It's ironic on so many levels. The first level is, of course, the irony of refusing to do military work at a company that only exists because of defense contractors working on a military project (ARPANET).

More generally, the irony is that the U.S. military has made a far greater positive contribution to the world than Google. Under the Pax Americana, we have seen the greatest number of people rise out of abject poverty in human history. The stable, liberal world order that has been beneficial to so many people has been bankrolled by the U.S. and backed by the U.S. military.

This world where people in India and Pakistan are using Gchat Facebook to talk to each other instead of waging nuclear war against each other is not the result of Google or Facebook. It's not the result of humans evolving beyond their tendencies towards warfare. It's because the U.S. military has made entire classes of armed conflicts untenable.

This country only exists because of Puritan persecution in England, but you don't see me thanking the Anglican church for America. Bad means result in good ends all the time; that doesn't mean we should celebrate bad means.

I agree that the US military has made positive contributions to the world, but I don't think it's the main source of the Pax Americana -- strong international bodies (NATO, UN, &c), the tendency for democratic nations (the dominant sort in the 20th century) to avoid wars with each other, and advancements in crop science are all individually more responsible for the relative global stability of the last 30 years.

I don't deny that the military had a role (usually financial) in any or all of the above, but I wouldn't call it a causal role: virtually all academic research funding hits the defense world eventually ("food security", "ecological security", &c), especially during the Cold War. That's the result of political contrivances, not any sort of deep connection between the U.S. military and scientific progress.

Finally, I wonder about drawing comparisons between the past U.S. military and current ventures. The Google engineers in question probably wouldn't be designing waterproof radios for fastboats; they'd be training models that "recognize" "terrorists" from afar and systems that pass that information to drones for remote killing. Put another way: the shift away from conventional warfare changes the moral dimensions of working for the military.

>That's the result of political contrivances, not any sort of deep connection between the U.S. military and scientific progress.

The DoD sure wants to have a major influence on fundamental research and scientific progress. http://www.defenseinnovationmarketplace.mil/FFRDC_UARC.html

The UARCs are DoD's attempts to have influence into fundamental research and engineering.

Those positive impacts probably are still likely due to political factors like you said, but it isn't for lack of the DoD trying.

Name 1 Major thing NATO or the UN has done without US support. The idea that they have any power outside what the US sanctions is to be pretty ignorant of the reality of power in world affairs.

You're missing the point. It's not that NATO and the UN are powerful or effective as bodies independent of the US, it's that their greatest achievements have occurred without direct US military intervention.

NATO and the UN both benefit (and suffer) from the power and presence of the US military, but their proudest moments (the German economic miracle, smallpox eradication, historic decreases in child mortality and malnutrition) all stem from smart policy and liberal principles, not from the looming threat of American tanks.

I think you're the one missing the point. While the U.S. military's record in the past 100 years or so is not unblemished, it has unquestionably been one of the greatest forces for good on the planet. Absent the defensive shield provided by the U.S. military:

- At some time between 1945 and 1950 the USSR likely would have moved the Iron Curtain all the way to the Atlantic, and quite possibly to the west coast of Britain or even Ireland. Practically anyone who lived under Communist rule in Central- and Eastern Europe would agree that this would have been a Very Bad Thing.

- In the summer of 1950 the Korean peninsula would most certainly have been reunited under the Kim Il Sung regime — this damned near happened anyway, when the U.S. and ROK forces were nearly pushed into the sea at Pusan — and the South Korean economic miracle would never have occurred, to say nothing of the fact that the North Korean gulag would be that much larger.

- Japan probably would have rearmed, and who knows what that would have led to.

Oh, and absent the freedom of the seas heretofore provided by the United States Navy, the world's economy would look very, very different.

As to "smart policy and liberal principles," those are certainly important. But as President Obama said in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, nonviolence wouldn't have stopped Hitler's armies.

Disclosure: I'm biased — I'm both a veteran and the son of a career U.S. military officer.

