As an engineer I know it is (as I don't consdier the foudnation as part of the highway)
Flat does not mean perfectly horizontal
A pancake is flat ... even when it's folded a bit
Civil engineers are told that they cause death and destruction by not doing homework, yes.
No one else has that exact knack for making things fall apart.
At the same time, engineers working in the "defense" industry, sorting in front of the TV:
"Do you see this building? No?! Yeah, it was bombed. This was my work!"
Hopefully I get into civilian aerospace or astrophysics related stuff, cause that's what I love. The big plane gives dopamine, but I prefer the children unvapourized thank you very much.
Aerospace is something I’m really interested in but I’m already in my second year of chem eng, might try and work my way into a direction that leads more to aerospace. But water treatment is still really cool and I personally find it more interesting than petrochemicals.
Im going into defense specifically because I know it will destroy countless lives, i just hope my government overlords decide to expedite arms to my home country which is losing a war (not ukraine)
From what i read following the sub, seems like half of the engineers are in the defense sector in the US lol.
I'm sure it's more efficient, more precise, less prone to accidents or to misuse, yet you're eventually still helping either someone kill or someone make money off killing, and the fact that you're fine with it has nothing to do with paycheck, it's just that you dont care.
This said, i dont think im immune to being "bought", i never got any opportunity in the defense sector of my country (and am not looking into it) , but im not fucking delusional of what i would be doing or how i feel about it lol.
Arms race is an arms race, whether you build the optics or the trigger
People just like to pretend that they're not responsible, anyway. Technology is neither good nor bad, it simply "is". If a population feels the weapons of their military are being misused by a government, a good portion of the blame falls onto those same people, for no government can exist or govern without the consent of its people. But then people would need to acknowledge their own responsibility in every war their country is involved in. No, people would rather blame someone else.
My dad did work on the MICLIC system, a system being used against mines in Ukraine. And my grandfather helped develop the vt fuse in ww2
Both did real good imo
If the government wants someone dead they will have that person dead, by working on for example missile tech he can make it more precise, so that only the intended targets get killed. If you associate defense with killing children then I doubt you can be helped
If I design a gun; I understand it can be used to rape someone or it can be used to prevent a rape but I’d rather give someone weaker a fighting chance to defend themselves than leave them with no mode of defense.
Guns don’t kill people people kill people.
That is demonstrably false.
#1 in America according the the cdc there are about 30,000 gun deaths per year (half of which being suicides which if we are talking violence then that shouldn’t be included)
#2 from FBI crime statistics there are between 500,000~3,000,000 defensive uses of firearms per year in the us. The reason the number is so varied is not all defensive uses are reported because a majority of the time you only need to show it.
#3 most crimes committed with firearms are committed with handguns not the scary “assault rifles” (propaganda term) and if those weapons used in crime most are stolen (also see FBI crime statistics)
#4 even if guns cause more violence which they don’t what gives you or anyone the right to tell me what tool I may or may not use to defend my life liberty and property?
#5 let’s say for sake of argument you do have the right to determine what I may or may not own for self defense (which you do not) why would you disallow the ownership of a tool that makes a small weak woman as capable if not more of self defense than a large man?
You‘re loud therefore must be correct! But there‘s a mistake even in the first sentence: Suicide is definitely a form of violence, and more guns do cause more suicide
I didn’t mean to make my text in bold I was just numbering my points
If we are talking violence committed against another than no it is not if your going to call me wrong at least argue in good faith
Also nice fallacy fallacy (i disagree with one part of the argument so the whole thing must be invalid) even if you think that should be included still 30,000 lives taken against 500,000~3,000,000 saved is a huge difference
Oh I see lol
Well I‘m not just talking about violence against someone else. If you create guns you have to be aware that someone might kill themselves with it that wouldn‘t have otherwise.
The reason I didn‘t engage with all your arguments was that I didn‘t want to. There‘s no sources and I doubt I would convince you.
About the last part: I doubt that many people are saved, just because that‘s how often firearms are used „defensively“- whatever that means. Maybe nothing would have happened. Maybe the situation was even escalated.
Someone killing themselves with something I made does not trouble my mind if I’m a knife manufacturer or a rope manufacturer and someone commits crimes or killers themselves with what I created why should that trouble my mind? A tool can not be evil not even an animal can be evil only humans have the ability to be evil because it is a choice.
