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this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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A Boring Dystopia
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Eh, that may be how you see it.
Personally I’ve been more directly involved in actually helping people and things go to the fricken moon than I have in all of my defense projects, combined. And space is just one of our cool science markets.
I can do defense stuff, I’m authorized to, in a pinch I can (and have), but I would really rather not. Work on that side of the house sucks.
Nobody likes how the sausage is made, but it’s going to get made as long as someone buying it. I’m not eating the sausage. I’m not buying the sausage. I’m having a satisfying job, managing operations at a small pig farm that also develops new cutting-edge cancer medications inside of pig pancreases. Different group of pigs, though.
It's not so much "how I see it" as it is "how it is" and you don't seem to deny that.
I understood that you prefer not to work on the child-killing devices the first time. Nonetheless all the other "cool science markets" still help your employer make those child-killing devices.
While the sausage will keep being made, I can actively choose not to be the butcher and I'm having a hard time respecting people gushing about their work on the non-butchering side of the same company.
No, you have it backwards, the child killing devices enable my employer to do the cool science markets.
Revenue from child killing devices and related patents pays for the science research. And as it turns out, a lot of those patents also work really well for the cool life-saving science stuff.
Oh, now I get it, your employer has to facilitate killing children, so they can do cool science stuff! Wow, that's instantly so much better! The kids will be so happy when they hear that!
Damn, if only somehow could figure out how to do cool science stuff without all the dead children, though. Maybe you could do some cool science stuff on that maybe? Like soonish?
I put an ETA on as you were responding, so I’ll move it here for your convenience.
ETA, this is why I see it as more a necessary evil. War pays the bills. My company is probably pretty unique in that we are not a prime and we put most of our revenue towards private research. We are not unique in how our war revenue gets used to subsidize more humanitarian tech, and I imagine even Boeing or LM wouldn’t be able to keep their lights on with just their commercial businesses, either, or the cost of commercial aviation would be unattainable to most people. And without them I imagine FedEx and UPS would crumble, as would USPS. And then the entire economy after that. Just as one example.
World peace is a terrific goal. But getting there will have a lot of unintended consequences, just due do how ingrained the war machine is with the commercial sector and contemporary lifestyle. At least in America.
ETA, again, and that wouldn’t even account to the number of displaced workers inside the war machine, be it on commercial or defense sides. It’s one thing to selfishly think of this for myself, it’s another thing to think of the economic and societal impact of millions of simultaneously displaced, highly skilled workers.
Another edit: I wouldn’t be surprised if, incidentally, the economic and social impact of shutting down the war machine and declaring world peace would actually kill more children, just it’d be white kids instead, and indirectly through poverty, hunger, and slowed research of life saving technology (due to its funding drying up) instead of drone strikes. The system itself is intrinsically stacked against world peace, at multiple levels. The effects of several thousand families, and in some cases entire communities, being deprived of their primary source of income, simultaneously, would be absolutely devastating.
You obviously struggle with the moral implications of your job and put a lot of thought into justifying it to yourself but I'm sorry, those justification just don't work for me.
No doubt about that. That doesn't make actively participating any better, though. Or that other companies do it too. You know what would really pay the bill? Slavery. Let's just sell all those unwanted babies as slaves and save a shit load of money for civil science, right? You make it sound like a war machine is a necessary evil in order to get civil science funded which is just absolute delusion stemming from the things you were taught about war, violence and "defense". Take a look outside the US for an abundance of examples of civil science funded by civil industries or even governments. If Boeing can't survive without facilitating child murder maybe we should ask ourselves if we really need Boeing that much, no? Jobs disappear all the time for much worse reasons. You imagine the USPS crumbling if it weren't for the war industry? How do you imagine countries with less than a $766b budget (the majority of countries) receive their mail? Don't get me wrong but it sounds like the propaganda worked really well on you and you never thought to question it.
There's a whole spectrum between actively participating in the war machine and world peace.
And it's a very convenient way to justify putting money above your morals, I imagine.
And maybe if you stop giving them reasons to want to kill you they would stop wanting to kill you. Maybe if the US stepped back to think about what they use their "defense" industry for they would actually use it for defense once and save one or two white children. Again, there's a whole spectrum between actively participating in the war machine and completely dismantling the war machine and proclaiming world peace, something I have in no way suggested or implied but which you keep bringing up in order to paint my disdain of working for a "defense" company as naïve.
