A Good Thing

[mtdoc]

Antiwar Movement Spreads among Tech Workers

[CatalinaWOW]

Tough issue.  In the real world you cannot have zero defense.  But US does seem to have too much, and often the wrong stuff, and very frequently uses it inappropriately. 

A binary response seems inappropriate.

[chickenHeadKnob]

You are naive if you think one sided dis-armament works. The whole put AI into weapons approach offers so many ultimate game changing advantages that someone is going to seize the day.

[coppice]

People's objections to defence work depend to a huge extent on how many non-defence related jobs are available.

[IanMacdonald]

After uni I stayed out of the defence sector because of moral objections, which most of my friends went into and made lots more money than me. 

I think there are two sides to the argument though. Not having defence capability leads to your being easy pickings of the bad guys. Tibet is the classic example of that. The Dalai Lama is absolutely against any kind of violence, but the consequence of that has been about two million of his people slaughtered. Successfully fighting the Red Army invasion would arguably have cost a lot less lives than allowing the invaders in. That raises the moral question, is nonviolence necessarily an altruistic approach if it ultimately leads to more deaths than a justifiable act of self-defence?

The opposite side of the coin is the situation which led to WW1, with European countries placing a kind of machismo value on an armed forces career, and all of them just raring to test out their oversized armies in a real scrap. When the opportunity arose.. all hell broke loose.

Another kind of scenario, the Cold War arms race between the USSR and USA was a situation created largely by the weapons manufacturers in both countries, who put scare stories at their respective governments to the effect that they were likely to be invaded (or wiped out) if more money was not spent on arms. They may even have been in cahoots with each other over this, since every escalation benefited both armaments industries. The end result was Russia going bankrupt, which caused a great deal of unnecessary suffering.

So, a question with no single answer.

[Domagoj T]

If [insert company name here] doesn't provide their services to military, somebody else will.
If no one in private sector will provide those services, then the Department of Defense gets a bigger budget and a new division.

[mtdoc]

Tough issue.  In the real world you cannot have zero defense.

Agreed. But more engineers questioning the work they do and refusing when they deem it potentially facilitating immoral behavior is a good thing.  I say this as someone whose middle class upbringing is thanks to my father being employed by Northrup electronics division and work on the SR71, MX missle and B2 bomber guidance systems.

But US does seem to have too much, and often the wrong stuff, and very frequently uses it inappropriately.

Yes. Absolutely. It has rarely been used for defensive purposes.

A binary response seems inappropriate.

Only by some people saying "No, I won't do that" will any society change. Most people don't want war. Few people are in a better position to say no, when the MIC and government war machine is out of control than the engineers they rely on.

If [insert company name here] doesn't provide their services to military, somebody else will.
If no one in private sector will provide those services, then the Department of Defense gets a bigger budget and a new division.

The drug dealer's defense:  " If I don't supply heroin to my users, someone else will..."   

[Zero999]

After uni I stayed out of the defence sector because of moral objections, which most of my friends went into and made lots more money than me. 

I think there are two sides to the argument though. Not having defence capability leads to your being easy pickings of the bad guys. Tibet is the classic example of that. The Dalai Lama is absolutely against any kind of violence, but the consequence of that has been about two million of his people slaughtered. Successfully fighting the Red Army invasion would arguably have cost a lot less lives than allowing the invaders in. That raises the moral question, is nonviolence necessarily an altruistic approach if it ultimately leads to more deaths than a justifiable act of self-defence?

The opposite side of the coin is the situation which led to WW1, with European countries placing a kind of machismo value on an armed forces career, and all of them just raring to test out their oversized armies in a real scrap. When the opportunity arose.. all hell broke loose.

Another kind of scenario, the Cold War arms race between the USSR and USA was a situation created largely by the weapons manufacturers in both countries, who put scare stories at their respective governments to the effect that they were likely to be invaded (or wiped out) if more money was not spent on arms. They may even have been in cahoots with each other over this, since every escalation benefited both armaments industries. The end result was Russia going bankrupt, which caused a great deal of unnecessary suffering.

So, a question with no single answer.

I agree with your sentiments but the USSR went bankrupt because of years of poor economic policy. The government isolated themselves from most of the world, took over all industry and fixed the prices of everything, completely eliminating competition and 'solved' unemployment by giving people jobs to do which were nothing. I've been told that at one point bread was cheaper than grain, so farmers fed it to their livestock! No wonder the whole thing toppled.

It's probably true that the defence industry scaremongering had something to do with the arms race in the west, but in the USSR it came from the government, because the whole country was run as one enterprise.

[coppice]

I agree with your sentiments but the USSR went bankrupt because of years of poor economic policy. The government isolated themselves from most of the world, took over all industry and fixed the prices of everything, completely eliminating competition and 'solved' unemployment by giving people jobs to do which were nothing. I've been told that at one point bread was cheaper than grain, so farmers fed it to their livestock! No wonder the whole thing toppled.