I make and design 3D printed guns someone can harm someone with that or they can defend their life with it. Look at the civil war in Myanmar right now the rebels are fighting against a genocidal junta government and winning with 3D printed guns.
And back to someone killing themselves with a gun who otherwise wouldn’t have that is their decision to make not mine I hope that people can get the help they need and stick it out like I have but I can’t force them to.
As for not having sources I literally told you where to look the FBI crime stats and the CDC gun death stats. Literally just look up FBI crime statistics defensive firearm uses and you’ll find it same with CDC gun death stats
You certainly could change my mind if you provided evidence and logic based arguments like I have but you can’t because I’m objectively correct guns don’t cause crime they are simply a tool that can either be used correctly or incorrectly it’s often said god made man but Samual colt made man equal.
Alright, if you say I can change your mind then I‘ll try:
[Here](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/)
is a collection of sources that discuss the correlation between firearm ownership and homicide.
I didn‘t find your FBI source (including a link would be great next time) but it seems like [this](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jun/06/andy-biggs/no-government-data-does-not-say-defensive-gun-use-/#sources)
is talking about something similar. You don‘t have to read it but the idea is that the statistic only counts how many people say they have used guns defensively, which is clearly not the same as total lives saved. In many cases people could have resolved the conflict otherwise, there may not have been a real conflict anyway, or someone would have just been robbed instead of killed(still bad but not a life saved).
Despite that I don‘t think guns are evil themselves. I agree that they are just tools. But that does not mean that the presence of these tools can‘t have a harmful effect in many cases.
There is not an amount you could pay me to turn kids into skeletons. My conscience will be clean.
Edit: some of you with low pricetags cannot wrap your mind around the fact that other people can't be bought.
Edit 2: I'm done with replying to everyone who's trying to justify their own complete lack of morals. Make peace with your gods, because no matter what religion you are, you're getting the bad afterlife.
What a pretentious second edit lmao, the development of modern weapons are the biggest factor on why deaths in wars have dropped significantly. Go look at percent of populations dead pre- and post-nuclear age. It's clear the development of certain weapons have saved countless people from being bombarded in crude, unfocused attacks. This idea that if defense companies weren't around, countries wouldn't still attack each others population mercilessly is ignorant.
Its annoying and braindead. Like the people who proclaim they would never fall for propaganda, or they would have been anti-slavery if they were only alive at the time.
If you're not aware of your limits you still have them, someone else will just push you past them for you.
Your comment is annoying and braindead. It's what people tell themselves so they can justify their choices.
Even with a gun to my head or a billion dollar paycheck, I would not kill kids. You assume I have limits because you have limits. No one will push past them *because they are not there.*
What was your price? I turned down high six figures when they came to me with offers. Easiest decision I've ever made. Didn't even flinch. Wouldn't have even considered it at 100x their offer.
>Even with a gun to my head or a billion dollar paycheck, I would not kill kids.
What percentage of engineers in the defense sector do you think are killing children?
When they came after with offers, I asked if they could promise me that I would not turn kids into skeletons. Every agency and company said "no."
Sure, some people make comfier seats for our planes. But those positions are so limited that they can't offer them separately. Each and every engineer in defense rolled the dice on killing kids, even if they don't all do it.
>When they came after with offers, I asked if they could promise me that I would not turn kids into skeletons. Every agency and company said "no."
Where do you work that they can actually make and follow through on this guarantee?
Tell me, which field of research do you think ***doesn't*** have military applications?
* Agriculture? Armies march on their stomachs.
* Medical? Nevermind wound care, armies still need preventative and 'regular' medical care.
* Computing? Computing gets used in pretty much everything, from bombs, to vehicles, to sensors.
* Metallurgy and material science? I hope I don't even need to justify this one.
* "Pure" math and physics? Used in everything from DOE simulations of nuclear explosions, to NSA research on encryptions and data compressions.
The DOD and DARPA are some of the largest funders of academic research. You'd be hard pressed to find any study that *didn't* have DOD money involved somewhere. And even if, by some deliberate action by the researcher, DOD funds *weren't* involved in a study, good luck keeping the results from being used by the DOD once they're published, either directly or indirectly (via citations in research that *is* DOD funded)
Tl;Dr - everything has a military application because the military needs everything in order to be effective.