I'm not trying to give you a hard time but please understand that I probably won't be convinced by the justifications you made for yourself. In the end, I will keep believing that money matters more for you than the morality of your actions because all the justifications aside, this is what your actions lay bare.
I don’t think you quite understand where I’m coming from.
The worker bees don’t matter. I l, as a cog in this machine, am nothing. I can be replaced by another cog of equal skill and nothing will change. My company will survive without me. I stopped trying to justify my position in the war machine a long time ago.
The war machine will exist without my company.
I don’t think my county would exist without my war machine, but not for the immediately apparent reasons of defense, but for the collapse of all the industry that it sustains.
The reason why I think USPS would crumble without Boeing, LM, Raytheon, and all the other aviation primes, is because domestic mail and package logistics are highly reliant on air freight. And all of the major airline manufacturers, and the big component manufacturers of those planes, like the engines, are made by said war machine. Not just for American jets, but also for foreign manufactures like Airbus and Dassault and Embraer.
None of their commercial business could self-sustain at their scale without the war machine. The two are far too entwined.
In fact, I think the only prime that is diversified enough and in aerospace to survive such a shakedown would be GE. The only aviation brand that would survive for sure would probably be Airbus.
This isn’t an accident, but it’s not really an evil conspiracy, either. There has just never in the history of human society has “war drives innovation” rung true than in aviation. To the point now that I don’t think you can have a career in aviation (aside from commercial, and then excluding pilots and mechanics) without selling your soul to the war machine in one way or another.
This table gives a clear example of just how entwined the two are, namely the “% of Total Revenue from Defense” column: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defense_contractors
We came close to a better example with nuclear, but chickened out when we started getting electricity that threatened oil and coal. You want a war machine conspiracy, that’s a much better place to look (and also responsible for even more death and suffering, albeit indirectly, but now we are getting far off topic).
And that’s just the example of aviation. There’s other industries that are heavily subsidized by war…aviation is just the best example.
And also discounting that in the US, the military is about the best path for social mobility out of the lowest rungs.
These are systemic issues that aren’t a cause of the war machine, but need to be fixed and addressed before any attempt at dismantling it can occur, because the machine is the only damn thing holding it all together.
It’s not a matter of me justifying it. It’s a matter of comprehending the massive size, impact, and reliance of its existence. It’s Stockholm syndrome, on a national, if not global, scale. It’s far, far deeper than justifying the death of killing kids. We don’t want the child killers. Nobody wants the child killers. But the child killers are essentially responsible for all of the accomplishments and scientific progress from about 1910 until the present.
Including the very internet upon which we are reading this. ARPAnet. Funded be DARPA, to interconnect research facilities and participating universities with the jntent of enabling communication, sharing access to resources, and being able to diversify the storage of data in a way that it can be retained and retransmitted in the event of war on a self-healing network.
I feel like you're ignoring what I'm saying when you just repeat the same arguments I already addressed. I'm not trying to dismantle the war industry, I don't want to participate in it. I have no illusions about how intertwined almost everything in the US is with the military and "defense". None of this makes working in and for that machinery any more palatable for me.
It boils down to a very personal choice I'm sure didn't actually involve all those thoughts. It's the choice between making more money in a job in the war industry or making less money outside of it.
I really love your black and white dichotomy of either in it or out of it. Really, the world must be very simple in black and white.
Unfortunately in the real world, where I work does not matter. The company will survive without me. The lowest-level cogs are completely disposable.
The reality of that means that if I don’t work here, somebody else will. My morals and ethics now put myself and my family at a disadvantage.
The American dream was mistold. It’s not work hard and live a great life. The truth is, it’s swallow your pride to survive, or watch other people do it instead. The more of your pride you’re willing to swallow, the better you survive. Thats all there is to it.
And where else should I go to support my family? Let’s look at the biggest employers in my region. Essentially it comes down to four pillars…”kill children”, “encourage addiction”, “boil the oceans”, or “sell slave-manufactured goods for insane profits”.
Absolutely, shit needs to change. But your bottom-up approach, attacking me personally, viewing me as your enemy because of the way I provide for my family, is not the way to do it. I know how far I’ve sold my soul. I know it’s far enough to realize that it doesn’t make one lick of difference in the way the world works. Either I sell that fraction of my soul, or someone else will. And in the end, I only get to choose to sell it to some other equally vile demon.
