>I think I do but why do you say this? I didn't understand how it connects to the rest of your comment, or to mine.
not the parent, but i have a guess.
they mention the variety of weapons because some weapons are abhorrent. designed to be maximally painful, for the maximum amount of time, purely to bring about maximum suffering.
"every weapon at your disposal" includes those weapons. and that is really difficult to square with "im a pacifist", even when considering conditional pacifism.
Using every weapon at your disposal would entail, at the extreme end, unleashing weapons which could viably kill every person on this planet - to defend a state. It's not exactly a typical foundation for pacifism.
Well, if it helps, I'm a Computer Scientist so I can't think of how to destroy the entire world with "every weapon at my disposal". I reckon at most I could make a more lethal drone swarm.
EDIT: Oh, I should clarify, that's where all this stuff about pacifism comes from. I did some research on autonomous AI for robotics during a post-doc and that made me think more carefully about somewhat extreme situations that would hopefully never arise, and how I would react to them. I mean I was already thinking that way but the hands-on experience and real, if distant, possibility of my work being used in ways I would never want it to be, helped solidify those earlier thoughts into a more coherent form.
I'm saying because given my username you might legitimately wonder whether I would actually ever be in the position of taking up arms, like actual weapons, to fight for my country. Probably not. But programming or piloting drones is absolutely not out of the question, as a thing I'm qualified to do. So I had to think about whether I'd do it, and under what circumstances.
I'm also a signatory of the Lethal Autonomous Weapons Pledge which I signed during my PhD:
I live in a country that has been under missile strikes recently. This country has the ability to strike back at the aggressor and make their land unliveable.
Even if there was the certainty of non-retaliation for such a disproportional defense, I would not consider using these weapons acceptable while calling yourself "a pacifist."
not the parent, but i have a guess.
they mention the variety of weapons because some weapons are abhorrent. designed to be maximally painful, for the maximum amount of time, purely to bring about maximum suffering.
"every weapon at your disposal" includes those weapons. and that is really difficult to square with "im a pacifist", even when considering conditional pacifism.