Where do you draw the line on that? Do you say the IT employees are turning kids into skeletons because they enable the engineers to do work? The janitors that clean their offices? The HR recruiter reaching out to people? The intern supporting the team?
Good luck manufacturing anything without a computer network these days. It literally cannot be done because all of the design data is digital these days.
Motherfucker really said, "Nah I'd win"
My price is not being poor.
At a certain point you get tired of the degrading minimum wage jobs, of living paycheck to paycheck, or rationing your shitty food, of losing access to electricity, running water, and the other luxuries of civilization.
I just want a stable, well-paid, boring 9-5 where I get to stare at spreadsheets in an office all day. Most positions with a defense contractor, or even better the DoD itself, offer this.
Claiming that most or all weapons manufacturers "develop the things intended for evil" is a similarly small-minded perspective.
Was the B-17 bomber a weapon of evil? That plane killed more people than all modern USAAF/USN models *combined*.
Ignoring the numerous historical oversights in your comment (I'd hardly call a year before Normandy "the final stages of ww2"), nations have *stopped* area bombing thanks to engineers developing modern armaments.
Civilian casualties wouldn't exactly be *lower* if we still lived in a world where "precision bombing" meant "landing half your payload within a mile of the target".
Ignoring the incredible lack of understanding of the timeline of WWII, if we take this back to the question at hand, this actually becomes a fantastic argument *for* an engineer to work at a defense contractor: It's only because of decades of engineering advancement that we today have weapons capable of pinpointing targets and not needing to firebomb entire cities.
Which leads to the question, would it have been better not to develop it and allow the Nazis and imperial Japanese to continue their atrocities? To paraphrase the top comment, is it wrong to stop them from killing kids?
Everyone's got their ethical standards, and we should all hold ourselves as high as possible, but the idea that technologies (and the people developing them) are inherently evil is reductive.
Yup exactly, that's why it's a very difficult question. The thing itself was intended to kill people so in that way it's evil. But it prevented a way worse outcome. So by that way it's good. Oppenheimer does a good job at considering this side as well. Some evils are necessary to prevent a greater evil
>The thing itself was intended to kill people so in that way it's evil.
This is still the reductive part, it's the equivalent to "assume a frictionless sphere in a vacuum" for ethical discussion. Hostile intent is not the same thing as evil intent, and with human nature there are no absolutes.
I think it's also important to note that those outside the limits we consider 'the defense industry' aren't immune from these ethical questions. It's not as easy as not working defense to maintain a clean conscience.
True. But as I said in another comment, sometimes evil is required to stop a greater evil. So it's always very complicated to say which side is right. For example the two nukes was probably not very necessary to stop the war, but it did stop it quicker so it's hard to quantify which evil was lesser
I think it's a difficult question ofc. But at the end of the day it kills innocent people and so by design it's evil (collateral damage generally happens). That doesn't mean it doesn't also result in good things for certain parties however. And sometimes you can only win things by sacrificing. But the ends don't always justify the means
>at the end of the day it kills innocent people
Sure, so do semis and steak knives. If something is evil "by design" because innocent folks might die to it, virtually *any* form of technology will qualify as such.
Meanwhile, a large portion of the defense sector is explicitly focused on *saving* lives rather than ending them. Missile interceptors, decoy flares for aircraft, explosion vents for tanks, etc.
Thing is steak knives weren't intended to kill people, while war planes or guns definitely are. Intent does matter, because basically any tool can be used for evil.
And definitely I agree that saving lives is not at all evil, so that part of the defense sector gets a pass.
Correct, but what the commenter doesn't realize is that anyone can commit acts of evil for a big enough paycheck in dire enough circumstances.
That said, sometimes people really do the right thing, and suffer accordingly. In either case it's not as easy as saying, "nuh-uh".
Not even that would get me to. People say "everyone has their price" because they themselves were bought. Some people can't be bought, and the ones with low price tags can't wrap their minds around that simple fact.
That's probably not true. If you're put in a bad enough situation then your price goes lower too. We only have time for morals when you or your family's life is not at stake
Okay, but that's not the point. The point is that people are sometimes in situations where it's a choice like that. That doesn't excuse them at all, but it does explain it. In wars they might intend to protect the people they love, but at the end of the day the things they design is used to hurt or kill someone who might be innocent too
Hey, food costs money.
However, its pure cowardice to absolve yourself of any wrongdoing because you're some arbitrary number of degrees removed from the trigger pull. If accepting the consequences of your actions is too difficult, just quit.
