Just for a little context, keep in mind that “military aid” be it to Ukraine or Israel is almost entirely spent in the US. We ship missiles and bombs from stockpiles, and pay Raytheon to make some more.
So this money is being spent to the benefit of Americans, just the military industrial folks and their shareholders.
It’s still resources that could be spent towards something else, something ultimately more productive.
Building a house takes a lot of work, so why spend that effort into building a bomb that destroys many such houses, instead? What does this achieve for humanity?
Worth mentioning that there are well paying, stable jobs in the MIC for the other 99%. I work for a sub (in IT, and spend most of my time on the commercial side of the business) in such a company. While I resent our biggest revenue maker, it does enable the company to fund scientific research and commercial space endeavors.
I wouldn’t call myself a bootlicker, per se, but I do enjoy my job, despite what I’ve started viewing as a necessary evil — the pay and benefits are highly competitive, I’m 98% WFH, layoffs and turnover are rare (there are regularly people retiring who had entered straight from college and worked directly on Apollo missions), the job is challenging and I’m given a long leash.
“I mean, I know my work contributes to some of the worst atrocities of mankind but they give me a lot of money and benefits for forgetting that I actively contribute in facilitating the slaughter of children which makes it easier to swallow. Also I get to work from home a lot! ❤️”
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.
War pays the bill
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.
World peace is a terrific goal
There’s a whole spectrum between actively participating in the war machine and world peace.
It’s one thing to selfishly think of this for myself
And it’s a very convenient way to justify putting money above your morals, I imagine.
“But if we don’t kill them, they’ll kill us”
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.
This is not worth mentioning. Everyone knows that you can sell out your values for money and comfort. Most people just aren’t willing to do it for such relatively low benefits.
Just for a little context, keep in mind that “military aid” be it to Ukraine or Israel is almost entirely spent in the US. We ship missiles and bombs from stockpiles, and pay Raytheon to make some more.
So this money is being spent to the benefit of Americans, just the military industrial folks and their shareholders.
It’s still resources that could be spent towards something else, something ultimately more productive.
Building a house takes a lot of work, so why spend that effort into building a bomb that destroys many such houses, instead? What does this achieve for humanity?
Because building houses lowers the value of all the real estate the wealthy already own.
Worth mentioning that there are well paying, stable jobs in the MIC for the other 99%. I work for a sub (in IT, and spend most of my time on the commercial side of the business) in such a company. While I resent our biggest revenue maker, it does enable the company to fund scientific research and commercial space endeavors.
I wouldn’t call myself a bootlicker, per se, but I do enjoy my job, despite what I’ve started viewing as a necessary evil — the pay and benefits are highly competitive, I’m 98% WFH, layoffs and turnover are rare (there are regularly people retiring who had entered straight from college and worked directly on Apollo missions), the job is challenging and I’m given a long leash.
“I mean, I know my work contributes to some of the worst atrocities of mankind but they give me a lot of money and benefits for forgetting that I actively contribute in facilitating the slaughter of children which makes it easier to swallow. Also I get to work from home a lot! ❤️”
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.
This is not worth mentioning. Everyone knows that you can sell out your values for money and comfort. Most people just aren’t willing to do it for such relatively low benefits.
Did they at least give you a nice dog collar for that leash?
Why not call yourself a bootlicker? I’m sure many would.
The good old “military industrial complex” 😑