Re:Google Workers Urge C.E.O. To Pull Out of Pentagon A.I. P...
by fsloth on Thursday April 05, 2018 @08:22AM
(#16764109)
I don't think you can ever blame the engineer who designs the weapon, unless it is obviously ethically problematic like, a better iron maiden (as an example, I know it's probably a hoax device).
Merely offering a force projecting capability is not evil.
If you look at world history, the only concrete definition of who has most political power is this: it's the party with the most capability for projecting violence in a given area.
Small close knit groups that live outside of large populations can live independently and do without military force. Once you have a large population with more or less fixed hearth and home the party with most violence projection capability owns them politically.
This dynamic is played in almost ridiculously minuscule scale in the peloponnesian wars of the greek city states of antiquity.
The pathological manifestation of this principle can be viewed, say, in the rise of ISIS and the Somali warlords.
While a modern state is seldom a benevolent actor, at least in the western countries it's the best of known alternatives.
In this framework violence is a key tool of the state, just like good governance, tax collection, etc.
Given that violence is a necessity, in my opinion designing military instruments in itself is not evil. It's not as good as designing new vaccines, so there is some ethical scale in the matter, but I'm damned if I can put it in concrete terms.
Merely offering a force projecting capability is not evil.
If you look at world history, the only concrete definition of who has most political power is this: it's the party with the most capability for projecting violence in a given area.
Small close knit groups that live outside of large populations can live independently and do without military force. Once you have a large population with more or less fixed hearth and home the party with most violence projection capability owns them politically.
This dynamic is played in almost ridiculously minuscule scale in the peloponnesian wars of the greek city states of antiquity.
The pathological manifestation of this principle can be viewed, say, in the rise of ISIS and the Somali warlords.
While a modern state is seldom a benevolent actor, at least in the western countries it's the best of known alternatives.
In this framework violence is a key tool of the state, just like good governance, tax collection, etc.
Given that violence is a necessity, in my opinion designing military instruments in itself is not evil. It's not as good as designing new vaccines, so there is some ethical scale in the matter, but I'm damned if I can put it in concrete terms.