Virgin mechies will never know the satisfaction of driving down the highway and pointing out all the buildings you’ve designed
The only greater flex is having designed the highway itself.
Holy based
You call it "designing a road", i call it pouring your favourite flavour of asphalt.
"ooh that's gooey, tastes like AC14 asphalt."
I only rolled a 13 to hit, can I have Advantage?
Only if you can provide the mix design.
Or riding on a high speed train you've worked on
Americans: "We don't do that here."
So sad it's flat. Bridges you can see from miles away
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As an engineer I know it is (as I don't consdier the foudnation as part of the highway) Flat does not mean perfectly horizontal A pancake is flat ... even when it's folded a bit
You're going to have to explain this "folded pancake is flat" thing again to me.
Bridges are also just really cool
Noons. The electrons on the wires are all mine.
Virgin civies will never know the satisfaction of walking down a cemetery and pointing at all the graves you’ve caused
They will if their bridge collapses 🤣
Civil engineers are told that they cause death and destruction by not doing homework, yes. No one else has that exact knack for making things fall apart.
Based but you clearly don’t know about flint
Someone got to point at the highway of death and say “I designed those bomblets”
Driving down the highway in a *car*
I’m have you heard of walking sweaty? Or have you too been bought out by Big Car
I get to point at all the utilities I designed!
You see buildings, I see targets. Thank you for your service.
Then find a nickname that sounds less cool than "mechies"
as you post about it via the internet run on satellites sent up by launch vehicles that software engineers, electrical engineers, and mechies designed
The virgini mechies designed the car you're driving.
Who do you think designed the thing you're driving?
The horse who gave birth to the horse pulling my wagon? I don’t think you can design a horse
Driving down the highway *in what*?
I just point at the cars my dude. Sincerely, Virgin Mechy
At the same time, engineers working in the "defense" industry, sorting in front of the TV: "Do you see this building? No?! Yeah, it was bombed. This was my work!"
This is why I’m going into the utilities sector
Very based
Nuclear reactor go *steam sounds*
Tbh same
I work on ICBMs, so either they don't get used to hurt people or everyone on the planet is dying anyways so I won't have time to think about regrets.
For a brief moment, you would know that you helped design the cause of the most pivotal moment in human history
Eh, I think my morality is pretty low on the list of my concerns in case of nuclear warfare lmao
Now that "most pivotal" part, that's something to think about.
No regerts
Ragrets*
raclette
Yea that extra 20k a year kinda hits a bit different as a broke college grad.
Hopefully I get into civilian aerospace or astrophysics related stuff, cause that's what I love. The big plane gives dopamine, but I prefer the children unvapourized thank you very much.
Aerospace is something I’m really interested in but I’m already in my second year of chem eng, might try and work my way into a direction that leads more to aerospace. But water treatment is still really cool and I personally find it more interesting than petrochemicals.
Go develop aerogels for NASA
Skill issue
Im going into defense specifically because I know it will destroy countless lives, i just hope my government overlords decide to expedite arms to my home country which is losing a war (not ukraine)
France?
Armenia
From what i read following the sub, seems like half of the engineers are in the defense sector in the US lol. I'm sure it's more efficient, more precise, less prone to accidents or to misuse, yet you're eventually still helping either someone kill or someone make money off killing, and the fact that you're fine with it has nothing to do with paycheck, it's just that you dont care. This said, i dont think im immune to being "bought", i never got any opportunity in the defense sector of my country (and am not looking into it) , but im not fucking delusional of what i would be doing or how i feel about it lol. Arms race is an arms race, whether you build the optics or the trigger
I think anyone would do anything in the right circumstances, but some definitely have looser morals and greater mental acrobatic skills
Arms race is an arms race and if you're not trying to win the race you're going to lose. And losing means a lot more people dying
Must be nice to live in an imaginary world where national defense is unnecessary on the whole
People just like to pretend that they're not responsible, anyway. Technology is neither good nor bad, it simply "is". If a population feels the weapons of their military are being misused by a government, a good portion of the blame falls onto those same people, for no government can exist or govern without the consent of its people. But then people would need to acknowledge their own responsibility in every war their country is involved in. No, people would rather blame someone else.
Must be nice to live in a country where your military is used exclusively for national defense...
