> The alternative to the Iraq War was not having the Iraq War, which by any sane account was the correct course of action. Half a million people didn’t half to die, but they did

You'll get no disagreement from me there. Like I said, and you seem to want to ignore, the US has done bad things. The question isn't "has this entity ever done anything wrong", the question you have to answer is: from the pool of available options, who's best?

> You’re free to define the scope of your ethics however you like, but again, these kind of simplistic appeals are increasingly untenable to most people. And many would probably categorize your adherence to their logic as “naive.”

It's your appeal that's simplistic. You're taking the world as you'd like it to be, rather than how it actually is. Someone has to have power. And if it's not the people you support, who's it going to be?

The question is also, "How is this going to be used, and is it necessary?" Designing weapons to defeat Hitler could easily be justified, cause Hitler. But designing weapons to, say, better fight the Iraq War? Furthering drone strike technology? Given that there was no need for that at all, I can't say that's ethical.

> Designing weapons to defeat Hitler could easily be justified, cause Hitler

You can't just decide to make weapons when Hitler shows up. You need to be ready before Hitler shows up.

> But designing weapons to, say, better fight the Iraq War?

I'm no fan of the Iraq war. However, if we are going to fight the Iraq war, i'd certainly like us to have say, better targeted munitions, and I think Iraqi civilians would too.

> Furthering drone strike technology?

I'm a huge fan of drone strikes, so yes, to that one. That isn't to say i'm a huge fan of their indiscriminate use, of course. But if you're going to do some targeted killings, why not use drones? It exposes our soldiers to less risk, and allows for better, dispassionate targeting aided by automated tools. I think that's a great thing.

Now, I do disagree at the margin with some of the policy choices about how drones have been used. But if someone is going to have the best drones, you'd better believe I want that someone to be the USG.

> Given that there was no need for that at all, I can't say that's ethical.

You're conflating the choice to go to war with the technology to facilitate that war. They are not the same thing. The choice to to war was a mistake. But once the choice has been made, ensuring that victory is swift and precise is absolutely ethical.

This is a ridiculous defence.

If you make weapons, you are a killer. If there were really a hell, you would be going to it.

Be you a blacksmith who crafts swords in the 10th century or a software developer who makes military drone software in the 21st.

That you celebrate the use of drones, which save the life of one American at the expense of many innocent non-Americans, shows how utterly morally bankrupt your views are.

Military drones are an evil, allowing the US to wage wars and kill innocents in "collateral damage", otherwise known as mass-murder, without the PR backlash of losing soldiers.

It's like you didn't even read what I said. The world isn't a moral vacuum. You abdicating power does not mean that nobody has it. It means someone else does. If all of the 'good' people say "weapons and war are immoral", guess who is in control of all the weapons and war? It's really pretty easy to think through, and it's really pretty naive to bury your head in the sand.

We're not talking about abdicating power, here. The US already has that power. The US going to war doesn't give it more power, and not going to war in Iraq is not going to lessen it's power.

I've been pretty clear about not advocating the Iraq war. We're not talking about particular wars. Unfortunately, you don't get to pick and choose every thing that a government does with its power. Power comes from strength. Strength comes from weapons. Not building weapons is abdicating power. Abdicating power empowers others. Who are those others? Do we want them to have power? I think the answer is pretty clearly no.

Not building weapons is not abdicating power. There are lots of other forms of power. Not to mention the US has plenty of weapons already.

In addition, these weapons that are being built are there mostly to reduce the cost of war on our end, while increasing it to others, namely the civilian casualties of the Iraq war (yes, I will continue bringing that up. It doesn't matter if you're not advocating for it; it is a direct result of what you are advocating). That is completely immoral.

> Not building weapons is not abdicating power

Yes, it really is. If you are unarmed, you have no power. All power comes from the threat of violence. Any power not directly derived from that threat is derived from it indirectly.

> In addition, these weapons that are being built are there mostly to reduce the cost of war on our end, while increasing it to others, namely the civilian casualties of the Iraq war (yes, I will continue bringing that up. It doesn't matter if you're not advocating for it; it is a direct result of what you are advocating).