So the massive amount of US dollars funding those operations are irrelevant?

At the end of it all, the threat of violence moves humans. We don't need to qualify it with good or bad. It is in our nature.

The fact that people are spurred into action by violence doesn't mean that we ought to be violent, or that violence is even the most effective way to get people to act in the way you want.

> This country only exists because of Puritan persecution in England, but you don't see me thanking the Anglican church for America. Bad means result in good ends all the time; that doesn't mean we should celebrate bad means.

You’re begging the question. If a particular means consistently yields good results, is it bad means? When the Roman Empire fell, we call the subsequent period the dark ages. What does that say about whether the Roman Army was good or bad?

> If a particular means consistently yields good results, is it bad means?

I think so. Here's an example: over 3/4ths of released prisoners are re-arrested within five years. Half are re-arrested within a year of release[1]. If my end is substantially reducing the crime rate, I could reasonably claim that mandatory lifelong sentences would achieve that end: recidivism would be eliminated, and there would be a strong disincentive for anybody to commit even minor crimes. But this is clearly a terrible means, both legally and morally: the punishment doesn't fit the crime, and we end up condemning 25% of the prison population to a life in jail because of a statistic.

[1]: https://www.nij.gov/topics/corrections/recidivism/Pages/welc...

At the risk of sort of invoking Godwin, I'm curious if you'd apply the same logic to Stalin and the fall of Nazi Germany. What does the victory in the Battle of Berlin say about whether Stalin was good or bad?

> has made [...] have seen [...] has been [...]

It's unfair to pretend these institutions, their purposes, and their effects stay the same across generations. It is similarly unfair to pretend people's perception shouldn't change across those same generations while the other factors do change.

It's like telling someone writing something critical of the Mexican government that it's ironic because of Mayan contributions to writing. Sure the timescales of the analogy may appear off, but so do the ones of technological advancement lately.

> because of defense contractors working on a military project (ARPANET).

Ehh, kinda, but not really. Less military contractors and more research grants given to academics. The difference is subtle, but an academic institution is a public institution focused on advancing science and teaching it to the public. A corporation or contractor is in it for the profit. Notably, the academics involved were able to publish their work as the TCP/IP standard (and others), and anyone was able to use it.

If it had actually been military contractors we would not have the internet as it is today.

Cerf (Stanford) and Kahn (DARPA) designed TCP. But BBN (now a subsidiary of Raytheon) built ARPANET.

> Kahn (DARPA)

Like... while getting his Ph.D so I'm not wrong about the academic link. Though sure, it was literally built by the military industrial complex, but the original implication that the military somehow has a primacy over an idea that was going to take off one way or another is still absurd.

The best the military does is keep stability. Google changed everything. One is static; the other, change. I don't see them as comparable at all.

Anyway I've heard it said that the container ship has done more to lift the world standard up, than all the political action of the last 1000 years. By distributing goods to all the corners of the world at a cheap price.

Who ensures a Ship with South Korean flag which does not a solid Navy reaches its destination ?

I understand the analogy of Container being an innovative idea. With out calm seas under-written by US Navy, its not so great.

Without US Navy and its 10 carriers, we will be back to 19th century mercantilism and how much fun colonialism which is its off-shoot has been.

You're acting like shipping never worked before 1950. Many thanks to the U.S. Navy for what they do today, but they did not invent the concept of safe passage.

Shipping containers have made an impact in the efficiency of shipping, not the existence of shipping.

The Shipping Container comment was a response to the other poster.

I understand safe passage.. Safe Passage does not mean that Fifth fleet sits in the Persian Gulf round the fucking clock!

I will not engage in word play, I am not good at it, and it comes from an agenda of being cute or clever.

The Fifth Fleet did not take up residence in the Persian Gulf until 1995. The Suez Canal had been passing traffic for 120 years by then.

You are exaggerating the degree to which international shipping depends on the US Navy.

How can you say that the "military" get credit for preventing conflicts while at the same time not get blame for being the muscle of colonial oppression.

