's nothing wrong in providing these missiles with technologically advanced guiding systems. On the other hand, if I worked in "algorithmic trading" or fancy "financial instruments" I would not be able to sleep at night without a fair dose of drugs.

GordonS 7y ago
It's not that I'm a pacifist, but more that I don't trust my government (UK, but I have the same issues with the US gov too) to do justifiable things with them. If they were for defense only, I might be able to do it. But instead they are sold to any government with the means to pay, regardless of their human rights record or how they will be used (e.g. Saudi). Aside from selling them on, they are used in conflicts that are hard to justify, beyond filling the coffers of the rich and powerful. Take the latest Iraq war for example: started based on falsified evidence, hundreds of thousands dead, atrocities carried out by the west, schools bombed, incidents covered up... Given these realities, I just couldn't do it. My original musing was more thinking along the lines of an ideal world, where I trusted my government; I'm still not sure I could do it.
fancyfredbot 7y ago
I suppose we have the 2008 crisis to thank for creating a popular view that finance is an entirely morally corrupt industry. Perhaps it's not surprising given the role "fancy financial instruments" played there. All the same, it strikes me as strange to find moving risk around to be more morally difficult than designing a missile - moving risk around is at least sometimes straightforwardly beneficial for everyone involved, a missile strike less so...

TedDoesntTalk 7y ago

To offer a contrarian point of view: I’d jump at such an opportunity... to work in such a technically interesting area AND help keep my country technologically relevant. It’s a no-brainer.

GordonS 7y ago
For me (and I would imagine a lot of people), it's far from a no-brainer. While it would undoubtedly be interesting from a technical standpoint, there is a serious moral conundrum - even if it was an ideal world where you trusted your government not to start wars based on flimsy or falsified evidence, start wars for profit, or sell weapons to less scrupulous governments.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Would you rather live in a world dominated by USA or USSR or China or Nazi Germany? Remember you don't get to take away everyone's missiles.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    The world isn't binary; I don't think the options you laid out are the only possibilities. I take your point though, and I'd have much less of a dilemma if the missiles in question were not to be sold to other governments, and only to be used for domestic defence or a clear world-threat type scenario. Which for many Western countries is of course not going to happen.
- TedDoesntTalk 7y ago
  That’s fine. I am expressing my opinion and you yours. I don’t trust my government with everything, but I’d much rather keep the status quo than see China or another country reign in my lifetime.

lainga 7y ago

Cue the picture of the protestors holding a sign reading "this machine kills innocents!"... next to a MIM-104. There are many types of missiles.

tomcam 7y ago

I mean all due respect with this question. Not an attack. Do you think your country should have such missiles? If not, how would you handle the defense case in which your country is attacked but does not have them? Also note that most of Europe is defended by these missiles made in the USA.

GordonS 7y ago
I've mentioned this a few times already in other comments, but I'd be in much less of a quandry about missiles used for defense purposes. Especially so if they could only be used for shooting down other missiles.
int_19h 7y ago
In the real world, the dilemma is more often, "do you think your country, and all other countries it considers allies, should have such missiles"? Right now, for example, Saudi Arabia is bombing Yemen with American-made bombs, and Turkey is using German tanks and Italian drones to grind Kurdish towns and villages into rubble in Syria.

Twirrim 7y ago

> A bit OT, but I wonder how I'd feel if I was offered a job working on software for missiles. At one stage in my career I had an opportunity to go work for Betfair. I knew several people there and could bypass most or all of the interview process. At the time a rapidly growing on-line gambling company, wasn't quite the major company it is now. They were paying about half as much again over my existing salary, and technology wise it would have been a good opportunity. I ended up having quite a long conversation with a few co-workers around the morality of it. I was against it, for what I thought were pretty much obvious reasons. The house always wins, gambling is an amazing con built up on destroying lives. I don't want to be a part of that, much like I wouldn't work for a tobacco company, oil company etc. Co-workers were taking what they saw as more pragmatic perspective: Gamblers gonna gamble, doesn't matter if the site is there or not.

jmpman 7y ago
The reality behind corporate casinos is a bit more disheartening. Using analytics, from their “players club” cards, they know what zip code you’re from, and based upon that, they approximate your income. They know that if you lose too much, then your wife isn’t going to allow you to return to Vegas. Each income level has a certain pain threshold for how much you can lose in a year. The casino’s work very hard to ensure you don’t go over that limit. If you’re on a bad losing streak, they’ll send a host over to offer you tickets to a show or a buffet. The goal is to get you AWAY from gambling. They know you’re an addict, but want to keep the addiction going. That’s where they cross the ethical line.