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Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by vasili111 on Friday April 13, 2018 @02:05AM (#16827460)
Is there anything bad to be defense contractor of your country?
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by jlangenauer on Friday April 13, 2018 @02:37AM (#16827582)
A purely "defense" contractor, protecting the country itself? No, nothing wrong with that.

But what is euphemistically called "defense" is far more often about offense - attacking those countries and people who displease or are inconvenient to you, making sure the world is structure to suit your* interests, usually at the expense of the interests, and often the lives of people elsewhere in the world.

* - In reality, the interests of the elite of your country.

Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by vasili111 on Friday April 13, 2018 @02:57AM (#16827672)
What about protecting yourself and allies?
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by imtringued on Friday April 13, 2018 @04:36AM (#16828076)
By actively seeking conflict you are increasing the risk of retaliation. That's the opposite of protecting yourself.
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by jononor on Friday April 13, 2018 @08:56AM (#16829502)
But good for business!
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by pierre on Friday April 13, 2018 @02:38AM (#16827589)
As a defense contractor, you build stuff that end up killing people. Especially if your country is aggressive toward others / have imperialist view.
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by vasili111 on Friday April 13, 2018 @03:02AM (#16827694)
What about if that country especially helps other countries to fight for there freedom and protects them from imperialist view countries and with that saves lives in that countries?
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by lallysingh on Friday April 13, 2018 @03:27AM (#16827798)
Who's that?
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by vasili111 on Friday April 13, 2018 @03:35AM (#16827839)
My country Georgia received a help from the USA and EU countries when Russia invaded us. Their help saved lots of Georgian people lives. Another example Ukraine, USA and EU countries are helping Ukraine to defend themselves against Russia. Only people that never saw real war think that improving the defense of their country is "killing people" when in reality it is opposite.
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by whiskers08xmt on Friday April 13, 2018 @05:07AM (#16828207)
Realities get murky when you talk geo-politics. Some times it's in the interest of the US, to protect the self-determination of a nation, especially when it goes against the interests of a geo-political adversary. We see this with your country, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, etc.

At other times, it means selling F-16s, Apaches and munitions to Saudi Arabia, so they can carry out a brutal bombing campaign in Yemen. There are no good or evil regional powers, only national interests and the smaller nations which either get in the way of those, or help you achieve them.

Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by moccachino on Friday April 13, 2018 @05:47AM (#16828397)
>There are no good or evil regional powers, only national interests and the smaller nations which either get in the way of those, or help you achieve them.

Be that as it may, it still matters how the people in power think and behave. Some systems of government are better suited to reduce violence than others. For example, a dictator is probably more likely to order military intervention than a person who has to justify their actions to advisors, a congress and eventually a whole nation.

Obviously as you say things get murky when there are large interests at stake and no side is wholly good or wholly evil, but still some can be more wrong than others.

Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by rorykoehler on Friday April 13, 2018 @02:41AM (#16827605)
I don't have a country. That's a manmade concept that is forced upon me against my will.
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by ben_w on Friday April 13, 2018 @05:17AM (#16828254)
I feel the same way — my identity is not at all attached to the nationality listed in my passport — but in the context of working for a defence-sector corporation, the argument still applies. Whoever the corporation sells stuff to is, for the purpose of the argument, “your” country.
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by vasili111 on Friday April 13, 2018 @03:05AM (#16827704)
So no one is protecting your rights and property? There are no emergency service, firefighters and other public services that you directly benefit from?
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by rorykoehler on Friday April 13, 2018 @03:42AM (#16827862)
There are and i happily pay my taxes but not happy about them being spent to kill people id probably be friends with if i met them in real life.
Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by nickik on Friday April 13, 2018 @02:08PM (#16832442)
So if somebody breaks into yoir house takes your money you cant complain because that guy sometimes cleans the house or buys cable?

Accusing people who are not pro-government of hypocracy because the use public services is absurd.

You cant not pay my taxes and opt out of government services.

Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by adwn on Friday April 13, 2018 @02:55AM (#16827663)
> I don't have a country.

Is there a country in which spend the majority of your time? If yes, then that's your country. Don't like it? Move to another one or get politically active.

> That's a manmade concept that is forced upon me against my will.

Nearly everything in our day-to-day lives is a manmade concept – that doesn't make it any less real.

Re:SpaceX's Valuation Climbs to $25B with New Funding Round by rorykoehler on Friday April 13, 2018 @03:40AM (#16827854)
>Is there a country in which spend the majority of your time?

That changes regularly enough. Just because i like a place doesn't mean it's my country.

I think you're conflating geography with political structures. I feel at home everywhere I've been and i don't quite understand the insatiable jingoism because all places and people are great and not so great in equal measure for various reasons. That said I'm not naive enough to expect it to change and if it were to change i can't really even see a pathway for that to happen. It only takes one person to spit in the punch to ruin it for everyone.