Which Colonial Oppression you are talking vis-a-vis Post World War II US Navy ?

What does the American military have to do with the economic development of, for instance, China? I'm not sure America should be credited for its adversaries' successful pushes to mitigate poverty.

China's recent economic development is the result of unprecedented levels of trade in an unprecedentedly peaceful world. That peace, in turn, is the direct result of U.S. efforts to maintain international stability, through the use or threat of military force.

China is far more stable than the US.

You mean the country that just appointed a dictator for life and has a debt:GDP of 260% in 2017?

Under what metric exactly?

They now have a lifetime emperor who is enacting surveillance and citizen "ratings" that make dystopian novels look tame, along with crippling polution, poor living and safety standards, intense competition without any consumer or IP protection, lack of political freedom, and slowing economic growth that needs to absorb the momentum of a billion people lifted out of poverty and expecting the good times to continue without a revolt.

[citation needed]

Militaries don't create good results, they only remove impediments to good results. You can't grow an economy by bombing infrastructure and killing people.

Where your analysis is incomplete is that military might is not the only reason that people will avoid fighting. A strong military is a negative incentive ("I might lose or die"), but there are plenty of positive incentives for nations to avoid warfare.

In fact, international relations tend to be dominated by positive incentives, which is why "cheeseburger diplomacy" is such a reliable concept, and open warfare is historically rare, even before Pax Americana.

Google is a much smaller and younger entity than the U.S. military, so you might still be technically right on total quantitative impact. But that's not really a fair way to look at it.

> In fact, international relations tend to be dominated by positive incentives, which is why "cheeseburger diplomacy" is such a reliable concept

“Cheeseburger diplomacy” is not a reliable concept, either the Obama practice to which the media gave the name or Friedman's McDonald's peace theory, which makes more sense in the context of your comment.

I was referring to the Friedman thing. While he was stupid enough to frame his rule as an absolute (thus it has been violated), the reality is that McDonalds is in 119 countries and the number of wars between those countries over the past 50 years can be counted using your fingers.

That was just an example, though. My main point is that the peoples and nations of the world, given the opportunity, overwhelmingly prefer to pursue relationships of peaceful mutual benefit, rather than military threat. The purpose of a military is merely to preserve or restore that opportunity.

The notion that trade has a negative correlation with war is a well-accepted concept in international relations, and one of the reasons national governments exert themselves to grow international economic relationships.

> Under the Pax Americana, we have seen the greatest number of people rise out of abject poverty in human history. The stable, liberal world order that has been beneficial to so many people has been bankrolled by the U.S. and backed by the U.S. military.

It's perfectly coherent to support the overall ends (relative world peace) and oppose the means (extrajudicial drone strikes, invasion of Iraq, etc.)

+1 on this...

even on Vietnam war, look at the aftermath of US army giving up - for South Vietnamese: mass concentration camps, shoving inside CONEX boxes, a lot of deaths...

...all of this when the war is over and the communist gov. isn't desperate for anything...

...and US media doesn't cover this because Americans want to think "we lost because we were bad (yay justice!), not because we were stupid/weak/etc"

Of course, US army was too desperate & chose to "shoot/bomb whoever (isn't wearing US army uniforms)" - a combination of stupidity / lack of discipline / common sense

This _is_ a very valuable action logically let alone morally. In the next decades either we resolve to mitigate this "us or them" mentality on this earth, or pure physics and math will resolve to see the end of the civilization as we know it.

Google is a US company yes, but with so many engineers from all over the world and customers from every corner of the world, who is "them" for a Google employee really?

And before you say so, I know this is how things(power dynamics, etc.) work today. That is exactly why this kind of movement towards a change is good and needed.

Lemme just underline this. Google engineers come from all over the world, and Google products are built to serve people all over the world. The Googlers opposed to Maven believe that building software that enables one government to enact (more) drone strikes against civilians in other countries is contrary to the mission of making people's lives better.