After years working in western companies with a large number of completely unnecessary people employed, its quite hard to imagine another society that could bloat the employment numbers even more.

[Zero999]

I agree with your sentiments but the USSR went bankrupt because of years of poor economic policy. The government isolated themselves from most of the world, took over all industry and fixed the prices of everything, completely eliminating competition and 'solved' unemployment by giving people jobs to do which were nothing. I've been told that at one point bread was cheaper than grain, so farmers fed it to their livestock! No wonder the whole thing toppled.

After years working in western companies with a large number of completely unnecessary people employed, its quite hard to imagine another society that could bloat the employment numbers even more.

Yes I'm aware it happened in the west too, but the USSR was much worse. It had a near zero unemployment rate, which meant a huge number of non-jobs. I remember travelling to Ukraine and many of the older people loved the old days when they could play cards and drink vodka whilst getting paid for it.

[coppice]

I remember travelling to Ukraine and many of the older people loved the old days when they could play cards and drink vodka whilst getting paid for it.

Sounds a lot like British Aerospace in the 1980s, except they toned it down by drinking coffee instead of vodka. 

[nctnico]

Nowadays wars aren't fought with bullets but with mis-information. Like spreading FUD about vaccinating kids to prevent dangerous disseases or getting clowns elected as a president. The Chinese aren't that crazy when it comes to keeping taps on the information which reaches the people.

[jmelson]

The end result was Russia going bankrupt, which caused a great deal of unnecessary suffering.

Well, it is not clear that the US didn't go bankrupt, either, just that our bankruptcy is proceeding in slower motion than theirs.

Jon

[jmelson]

]I agree with your sentiments but the USSR went bankrupt because of years of poor economic policy.

Economic policy was bad, social policy was suicidal.  You have to read "MiG pilot" by Viktor Belenko (the guy who stole a MiG 25 and flew it to Japan to defect).  Totally fascinating read, and he tells about life in Soviet Russia like few others.

Jon

[David Hess]

I think there are two sides to the argument though. Not having defence capability leads to your being easy pickings of the bad guys. Tibet is the classic example of that. The Dalai Lama is absolutely against any kind of violence, but the consequence of that has been about two million of his people slaughtered. Successfully fighting the Red Army invasion would arguably have cost a lot less lives than allowing the invaders in. That raises the moral question, is nonviolence necessarily an altruistic approach if it ultimately leads to more deaths than a justifiable act of self-defence?

There is a third side of the argument.  Passive resistance worked against the UK but would it work against the Nazis, Soviets, or China?  The Dalai Lama seriously miscalculated if he thought it would work against China.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Article

[doobedoobedo]

The drug dealer's defense:  " If I don't supply heroin to my users, someone else will..."   

You seem to imply that that statement isn't true.

You can wish for everyone to be fluffy bunnies all you want, but there will always be foxes, and it only takes one.

[coppice]

The drug dealer's defense:  " If I don't supply heroin to my users, someone else will..."   

You seem to imply that that statement isn't true.

You can wish for everyone to be fluffy bunnies all you want, but there will always be foxes, and it only takes one.

The defence industry seems to take a different approach. By supplying the poorest performing weapons at the maximum possible prices they do seek to minimise how well armed governments actually are.

[mtdoc]

The drug dealer's defense:  " If I don't supply heroin to my users, someone else will..."   

You seem to imply that that statement isn't true.

No, it's absolutely true.  It's also the defense used by those who wish to justify their own immoral behavior.

Prime current geopolitical example:  "If we don't continue to supply Saudi Barbaria Arabia with bombs to kill women and children in Yemen, someone else will."

[BravoV]

As yesterday, US officially pulled out from the nuclear arms treaty (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) with Russia.

For sure military contractors business probably will be booming again as Western European countries will be in shopping frenzy mode to purchase/upgrade the needed military systems, suspect most will be from US though.

Just curious, whether among experienced EEs from Western Europe will see this as an opportunity to change their career, if there is a opportunity to work at the military contractors, especially for contractors like in developed European countries, pretty sure government budget will start to pouring in.

[Rick Law]

Antiwar Movement Spreads among Tech Workers

They are conflating War vs Defense activities/spending.  War is bad, but defense projects are not necessarily bad.

Perhaps some what selfishly as a technology loving person, I think defense dollar is a plus.  The defense dollar increase will drive technology development and particularly significant would be for fields such as EE, computer science, AI, and computer programming.

Case and point, EMALS - linear electric motor technology used to launch aircraft off carriers.  (I am ignoring electric rail guns since I read somewhere that USA defense is looking more towards lasers).  Per Wikipedia, EMALS cost US Navy over $13 billion.  The linear motor advancement that came out of EMALS development will benefit many many other industries.

For technology-creating nations, I can imagine that they would not want their defense to rely on imported technologies.  So, more of those nations would prefer/need their own EE/AI industries.  Associating with that would be computer science and programming.  You would not want your defense-assets to be running firmware written by a nation you may end up elbowing with, so developing a domestic supply of programming skill would be necessary.

