<story><title>Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-21/google-engineers-refused-to-build-security-tool-to-win-military-contracts</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s ironic on so many levels. The first level is, of course, the irony of refusing to do military work at a company that only exists because of defense contractors working on a military project (ARPANET).&lt;p&gt;More generally, the irony is that the U.S. military has made a far greater positive contribution to the world than Google. Under the &lt;i&gt;Pax Americana&lt;/i&gt;, we have seen the greatest number of people rise out of abject poverty in human history. The stable, liberal world order that has been beneficial to so many people has been bankrolled by the U.S. and backed by the U.S. military.&lt;p&gt;This world where people in India and Pakistan are using Gchat Facebook to talk to each other instead of waging nuclear war against each other is not the result of Google or Facebook. It&amp;#x27;s not the result of humans evolving beyond their tendencies towards warfare. It&amp;#x27;s because the U.S. military has made entire classes of armed conflicts untenable.</text></item><item><author>6ue7nNMEEbHcM</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve seen that kind of thinking in the past and it&amp;#x27;s pretty popular view. I&amp;#x27;m just not so sure about this moral aspect.&lt;p&gt;Why do you think it&amp;#x27;s more moral&amp;#x2F;ethical to abstain of supporting military? Maybe you won&amp;#x27;t do this but be sure that in some other country some similarly talented people will.&lt;p&gt;If you (and many others) abstain from it on similar basis you and closest people you know may be in danger of being affected by more advanced military equipment other (possibly hostile) armies can get.&lt;p&gt;Maybe it&amp;#x27;s just not in people heads that world and homeland safety is not given for free and granted forever.</text></item><item><author>robin_reala</author><text>Every company I apply to is told during the interview process that I will not work on military projects, and that I would probably leave the company if they chose to take on a military contract. If you have personal moral limits and you’re upfront about them then no-one is the worse off; I’ve yet to be turned down for a job over it and, somewhat the opposite, companies seem to appreciate frankness.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>woodruffw</author><text>This country only exists because of Puritan persecution in England, but you don&amp;#x27;t see me thanking the Anglican church for America. Bad means result in good ends all the time; that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean we should celebrate bad means.&lt;p&gt;I agree that the US military has made positive contributions to the world, but I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s the main source of the &lt;i&gt;Pax Americana&lt;/i&gt; -- strong international bodies (NATO, UN, &amp;amp;c), the tendency for democratic nations (the dominant sort in the 20th century) to avoid wars with each other, and advancements in crop science are all individually more responsible for the relative global stability of the last 30  years.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t deny that the military had a role (usually financial) in any or all of the above, but I wouldn&amp;#x27;t call it a causal role: virtually all academic research funding hits the defense world eventually (&amp;quot;food security&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;ecological security&amp;quot;, &amp;amp;c), especially during the Cold War. That&amp;#x27;s the result of political contrivances, not any sort of deep connection between the U.S. military and scientific progress.&lt;p&gt;Finally, I wonder about drawing comparisons between the past U.S. military and current ventures. The Google engineers in question probably wouldn&amp;#x27;t be designing waterproof radios for fastboats; they&amp;#x27;d be training models that &amp;quot;recognize&amp;quot; &amp;quot;terrorists&amp;quot; from afar and systems that pass that information to drones for remote killing. Put another way: the shift away from conventional warfare changes the moral dimensions of working for the military.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google Engineers Refused to Build Security Tool to Win Military Contracts</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-21/google-engineers-refused-to-build-security-tool-to-win-military-contracts</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s ironic on so many levels. The first level is, of course, the irony of refusing to do military work at a company that only exists because of defense contractors working on a military project (ARPANET).&lt;p&gt;More generally, the irony is that the U.S. military has made a far greater positive contribution to the world than Google. Under the &lt;i&gt;Pax Americana&lt;/i&gt;, we have seen the greatest number of people rise out of abject poverty in human history. The stable, liberal world order that has been beneficial to so many people has been bankrolled by the U.S. and backed by the U.S. military.&lt;p&gt;This world where people in India and Pakistan are using Gchat Facebook to talk to each other instead of waging nuclear war against each other is not the result of Google or Facebook. It&amp;#x27;s not the result of humans evolving beyond their tendencies towards warfare. It&amp;#x27;s because the U.S. military has made entire classes of armed conflicts untenable.</text></item><item><author>6ue7nNMEEbHcM</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve seen that kind of thinking in the past and it&amp;#x27;s pretty popular view. I&amp;#x27;m just not so sure about this moral aspect.&lt;p&gt;Why do you think it&amp;#x27;s more moral&amp;#x2F;ethical to abstain of supporting military? Maybe you won&amp;#x27;t do this but be sure that in some other country some similarly talented people will.&lt;p&gt;If you (and many others) abstain from it on similar basis you and closest people you know may be in danger of being affected by more advanced military equipment other (possibly hostile) armies can get.&lt;p&gt;Maybe it&amp;#x27;s just not in people heads that world and homeland safety is not given for free and granted forever.</text></item><item><author>robin_reala</author><text>Every company I apply to is told during the interview process that I will not work on military projects, and that I would probably leave the company if they chose to take on a military contract. If you have personal moral limits and you’re upfront about them then no-one is the worse off; I’ve yet to be turned down for a job over it and, somewhat the opposite, companies seem to appreciate frankness.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kodablah</author><text>&amp;gt; has made [...] have seen [...] has been [...]&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s unfair to pretend these institutions, their purposes, and their effects stay the same across generations. It is similarly unfair to pretend people&amp;#x27;s perception shouldn&amp;#x27;t change across those same generations while the other factors do change.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like telling someone writing something critical of the Mexican government that it&amp;#x27;s ironic because of Mayan contributions to writing. Sure the timescales of the analogy may appear off, but so do the ones of technological advancement lately.</text></comment>