Preemptive lazy answers for lazy replies: Companies only exist to increase stockholder value: Some of us hold ourselves to a higher standard.

Improved drone efficiency is better for everyone: hahahaha.

> Maven believe that building software that enables one government to enact (more) drone strikes against civilians in other countries is contrary to the mission of making people's lives better.

I think that's a mischaracterization that's important to correct in the name of accuracy:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/technology/google-project...:

> The polarized debate about Google and the military may leave out some nuances. Better analysis of drone imagery could reduce civilian casualties by improving operators’ ability to find and recognize terrorists.

Also, a lack of "AI"-based image analysis hasn't stopped the US military from carrying out airstrikes with drones, and denying them better analysis tools is unlikely to cause them to reduce their frequency. The US military tries to avoid civilian casualties while still performing its mission, so giving it the tools to do so could arguably prevent civilian noncombatant deaths.

Sorta like how increasing surgical strikes in Vietnam will end the war faster and save thousands of lives?

These sorts of arguments come up constantly in these discussions, and are laughable. More efficient targeting just means more strikes. And all of this targeting is extra judicial anyway...

> Sorta like how increasing surgical strikes in Vietnam will end the war faster and save thousands of lives?

Maybe not the former, but certainly the latter if it meant a reduction in alternatives like carpet bombing, etc.

In World War II, the military would drop thousands of bombs over a wide area in the hope that a few would land on a German ball bearing factory. Now that they have more precise weapons, they don't need to do that anymore to accomplish similar missions. If the military feels it needs to smash something small, they'll use a big, oversize hammer if they don't have a small one available. They don't give up and go home.

> More efficient targeting just means more strikes.

Maybe, maybe not. I don't know how you could reasonably be so certain about that.

> And all of this targeting is extra judicial anyway...

As is de rigueur for military targeting.

I could very well be wrong, but I believe the statement these people were making is that they did not want to work on technology that kills people. It doesn't really matter if the work they would be doing would be to make it kill less 'good' people and more 'bad' people, they just don't want to work on stuff that kills people.

Why you seem to think Maven will target civilians is beyond me. If you build better recognition systems for drones they will be better able to mitigate collateral damage. Is this not exactly what you want?

or they will better identify a target and choose to bomb the civilians anyway because they can get away with it.

"Why you seem to think Maven will target civilians is beyond me"

Because it's for the US military. They have an unbelievably shitty track record in not hitting civilians. It was shitty under Obama, and it's gotten even shittier under Trump. And the issue isn't the ability to target better; it's that the military simply does not care.

That may be your opinion but I can assure you it is not accurate. Your hysteria is clouding your judgement.

It's not accurate that the military has a terrible track record regarding civilian casualties? Go ahead and offer your proof to the contrary, then.

I don't know if it's true or not, but based on a little thinking about availability bias and publication bias suggest it's plausible.

No one is likely to write about "targets hit exactly as planned, no collateral damage" and even if they do as a puff piece for the military we're unlikely to remember that.

In contrast, every single mistargeting is plausibly worldwide news and our brains are wired to remember such things.

To be clear, I don't have any hard data either way. But I wouldn't be surprised if it's true given the asymmetry of typical cognitive bias in evaluating such a claim. The folk version of this is that you "only ever hear about the CIA's mistakes and not of their successes".

It's not accurate that the military doesn't care. You are foolish.

Please stop and try to talk to some active military personnel before you just pass judgement like this. War is messy. This isn't a video game. The US military goes to extreme lengths in order to avoid collateral damage, including the blood of our own soldiers to protect as many innocents as possible. It's unfortunate that civilians will die but saying the military doesn't care is so beyond the pale that it just sounds like pure hysteria.

> War is messy. This isn't a video game

Pretty much is when the biggest risk to one side is from sitting on their butts remote piloting drones.

For Google, "Us" is the government that could in a pinch just grab the damned technology and leave them with next to no recourse, and "Them" is the governments who can't.