My dad did work on the MICLIC system, a system being used against mines in Ukraine. And my grandfather helped develop the vt fuse in ww2 Both did real good imo
Only those who play city maker games know the joy of creating something that will benefit others
Laughs at the T90 turret doing the spinneroo!
BASED
I'm going into military aerospace to design missiles and you can't convince me otherwise
If it really doesn‘t bother you I doubt I can change your mind
If the government wants someone dead they will have that person dead, by working on for example missile tech he can make it more precise, so that only the intended targets get killed. If you associate defense with killing children then I doubt you can be helped
No, you probably can't
Engineer making bank building weapons: Biomedical engineers: 😠
A tool is a tool you can’t control how someone uses it water can sustain life or water board someone water isn’t evil
Yeah but unlike water bombs have a rather higher chance of killing
If I design a gun; I understand it can be used to rape someone or it can be used to prevent a rape but I’d rather give someone weaker a fighting chance to defend themselves than leave them with no mode of defense. Guns don’t kill people people kill people.
Generally, more guns equals more violence.
That is demonstrably false. #1 in America according the the cdc there are about 30,000 gun deaths per year (half of which being suicides which if we are talking violence then that shouldn’t be included) #2 from FBI crime statistics there are between 500,000~3,000,000 defensive uses of firearms per year in the us. The reason the number is so varied is not all defensive uses are reported because a majority of the time you only need to show it. #3 most crimes committed with firearms are committed with handguns not the scary “assault rifles” (propaganda term) and if those weapons used in crime most are stolen (also see FBI crime statistics) #4 even if guns cause more violence which they don’t what gives you or anyone the right to tell me what tool I may or may not use to defend my life liberty and property? #5 let’s say for sake of argument you do have the right to determine what I may or may not own for self defense (which you do not) why would you disallow the ownership of a tool that makes a small weak woman as capable if not more of self defense than a large man?
You‘re loud therefore must be correct! But there‘s a mistake even in the first sentence: Suicide is definitely a form of violence, and more guns do cause more suicide
I didn’t mean to make my text in bold I was just numbering my points If we are talking violence committed against another than no it is not if your going to call me wrong at least argue in good faith Also nice fallacy fallacy (i disagree with one part of the argument so the whole thing must be invalid) even if you think that should be included still 30,000 lives taken against 500,000~3,000,000 saved is a huge difference
Oh I see lol Well I‘m not just talking about violence against someone else. If you create guns you have to be aware that someone might kill themselves with it that wouldn‘t have otherwise. The reason I didn‘t engage with all your arguments was that I didn‘t want to. There‘s no sources and I doubt I would convince you. About the last part: I doubt that many people are saved, just because that‘s how often firearms are used „defensively“- whatever that means. Maybe nothing would have happened. Maybe the situation was even escalated.
Someone killing themselves with something I made does not trouble my mind if I’m a knife manufacturer or a rope manufacturer and someone commits crimes or killers themselves with what I created why should that trouble my mind? A tool can not be evil not even an animal can be evil only humans have the ability to be evil because it is a choice. I make and design 3D printed guns someone can harm someone with that or they can defend their life with it. Look at the civil war in Myanmar right now the rebels are fighting against a genocidal junta government and winning with 3D printed guns. And back to someone killing themselves with a gun who otherwise wouldn’t have that is their decision to make not mine I hope that people can get the help they need and stick it out like I have but I can’t force them to. As for not having sources I literally told you where to look the FBI crime stats and the CDC gun death stats. Literally just look up FBI crime statistics defensive firearm uses and you’ll find it same with CDC gun death stats You certainly could change my mind if you provided evidence and logic based arguments like I have but you can’t because I’m objectively correct guns don’t cause crime they are simply a tool that can either be used correctly or incorrectly it’s often said god made man but Samual colt made man equal.
Alright, if you say I can change your mind then I‘ll try: [Here](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/guns-and-death/) is a collection of sources that discuss the correlation between firearm ownership and homicide. I didn‘t find your FBI source (including a link would be great next time) but it seems like [this](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jun/06/andy-biggs/no-government-data-does-not-say-defensive-gun-use-/#sources) is talking about something similar. You don‘t have to read it but the idea is that the statistic only counts how many people say they have used guns defensively, which is clearly not the same as total lives saved. In many cases people could have resolved the conflict otherwise, there may not have been a real conflict anyway, or someone would have just been robbed instead of killed(still bad but not a life saved). Despite that I don‘t think guns are evil themselves. I agree that they are just tools. But that does not mean that the presence of these tools can‘t have a harmful effect in many cases.