Do you think the military builds new weapons to try to target civilians better? Or do you think, when they "work on drone technology" that they are trying to build better, more precise targeting system that will have less collateral damage? I think the latter. And I think it's especially the latter if 'ethical' people are the ones working on it. If 'ethical' people choose not to build weapons, who's left building them?

"If you are unarmed,"

And at that point, I no longer believe you are trying to engage in a serious discussion. The US is very, very far from "unarmed", so to use that as a justification shows that you're not taking this in good faith.

Armedness is relative. This is painfully obvious. I await your response to the substance of my previous post.

Let me guess though, instead you're going to respond to this by saying "LOL YOU THINK THE US IS RELATIVELY UNARMED!?", completely ignoring the strategic positioning questions related to armaments, and any nuanced notion of military geopolitics. Tell me again which of us is non-serious.

> I'm a huge fan of drone strikes, so yes, to that one. That isn't to say i'm a huge fan of their indiscriminate use, of course. But if you're going to do some targeted killings, why not use drones? It exposes our soldiers to less risk, and allows for better, dispassionate targeting aided by automated tools. I think that's a great thing.

I think you got the correlation backwards here. You imply that we use drones because we had to do so many targeted killings that it would mean a huge risk for the soldiers. To me, it appears the other way around: The only way you can have so many targeted killings is because you're not putting your own people at risk anymore.

One scenario, you have maybe a hundred of your own soldiers killed in battle. The other scenario, you have thousands and thousands of foreign civilians killed by not-so-targeted killings. Of course the government will always have to side with its own citizens, so they relabel the civilians as terrorists to prevent cognitive dissonance.

Yes, I understand that problem and you are correct. However, I still believe they are on balance a good thing. Let me be absolutely precise though: I would prefer a world without complex weapons. However, that world isn't on the menu. Given that someone is going to develop these things, I want it to be the entity I distrust least. On the world stage at the moment, that is the USG.

"You're conflating the choice to go to war with the technology to facilitate that war. They are not the same thing. The choice to to war was a mistake. But once the choice has been made, ensuring that victory is swift and precise is absolutely ethical."

I disagree. Creating these weapons, especially things like drones which make it much, much easier to go to war, and removes the penalty of having your own citizens die in combat, conflates those two things. If it's easier to go to war, and your side doesn't have to suffer casualties, you will go to war more often. Thus, these things are unethical, as you are facilitating war.

> I disagree. Creating these weapons, especially things like drones which make it much, much easier to go to war, and removes the penalty of having your own citizens die in combat, conflates those two things. If it's easier to go to war, and your side doesn't have to suffer casualties, you will go to war more often. Thus, these things are unethical, as you are facilitating war.

You are correct. However, now that drones exist, working on them is going to be about making them more targeted. Making them less likely to kill civilians, and more efficient about what they do. In large part, I agree with the targeted killing of the individuals targeted by drone strikes. What I would like to do is make the weapons and targeting systems of those drones better at reducing collateral damage. That seems like an important goal to me, and a perfectly ethical one.

When the next Hitler comes (and knowing human nature it is quite likely), it will be a bit late to start designing weapons to fight him.

> the question you have to answer is: from the pool of available options, who's best?

This question is misleading, as the goal is never to pick the nicest tyrant and is certainly not to backstop their power. While USG is a stabilizing force in the world with regards to its peers that also have significant armaments, it also acts as a destabilizing force towards those it can assimilate with impunity.

It's not that designing or building weapons is wrong by itself. The problem is further advancing the offensive capabilities of the already-uncontested leader of the race - a leader which continually opts for routine use of those capabilities when it is easy. The infrastructure for remotely piloting drones halfway around the world isn't going to help defend in a mortal war against China, but it does make nicer day jobs for those roflstomping the latest economically-deviant backwater.

Coupled with the domestic political fuckery from the military-industrial-surveillance complex, the current answer is to just say no. If you want to build weapons, do so in the privacy of your own shed - you'll be better prepared to defend yourself when this overstretched empire collapses.