Where do we go next? Would you like to go shit on the single moms out there scrubbing bathrooms at Raytheon instead of Walmart? Clearly they only do it because they want to serve the machine, and not because they have great health insurance, stability, tuition reimbursement, and pays $3 more an hour. Or am I the bad guy because I’m a professional and solidly middle class? Where does the line get drawn?
I recognize we are well past the point of changing each others mind. Ultimately I just want to figure out where the fuck you get off judging me as the enemy for providing for my family just like you. I identify as progressive and I suspect you do as well. I don’t see how you justify this crabs-in-a-barrel mentality.
It's not a black and white dichotomy to recognize a binary choice. You either work for a weapons manufacturer or you don't, there's simply no nuance there. It's a personal choice you make to either do it or not. There's no in-between, there's no half-working for a weapons manufacturer. You do it or you don't and it's a choice you have. It might not be an easy choice and one option might have huge advantages but it's still a choice between one thing or the other. This does not mean that all things are a choice between one thing or the other, just that this one situation is.
Again, for the third time, yes. The machine will exist whether I work there or not. That is not my point. I am not trying to dismantle the machine by choosing not to work there. I am expressing my disdain of working there. Can you please stop arguing why I can't dismantle the machine? I am not trying to dismantle the machine. I am trying to express my unwillingness to work for a weapons manufacturer. Will the weapons manufacturer keep existing even though I choose not to work there? Yes. Will I choose to work for a weapons manufacturer which will exist regardless of me working there? No.
We are in agreement as that's what I've been saying since my first comment. You made a choice between more money working for a weapons manufacturer and less money working for someone else. You chose more money and I find that choice reprehensible. You have lots of arguments why the choice is justified. I don't think those are sufficiently convincing arguments for me personally to work for a weapons manufacturer. I am not a cog in a machine, I am a person with agency and I choose not to be a cog in this particular machine. You are a person with agency as well, by the way. You are not forced or coerced to work for your employer. You made a choice to do so and now you are justifying your choice to a person who wouldn't make that choice.
I survive alright not working for a weapons manufacturer. Other people, also not working for a weapons manufacturer, make more money than I do. They might have a more stressful job than I do or bring better education to the table. I can live with that. I can rest easy, knowing that my work does not contribute to a massive pile of dead kids, though. That's worth something, too, for me personally. Not for everyone, obviously, and I'm not trying to tell anyone how to live. I really am only expressing how I feel about this choice. I'm no preacher and my life is not a template for anyone else's life. But I'm in a forum where people express themselves, expressing myself.
I sense a hint of black and white dichotomy here. I can only hope for your sake that the reality isn't as dire as this sounds. I don't know where you live so I can hardly refute what you're saying. If that's the actual choice you have, I would consider moving elsewhere if I were in your shoes but that's easy to say, of course. Maybe I'd consider starting my own business, I really don't know. In truth, I can't tell if in the same circumstance I wouldn't make the same choice as you. I probably wouldn't try to palliate my choice by proclaiming the necessity of weapons manufacturing in order to keep the USPS in business, though. In any case, I'd keep looking for a less morally reprehensible job. That was a really bad argument if you consider how civil aviation exists and is used for mail throughout the world.
I apologize if anything I said gave you the impression that I view you as my enemy or that I'm trying to attack you in any way. I've been trying hard to phrase what I'm saying to not be insulting or down-putting because I have no reason to insult you or put you down. I'm only trying to express my thoughts and feelings and none of them are hostile against you, honestly. I do not wish you harm or anything bad, really. If anything, I'm hoping you reconsider your choice of employer even though it is absolutely your prerogative and not my place to do so. I'm also somewhat realistic about my ability to change anybody's mind on the internet.
Also, again, I don't have any "bottom-up approach" as, again, I'm not trying to dismantle the war machinery.
I am not going to address your next few paragraphs because I believe you wrote them in anger over something I formulated in a way you perceived as an insult. I apologize for that. I do not mean to insult you. We disagree on this one thing while I'm sure we could find many more things we agree on. I'm trying to respectfully disagree because I do not disrespect you for the one choice I know you made that I don't agree with.