Hopefully, if you're choosing to work for a company, you understand that you're at least implicitly adopting those definitions, and that you may find the licensing requirements of your work hastily restructured in an emergency situation.

I do not claim scenario you proposed is not likely, but submitting to what harms you will only increase the harm and abuse over time. Standing against will make it less and less likely, over a long period of time.

It is just like the fear of darkness. As long as you avoid the darkness, your fear will escalate.

I acknowledge that the safest condition for me, my loved ones and next generations is not the one which has draconian governments, one-button-away nuclear war and killer drones.

One needn’t make a decision that would stand up in all times and all places. It’s perfectly reasonable to take a stand based on the current circumstances in particular country.

Agree, not all times and places. But it's not like you can flip a switch and suddenly have all the technology you need when your quality of life is in imminent danger.

To make it concrete, currently the US spends more than the next ten countries combined on its military and associated projects and has done so since at least the end of the Cold War. It has far and away the most ships, planes, missiles and bombs. While it doesn’t have the most troops the two countries with more troops do not nearly have the same as much training or as good equipment.

Presuming the OP is in the US, and in light of the above, it seems perverse to suggest that his refusal to work on military projects is endangering his loved ones.

Everyone seems to forget that the projection of might in of itself is a deterrent leveraged by all nations. Further, the US is part of multi nation programs, such as NATO in which it's the largest supplier of Capital and Manpower by a large margin. Most of the countries external to the US that bring up this argument, are happily accepting Military and in some instances Economic Aide.

You can't look at the % of spending / annual cost of the greatest military power without taking into account it's responsibilities around the globe.

Nothing above says you have to agree or disagree with the military, in fact many of us aren't pro on a lot of their actions, but this common retort as posted above, is selective data analysis, which I would hope the intellectuals of HN would be able to separate emotions from facts.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/0...

https://www.state.gov/s/l/treaty/collectivedefense/

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

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

I don’t see how that’s relevant to the point I made. Regardless of any self imposed “responsibilities” at the end of the day if it was ever necessary the entire US military would be available to protect the United States and the people living here.

There’s no way to recontexualize the numbers such that we are in imminent danger if some software engineers decide they will not work on military contracts. We are absurdly far away from such a scenario.

All that American military spending bankrolled Silicon Valley.

Now suddenly Silicon Valley thinks it's better than the US military that bore it?

Well, for the past 20 years, the military has been preoccupied with bombing brown people halfway around the world. I'd say simply by virtue of not doing that, Silicon Valley is better, yes.

Maybe there's more than one part of the military, and the resilient internal communications network part is different from the wedding-bombing part.

It's a moral point. Maybe I'd rather be dead than kill someone.

Doubt that to be honest. In theory maybe, but in a real life scenario I don't think there are many people who let themself (and their loved ones) to be killed than to kill. Even though I have a lot of respect for Ghandi, I am not sure if I could respect someone who would let his family murdered, out of a moral point.

Here's how I see it: I'm not going to be held accountable for someone else's actions. I'm going to be held accountable for my actions. I'm not going to plan ahead to make it easier to kill someone in some as-yet hypothetical self-defense scenario.

"I'm not going to be held accountable for someone else's actions"

I agree, you are not. You are responsible for your own actions. So if you choose a life of non-violence - that is allright and it allways depends on the real situation, so I am not saying you should buy a gun. Because there is also this old proverb "Live by the sword, die by the sword" meaning I guess you also think that the more someone spends energy with something - like preparing to shoot someone for self-defense - the more likely it is, that he will have to do it at some point, so you just completely refuse it. Well, there is some truth to it, but on the other hand - I for example train martial arts since I am young, but I never had to use it for real - even though there were many situations where I was glad, that I could - I never had to back off in critical situations. The knowledge that I could probably beat the aggressor, gave me the confidence to defuse the situtation calmly.

My point is, you should be aware, that there are indeed many bad persons around and if you choose the path of non-violence than you will have to rely on other people to protect you. And even if you never encountered violence, than this will just mean that those protectors (usually police) did allready a good job of keeping the violence away from you.

