6 ms·

> SpaceX, Tesla, Intel, AMD, defense contractors One of those things is not like the other things (it's the one where you build things that are explicitly desi

> SpaceX, Tesla, Intel, AMD, defense contractors One of those things is not like the other things (it's the one where you build things that are explicitly designed to kill human beings). Not sure if you were calling that the coolest work, I certainly wouldn't call it that.

zerocount 5y ago
Those things are also insurance against being killed. Are you supposed to just hope the bad people don't pick you? No, you invest in offense so you can have a better defense.
- SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
  I know man, I know. I'm not so naive as to say that if a country was enlightened enough to disband their military, then other countries would leave them be. They would be a seen as a ripe fruit, and they would be picked. I just wish it wasn't like this. I wish we didn't have people engaged in the business of enabling industrial scale murder. I wish it wasn't profitable. I wish the citizenry would see through the propaganda and hold their leaders to account. I wish it wasn't the nation's poorest who were sent to die for the benefit of the nation's richest. The war machine is a rotten, gruesome system, and I acknowledge it's not going away any time soon. But the least we can do is agree not to actively contribute towards it.
  - wing-_-nuts 5y ago
    Understand, there's a lot of distance between 'we don't need a military', 'we need a military to defend American soil', and what we have today. I am strongly in the 'we only need to defend American soil' camp. I'm not sure how much that costs, but considering we're a nuclear power, we have two relatively friendly neighbors and thousands of miles of ocean between us and our nearest peer enemies, it wouldn't surprise me if we could get away with spending a miniscule fraction of the 700B we do today.
  - dash2 5y ago
    Modern warfare is much less likely to involve the nation’s poorest dying for the sake of the richest. There’s a recent article about how the average American soldier is now better educated than the average civilian. The specialist weapons we’re talking about shift the balance towards capital and away from labour in the killing production function. Is that a good thing? I’m not so sure. The age of mass armies was also the age of democratisation. If war is waged by defence firms and brilliant technocrats, then maybe defence firms and brilliant technocrats will run the country.
eredengrin 5y ago
I think it was more about having physical hardware that you work with which might not be easy to bring home consistently.
sillysaurusx 5y ago
I think it's pretty cool. And I think that kind of work needs people who think it's cool, or else it'll only attract evil people. There's nothing wrong with building weapons for defense. It's arguably the entire purpose of nukes at this point. Even for offense, other countries are working hard to build out their arsenals. I'm personally fine with building AI weapons, for example. If a contract opportunity appears, I might take it. After all, where else are you going to see the most advanced weaponry in the history of mankind?
- onion2k 5y ago
  It's arguably the entire purpose of nukes at this point. That is absolutely not true. There are people in the governments of every nuclear power would use their weapons aggressively given the chance. That's why policies of disarmament are so necessary. As long as humans have nuclear weapons the probability of practically annihilating our species and leaving any survivors living in the stone age again remains higher than zero. Nuclear war is the single biggest existential threat humanity faces. We can deal with pretty much anything else.
  - atq2119 5y ago
    I certainly hope you're right in your implied statement about climate change.
    - onion2k 5y ago
      I completely believe humanity can and will deal with climate change. It'll take a few wars, an anti-capitalist revolution in a first world country or two, and a massive shift towards equality and justice for poorer people, but it will happen.
  - redis_mlc 5y ago
    > There are people in the governments of every nuclear power would use their weapons aggressively given the chance. You're right so far. North Korea and Iran are ideologically opposed to the West, and both have ICBM capabilities. China also, but they have mixed goals (dominate the world, while parasiting off the US financially and technologically, without killing too many only-childs in war, while importing 50% of their energy and food without interruption.) Chinese politicians have suggested publicly sending two warships for every Western one in the South China Sea, and ramming and sinking each Western one with one of theirs. Also, Xi has recently threatened to use nuclear weapons against Guam and Japan. It's one thing to own them, but quite another to make specific threats to use them. > That's why policies of disarmament are so necessary. Not gonna happen with rogue actors like NK and Iran, or countries like China that won't take no for an answer. In addition, the US can't disarm since most of the world is under our defense umbrella. Sadly, the weaker that umbrealla gets (ie. Scarborough Shoals scandal), the bigger the arms race in the Indo-Pacific region, as seen in the news currently. Very likely Japan will announce their own bomb in the next year (they've had ICBMs for decades aka NASDA.) > Nuclear war is the single biggest existential threat humanity faces. After the Cuban missile crisis, 2021 is the most dangerous time in history. Note there was a second Cuban missile crisis, as the USSR left behind half of their nuclear missiles under the control of Castro, who the Kremlin slowly realized wanted to actually use them. The USSR used diplomacy to quietly get them back with the precept that it was required under a treaty that Castro had signed (Gromyko engineered that.)
LordDragonfang 5y ago
Defense contracts aren't all weapons - in fact, I'd wager most aren't (by quantity, if not by dollar amount). Due to how the US allocates its budget, a large portion of its publicly funded research goes through DoD contracts. The startup I used to work at had a contract for making prototypes of multi-material 3D printers for creating medical training models (ie artificial cadavers).
mellavora 5y ago
<snark>Tesla? or SpaceX??</snark>

zerocount 5y ago

Those things are also insurance against being killed. Are you supposed to just hope the bad people don't pick you? No, you invest in offense so you can have a better defense.

