On: Snowden: Tech Workers Are Complicit in How Their Companies Hurt Society

[GaryNumanVevo]

And Raytheon, Palantir, Lockheed-Martin, et. all? They make most of their money with direct government contracts.

There's no grey area when directly working on missiles

[WheelsAtLarge → GaryNumanVevo]

Well, this is where things get very gray. We are the users of that tech too. The government is us too. "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union...", as the Constitution says, decide what our government does. It's time we tell our representatives what we want. No more military contracts? Then make sure that no representative that's for those contracts gets elected. It's a matter of getting involved. Like I said, we have the power. It's time we use it.

[GaryNumanVevo → WheelsAtLarge]

Electoral politics has failed the people time and time again. The only way to prevent these technologies is to organize and strike.

[blackrock → WheelsAtLarge]

This deserves a.. LOL..

I think someone forgot to tell you.

We don’t live in a democracy. That’s just what they want you to believe, so that you can tell your children fairy tale stories at night.

[jonex → GaryNumanVevo]

If you vote for politicians that invest in missiles, it's rather hypocritical to criticize people who develop the same missiles. If you happen to be a pacifist it's reasonable to be against all such technology, but the fact that clearly most people aren't makes it odd to single it out as non-grey area. (Unless it's about how it's clearly white-area as it's in service of democratically decided policy.)

[GaryNumanVevo → jonex]

Absolutely, it's a problem that can be attacked on multiple fronts

[pluto9 → GaryNumanVevo]

Missiles (and most other weapons technologies) are definitely a gray area. Yes, producing them means they can be used for bad ends. But not producing them doesn't mean they'll cease to exist. It means you can't challenge anyone else who has them, including bad actors.

[nickff → GaryNumanVevo]

You seem to assume that working on weapons programs for the military is wrong, and I'm not sure why. Defense (and war) are one of the core reasons for the existence of the US government, and are clearly enumerated in the constitution.

Do you think the armed forces should be disbanded? If not, should the armed forces achieve their objectives through the use of obsolete equipment, or would you prefer they simply import it?

[jeorg → nickff]

Wanting to abolish the military isn’t the only reason someone would claim it’s unethical to work for defense contractors. Two other reasons come to mind. Firstly, few if any of the conflicts the US is currently engaged in could be described as “just wars”. Secondly, the US is the largest arms exporter in the world, by a large margin. And many of those arms go to dictatorships, such as Saudi Arabia or Egypt.