Do you think that safety is possible without funding police, justice systems, defense, etc.?

Is it still moral if by your decision not only you but many other people die?

Is it okay to not torture someone, if by doing so other people might die? Is it okay to not (legally or illegally) surveil a people, if that might result in physical harm to them?

How much does the chance of missing out on action x to (maybe) defer undesirable outcome y weight against the mere consequences of pursuing action x in the first place?

You tell me and then I'll tell you. It is a question of morality and as such has an infinite number of right and wrong answers.

If we are in peaceful state, then it isn't. If we are in state of war, then it may be okay (it depends).

My turn: when war starts, is it okay to send someone else to die at war to protect your children? Or it better to let your children die, but save soldier lives instead?

http://justiceharvard.org/justicecourse/

The answer can be both or neither, or an variable amount of "to approach an (as in 'one possible') answer let's get a whole lot more specific"

That is the essence or morality (at least to me).

Very interesting link, thanks for sharing! :)

Yes.

What about your children?

I haven't had to accept/reject any form of military contract so this is all theoretical - but my biggest issue wouldn't be assisting the military, it would be not having transparency into what my contributions were being used for.

If I could write software that actually helps our military without hurting others, I would be perfectly fine with that. My fear is that you would be given a black box problem that could be used however they see fit.

But, I also wouldn't join the military for the same reasons. I would be more than willing to assist and help, but do not want to be put in a position where I have to take, or contribute, to taking some one else's life. However, for every one person like me or you, there are plenty of people who sign up eagerly to do just that.

   Why do you think it's more moral/ethical to abstain of supporting military?

What should you do if you support the ethics of self-defense aspects, but do not believe that [your countries] military is acting ethically? What is your morally consistent path? Other than voting, which is part of it.

This is a very old form of the argument you are putting forward, and while I can see how people will take it to inform their morals, it's also easy to see reasonable versions that reject it.

Move to a different country, where you feel the history and current administration more closely align with your worldview. Voting with your feet is the best way to do so - especially if you feel you have the skills to do it.

Why should you move to a different country?

It's yours and you have every right to be there, and every right to complain about and protest things you don't like.

Of course, but if you don't believe in what the government is doing then why would you support it, and the community you live in, with your taxes or your additions to the GDP?

If you don't believe in someone robbing your house, or killing your family, should you just shrug your shoulders and move somewhere else?

That is also an old argument, but has fairly obvious weaknesses.

We are talking about morals here, after all. It can be the most rational path for you to work towards improving [in your mind] how things work where you are.

My question was genuine, by the way. I don't have the answers to any of this. I do distrust moral arguments that seem naive or overly simplistic.

"Why do you think it's more moral/ethical to abstain of supporting military? .... Maybe it's just not in people heads that world and homeland safety is not given for free and granted forever."

Well unfortunately most armys today (and especially your US-Forces) are not really "defensive" armys. Despite they all hypocritely call themself that. They are mostly very offensive conquering ones. Where is the connection again to homeland safety, when you invaded Iraq, Libya, Syria...? It is simply about dominance. So sure you can say, it is for world peace - all accept our empire and we will have peace. But that is not really my definition of peace nor freedom. (and not a working one, with so many other wannabe nuclear empires around)

I was also not in the military because of that. I would defend germany in germany, but not in Afghanistan. But when you join the military or work for them - you can't really choose only for the defense part. This would only be possible if we would have only armys for defending (so in switzerland I probably would have served).

And about real international peace-keeping missions, to protect against genocide etc. - well, that is a different story. UN-Troops are an option, even they got used for dominance and powerplay as well and lost credibility because of it. But when a nations army goes into a different country to fight a war - it is allmost allways about dominance.

At some point someone has to take a stand against all the objectively evil/bad actions the U.S. military is taking every day abroad.

Maybe when enough people do it, the U.S. leaders will have a more reasonable approach to foreign policy/invading other countries.