SturgeonsLaw 5y ago
I know man, I know. I'm not so naive as to say that if a country was enlightened enough to disband their military, then other countries would leave them be. They would be a seen as a ripe fruit, and they would be picked. I just wish it wasn't like this. I wish we didn't have people engaged in the business of enabling industrial scale murder. I wish it wasn't profitable. I wish the citizenry would see through the propaganda and hold their leaders to account. I wish it wasn't the nation's poorest who were sent to die for the benefit of the nation's richest. The war machine is a rotten, gruesome system, and I acknowledge it's not going away any time soon. But the least we can do is agree not to actively contribute towards it.
- wing-_-nuts 5y ago
  Understand, there's a lot of distance between 'we don't need a military', 'we need a military to defend American soil', and what we have today. I am strongly in the 'we only need to defend American soil' camp. I'm not sure how much that costs, but considering we're a nuclear power, we have two relatively friendly neighbors and thousands of miles of ocean between us and our nearest peer enemies, it wouldn't surprise me if we could get away with spending a miniscule fraction of the 700B we do today.
- dash2 5y ago
  Modern warfare is much less likely to involve the nation’s poorest dying for the sake of the richest. There’s a recent article about how the average American soldier is now better educated than the average civilian. The specialist weapons we’re talking about shift the balance towards capital and away from labour in the killing production function. Is that a good thing? I’m not so sure. The age of mass armies was also the age of democratisation. If war is waged by defence firms and brilliant technocrats, then maybe defence firms and brilliant technocrats will run the country.

eredengrin 5y ago

I think it was more about having physical hardware that you work with which might not be easy to bring home consistently.

sillysaurusx 5y ago

I think it's pretty cool. And I think that kind of work needs people who think it's cool, or else it'll only attract evil people. There's nothing wrong with building weapons for defense. It's arguably the entire purpose of nukes at this point. Even for offense, other countries are working hard to build out their arsenals. I'm personally fine with building AI weapons, for example. If a contract opportunity appears, I might take it. After all, where else are you going to see the most advanced weaponry in the history of mankind?

onion2k 5y ago
It's arguably the entire purpose of nukes at this point. That is absolutely not true. There are people in the governments of every nuclear power would use their weapons aggressively given the chance. That's why policies of disarmament are so necessary. As long as humans have nuclear weapons the probability of practically annihilating our species and leaving any survivors living in the stone age again remains higher than zero. Nuclear war is the single biggest existential threat humanity faces. We can deal with pretty much anything else.
- atq2119 5y ago
  I certainly hope you're right in your implied statement about climate change.
  - onion2k 5y ago
    I completely believe humanity can and will deal with climate change. It'll take a few wars, an anti-capitalist revolution in a first world country or two, and a massive shift towards equality and justice for poorer people, but it will happen.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  > There are people in the governments of every nuclear power would use their weapons aggressively given the chance. You're right so far. North Korea and Iran are ideologically opposed to the West, and both have ICBM capabilities. China also, but they have mixed goals (dominate the world, while parasiting off the US financially and technologically, without killing too many only-childs in war, while importing 50% of their energy and food without interruption.) Chinese politicians have suggested publicly sending two warships for every Western one in the South China Sea, and ramming and sinking each Western one with one of theirs. Also, Xi has recently threatened to use nuclear weapons against Guam and Japan. It's one thing to own them, but quite another to make specific threats to use them. > That's why policies of disarmament are so necessary. Not gonna happen with rogue actors like NK and Iran, or countries like China that won't take no for an answer. In addition, the US can't disarm since most of the world is under our defense umbrella. Sadly, the weaker that umbrealla gets (ie. Scarborough Shoals scandal), the bigger the arms race in the Indo-Pacific region, as seen in the news currently. Very likely Japan will announce their own bomb in the next year (they've had ICBMs for decades aka NASDA.) > Nuclear war is the single biggest existential threat humanity faces. After the Cuban missile crisis, 2021 is the most dangerous time in history. Note there was a second Cuban missile crisis, as the USSR left behind half of their nuclear missiles under the control of Castro, who the Kremlin slowly realized wanted to actually use them. The USSR used diplomacy to quietly get them back with the precept that it was required under a treaty that Castro had signed (Gromyko engineered that.)

LordDragonfang 5y ago

Defense contracts aren't all weapons - in fact, I'd wager most aren't (by quantity, if not by dollar amount). Due to how the US allocates its budget, a large portion of its publicly funded research goes through DoD contracts. The startup I used to work at had a contract for making prototypes of multi-material 3D printers for creating medical training models (ie artificial cadavers).

mellavora 5y ago

<snark>Tesla? or SpaceX??</snark>