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> "straight out refuse working on such projects" One of my family members turned down an offer of double his salary because it would entail working on military

> "straight out refuse working on such projects" One of my family members turned down an offer of double his salary because it would entail working on military systems, and he's a conscientious objector. > "the people who do work on such systems should be held accountable in some deep way" ... another of my family members has worked on autonomous military systems, and believes herself to be a viable military target because of it. > "building tools and techniques in the active goal of harming human lives has become morally unacceptable. Engaging in civil disobedience if you are working on such projects is the only acceptable outcome" The two people I referenced above have a deep, thoughtful, respectful disagreement. Your version is incredibly oversimplified. (For a taste, see the responses to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1823802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1823802 .)

omginternets 11y ago
>One of my family members turned down an offer of double his salary because it would entail working on military systems, and he's a conscientious objector. This happens a lot in my field (cognitive neuroscience). The Army Research Lab is a huge recruiter at cognitive neuroscience conventions, but there are many who refuse to work with them on principle, citing gitmo/drones/abu grahib/mk ultra/extraordinary rendition/etc... At the end of the day, Army research tends to be shittier than public research, and I attribute this to two equally-weighted factors: 1. Army research is done in relative isolation. Collaboration of ideas is difficult because of OPSEC rules. 2. The best researchers, by and large, tend to be wary of Army laboratories, in no small part because the majority of them are foreign.