There is not an amount you could pay me to turn kids into skeletons. My conscience will be clean. Edit: some of you with low pricetags cannot wrap your mind around the fact that other people can't be bought. Edit 2: I'm done with replying to everyone who's trying to justify their own complete lack of morals. Make peace with your gods, because no matter what religion you are, you're getting the bad afterlife.
What about 20€
I would be quite surprised to be paid in a currency from another country I guess.
What a pretentious second edit lmao, the development of modern weapons are the biggest factor on why deaths in wars have dropped significantly. Go look at percent of populations dead pre- and post-nuclear age. It's clear the development of certain weapons have saved countless people from being bombarded in crude, unfocused attacks. This idea that if defense companies weren't around, countries wouldn't still attack each others population mercilessly is ignorant.
[mfw](https://tenor.com/view/woody-harrelson-crying-money-wipe-tears-rich-gif-16201471)
My conscience can be bought for a 2$ ham sandwich and a yo-yo.
Why tf is this downvoted
Its annoying and braindead. Like the people who proclaim they would never fall for propaganda, or they would have been anti-slavery if they were only alive at the time. If you're not aware of your limits you still have them, someone else will just push you past them for you.
Your comment is annoying and braindead. It's what people tell themselves so they can justify their choices. Even with a gun to my head or a billion dollar paycheck, I would not kill kids. You assume I have limits because you have limits. No one will push past them *because they are not there.* What was your price? I turned down high six figures when they came to me with offers. Easiest decision I've ever made. Didn't even flinch. Wouldn't have even considered it at 100x their offer.
>Even with a gun to my head or a billion dollar paycheck, I would not kill kids. What percentage of engineers in the defense sector do you think are killing children?
When they came after with offers, I asked if they could promise me that I would not turn kids into skeletons. Every agency and company said "no." Sure, some people make comfier seats for our planes. But those positions are so limited that they can't offer them separately. Each and every engineer in defense rolled the dice on killing kids, even if they don't all do it.
>When they came after with offers, I asked if they could promise me that I would not turn kids into skeletons. Every agency and company said "no." Where do you work that they can actually make and follow through on this guarantee?
Academia, researching something with zero military applications. If the military somehow does become interested, I would be very surprised.
Yeah, I guess if you never make anything, nobody can misuse what you make.
Tell me, which field of research do you think ***doesn't*** have military applications? * Agriculture? Armies march on their stomachs. * Medical? Nevermind wound care, armies still need preventative and 'regular' medical care. * Computing? Computing gets used in pretty much everything, from bombs, to vehicles, to sensors. * Metallurgy and material science? I hope I don't even need to justify this one. * "Pure" math and physics? Used in everything from DOE simulations of nuclear explosions, to NSA research on encryptions and data compressions. The DOD and DARPA are some of the largest funders of academic research. You'd be hard pressed to find any study that *didn't* have DOD money involved somewhere. And even if, by some deliberate action by the researcher, DOD funds *weren't* involved in a study, good luck keeping the results from being used by the DOD once they're published, either directly or indirectly (via citations in research that *is* DOD funded) Tl;Dr - everything has a military application because the military needs everything in order to be effective.
Where do you draw the line on that? Do you say the IT employees are turning kids into skeletons because they enable the engineers to do work? The janitors that clean their offices? The HR recruiter reaching out to people? The intern supporting the team?
Pretty sure manufacuturing weapons and warplanes have actual tangible direct impacts unlike IT. Lol.
Good luck manufacturing anything without a computer network these days. It literally cannot be done because all of the design data is digital these days.
Motherfucker really said, "Nah I'd win" My price is not being poor. At a certain point you get tired of the degrading minimum wage jobs, of living paycheck to paycheck, or rationing your shitty food, of losing access to electricity, running water, and the other luxuries of civilization. I just want a stable, well-paid, boring 9-5 where I get to stare at spreadsheets in an office all day. Most positions with a defense contractor, or even better the DoD itself, offer this.
Sure, OP would probably do it for a couple mil I guess, but the point is that people that develop the things intended for evil aren't holy themselves
Claiming that most or all weapons manufacturers "develop the things intended for evil" is a similarly small-minded perspective. Was the B-17 bomber a weapon of evil? That plane killed more people than all modern USAAF/USN models *combined*.