So, defense spending is all in all very positive for manufacturers and workers in the tech industries.  So much so that I believe we (USA) would likely have a resurgence in domestic EE, telecom equipment, AI,  manufacturing and development.  Same, or even more so for computer/MCU/programming as I am sure USA defense would not like the idea of any tele-com infrastructure running off a chip with firmware written by a non-USA firm.

[Mr. Scram]

They are conflating War vs Defense activities/spending.  War is bad, but defense projects are not necessarily bad.

Perhaps some what selfishly as a technology loving person, I think defense dollar is a plus.  The defense dollar increase will drive technology development and particularly significant would be for fields such as EE, computer science, AI, and computer programming.

Case and point, EMALS - linear electric motor technology used to launch aircraft off carriers.  (I am ignoring electric rail guns since I read somewhere that USA defense is looking more towards lasers).  Per Wikipedia, EMALS cost US Navy over $13 billion.  The linear motor advancement that came out of EMALS development will benefit many many other industries.

For technology-creating nations, I can imagine that they would not want their defense to rely on imported technologies.  So, more of those nations would prefer/need their own EE/AI industries.  Associating with that would be computer science and programming.  You would not want your defense-assets to be running firmware written by a nation you may end up elbowing with, so developing a domestic supply of programming skill would be necessary.

So, defense spending is all in all very positive for manufacturers and workers in the tech industries.  So much so that I believe we (USA) would likely have a resurgence in domestic EE, telecom equipment, AI,  manufacturing and development.  Same, or even more so for computer/MCU/programming as I am sure USA defense would not like the idea of any tele-com infrastructure running off a chip with firmware written by a non-USA firm.

The problem is that peace time military development is woefully inefficient and slow. Just look at the F-35 to see how inefficiently that and many other programs are run. This means that you're creating and subsidizing a fleet of jobs which shouldn't exist. It's essentially a social security and industry subsidising system in the guise of military spendings. Apparently socialist constructs and a large government are palatable when a military sauce is poured over it.

[rstofer]

Yup!  The US is doing it all wrong!

Of course the French would be speaking German were it not for the US military (twice) and a lot more countries would be speaking Russian.

It was never our obligation to prevent those outcomes and I look forward to the day we pull out of NATO, the UN and especially Europe.  Why are we spending money defending Germany?  Or any other country over there?  They have robust economies and we should be improving our own.

Why on God's Green Earth did we drop more than a trillion hard earned dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  We could have fixed a lot of our own infrastructure and just let the Middle East burn to the ground.  And Taiwan... We know where that's going! Presumably the other countries south of China like New Zealand and Australia too.  Singapore would be 'reincorporated' into China.  Not our problem!

And so on...  The original premise is correct, we're doing it all wrong!

Expecting anyone in Silicon Valley, the worldwide heart of bleeding liberals, to want to work on defense is ridiculous.  Same with Seattle/Portland.  But the algorithms behind the AI will come out sooner or later and some defense company will take it up.  Or, the key developers will be hired away.  The whiny butts aren't going to be on the 'A' team anyway.  They'll just be bit players plugging up progress.  When Raytheon comes head-hunting with cash to spend, people will be willing to sign up.

So far, it's just a talking point...

[cdev]

Trade deals we're signing and have already signed, commit most other kinds of government procurement to globalized bidding, which US companies would be unlikely to win unless they fully automated.

Certain kinds of spending, like "national security" is less likely than any other area to be challenged as within the scope of FTAS.

(The rules on both goods and services are very broad, and if they can put in a cheaper bid, nation-states or corporations can bring suit in international tribunals to force the issue or get compensation.)

For example - 'services' commonly includes any service in any sector except services supplied in the exercise of governmental authority;
and "a service supplied in the exercise of governmental authority' means any service which is supplied neither on a commercial basis, nor in competition with one or more service suppliers."

Once an area is commercialized / privatized a little, the "national treatment" and "most favored nation" clauses in FTAs kick in force them to (privatize and) globalize a sector more and more. This is a race the expensive workers in developed countries cant possibly win.

Tough issue.  In the real world you cannot have zero defense.  But US does seem to have too much, and often the wrong stuff, and very frequently uses it inappropriately. 

A binary response seems inappropriate.

[CatalinaWOW]

Defense as a jobs program for engineering professionals is kind of silly.  You can cover more people with the same money by calling it an unemployment check.  And if you think of it as a jobs program instead of real defense you end up building battleships and Maginot lines.  Unfortunately it can be argued that we are lots of that stuff.  If you can stand the side ache from laughter read up on "Effects based warfare" which was a fad in the US in the late 90s.  One of the few good things about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was they showed us the error of our ways in a war that wasn't an existential threat to our existence.

[EEVblog]

This could have been an interesting thread, but some people had to go off the reservation.
Locked.