I had a friend in a difficult position, deciding between high pay at Buy N Large or the opportunity to work on insanely cool shit for Death Inc.
Ultimately he chose Death Inc, and the reasoning was along the lines of “This might kill a hundred people, but at least it’ll kill them specifically. I can’t even conceptualize the harm Amazon et al. do on a global scale to entire populations without even trying”.
Made me think. I didn’t have a very good answer to that.
those bombs will kill far more than just a hundred people, far more than he can ever conceptualize. the consequences of those deaths will shape the world more than the extra microsecond an engineer could shave off of an internal Amazon function
The argument the person was saying is that we already have big bombs that do catastrophic damage, the R&D is how do you make those bombs more targeted so they have less collateral damage.
Now whether that will actually lead to less deaths or will just cause the bombs to be used in places they otherwise wouldn’t be used with the same amount of collateral damage is unknown.
But it brings up a bit of a utilitarian dilemma of “is it ethical to work on weapons if it leads to an overall reduction of collateral damage to civilians”
Have advancements in precision bombing technology ever led to an overall reduction in collateral damage to civilians? Is that even an argument defense contractors make, or are you just making it up?
Or has every study shown the exact opposite, that “precision” bombs actually cause more civilian deaths?
Yep, in world war 2 without precision bombing we fire bombed entire cities to the ground and one of them was so bad it caused a fire tornado that literally suck people into it! World war 2 had such a problem with imprecise bombing that they are still finding bombs today
Also, “if I don’t make this thing that will kill a hundred people specifically, they’ll just use something that kills more people with less precision / more casualties.”
That’s an interesting take. One on one side the death is a haphazard byproduct and on the other it is at least motivated by someone. Somebody has to have a vision for why these weapons need to be used. I’d argue though that in the case of Amazon, wether or not it’s of any priority to them, the suffering would be something worth ironing out over time whereas, for weapons companies, it’s the entire product they sell
I had a friend in a difficult position, deciding between high pay at Buy N Large or the opportunity to work on insanely cool shit for Death Inc.
Ultimately he chose Death Inc, and the reasoning was along the lines of “This might kill a hundred people, but at least it’ll kill them specifically. I can’t even conceptualize the harm Amazon et al. do on a global scale to entire populations without even trying”.
Made me think. I didn’t have a very good answer to that.
those bombs will kill far more than just a hundred people, far more than he can ever conceptualize. the consequences of those deaths will shape the world more than the extra microsecond an engineer could shave off of an internal Amazon function
The argument the person was saying is that we already have big bombs that do catastrophic damage, the R&D is how do you make those bombs more targeted so they have less collateral damage.
Now whether that will actually lead to less deaths or will just cause the bombs to be used in places they otherwise wouldn’t be used with the same amount of collateral damage is unknown.
But it brings up a bit of a utilitarian dilemma of “is it ethical to work on weapons if it leads to an overall reduction of collateral damage to civilians”
It doesn’t have a necessarily correct answer
Have advancements in precision bombing technology ever led to an overall reduction in collateral damage to civilians? Is that even an argument defense contractors make, or are you just making it up?
Or has every study shown the exact opposite, that “precision” bombs actually cause more civilian deaths?
Yep, in world war 2 without precision bombing we fire bombed entire cities to the ground and one of them was so bad it caused a fire tornado that literally suck people into it! World war 2 had such a problem with imprecise bombing that they are still finding bombs today
yea but nestle
Also, “if I don’t make this thing that will kill a hundred people specifically, they’ll just use something that kills more people with less precision / more casualties.”
Ah good ole ego.
That’s an interesting take. One on one side the death is a haphazard byproduct and on the other it is at least motivated by someone. Somebody has to have a vision for why these weapons need to be used. I’d argue though that in the case of Amazon, wether or not it’s of any priority to them, the suffering would be something worth ironing out over time whereas, for weapons companies, it’s the entire product they sell
It should make you think about how your friend is in a brainwashed delusion.
Not quite, no. Not everyone works on the weapons.
I worked gps until i determined The Customer was not interested in reducing civilian casualties.
They wanted the induced fear, priming the next generation ready for revenge, the garuntee of future business.