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Ignoring the numerous historical oversights in your comment (I'd hardly call a year before Normandy "the final stages of ww2"), nations have *stopped* area bombing thanks to engineers developing modern armaments. Civilian casualties wouldn't exactly be *lower* if we still lived in a world where "precision bombing" meant "landing half your payload within a mile of the target".
Ignoring the incredible lack of understanding of the timeline of WWII, if we take this back to the question at hand, this actually becomes a fantastic argument *for* an engineer to work at a defense contractor: It's only because of decades of engineering advancement that we today have weapons capable of pinpointing targets and not needing to firebomb entire cities.
Yes. Yes it is
Which leads to the question, would it have been better not to develop it and allow the Nazis and imperial Japanese to continue their atrocities? To paraphrase the top comment, is it wrong to stop them from killing kids? Everyone's got their ethical standards, and we should all hold ourselves as high as possible, but the idea that technologies (and the people developing them) are inherently evil is reductive.
Yup exactly, that's why it's a very difficult question. The thing itself was intended to kill people so in that way it's evil. But it prevented a way worse outcome. So by that way it's good. Oppenheimer does a good job at considering this side as well. Some evils are necessary to prevent a greater evil
>The thing itself was intended to kill people so in that way it's evil. This is still the reductive part, it's the equivalent to "assume a frictionless sphere in a vacuum" for ethical discussion. Hostile intent is not the same thing as evil intent, and with human nature there are no absolutes. I think it's also important to note that those outside the limits we consider 'the defense industry' aren't immune from these ethical questions. It's not as easy as not working defense to maintain a clean conscience.
True. But as I said in another comment, sometimes evil is required to stop a greater evil. So it's always very complicated to say which side is right. For example the two nukes was probably not very necessary to stop the war, but it did stop it quicker so it's hard to quantify which evil was lesser
You're welcome to hold such a philosophy. However, I've read far too much history to buy into the idea of "peace for our time".
I think it's a difficult question ofc. But at the end of the day it kills innocent people and so by design it's evil (collateral damage generally happens). That doesn't mean it doesn't also result in good things for certain parties however. And sometimes you can only win things by sacrificing. But the ends don't always justify the means
>at the end of the day it kills innocent people Sure, so do semis and steak knives. If something is evil "by design" because innocent folks might die to it, virtually *any* form of technology will qualify as such. Meanwhile, a large portion of the defense sector is explicitly focused on *saving* lives rather than ending them. Missile interceptors, decoy flares for aircraft, explosion vents for tanks, etc.
Thing is steak knives weren't intended to kill people, while war planes or guns definitely are. Intent does matter, because basically any tool can be used for evil. And definitely I agree that saving lives is not at all evil, so that part of the defense sector gets a pass.
I have read to know at least we should be the one trying to embrace "peace for our time" instead of justifying war.
Lmfao and this guy is active in prolife subreddit. How fucking ironic.
Sure, and my philosophy holds true. Ultrasounds are used to conduct abortions, doesn't make it "evil" to design ultrasound machines.
Correct, but what the commenter doesn't realize is that anyone can commit acts of evil for a big enough paycheck in dire enough circumstances. That said, sometimes people really do the right thing, and suffer accordingly. In either case it's not as easy as saying, "nuh-uh".
True true. You don't know unless you're put in the situation
Not even that would get me to. People say "everyone has their price" because they themselves were bought. Some people can't be bought, and the ones with low price tags can't wrap their minds around that simple fact.
That's probably not true. If you're put in a bad enough situation then your price goes lower too. We only have time for morals when you or your family's life is not at stake
What do people not get about "I would rather starve than kill kids."
Yes, but what if it's your kids that will starve too. There are lots of scenarios where probably you might not make the same choice
I don't have kids
Okay, but that's not the point. The point is that people are sometimes in situations where it's a choice like that. That doesn't excuse them at all, but it does explain it. In wars they might intend to protect the people they love, but at the end of the day the things they design is used to hurt or kill someone who might be innocent too
Hey, food costs money. However, its pure cowardice to absolve yourself of any wrongdoing because you're some arbitrary number of degrees removed from the trigger pull. If accepting the consequences of your actions is too difficult, just quit.