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I do wonder how people who take an absolutist view that working in defence industries is immoral, feel about equipping our own armed forces. Unless you are a complete pacifist (a position I could respect if not agree with) you have to accept that countries have the right to self defence. From the gov.uk website:
"The first duty of the government is to keep citizens safe and the country secure".
Granted, they don't always do the best job but as a principle I think it stands. To do that our armed forces need defence equipment and someone has to make it.
I know this is a massive oversimplification. Governments meddle in others affairs, weapons can be used for offence as well as defence etc. But if you accept that national defence, even if it's never used is justified, surely you have to accept that some arms manufacture is also justified?
There's already a war on, against China, Russia, and even to an extent against supposedly friendly powers. All are escalating technology that *could* be used for cyberwarfare, against infrastructure, and so on. Attacks are being repelled by the hundreds and thousands every day. All have the intent of hobbling or bringing a country down, even if they don't directly kill to do it.
Anyone working in tech, like it or not, there's a fair chance your inventions and capabilities have a potential malign usage. Where is the line drawn?
FWIW, I've devoted my career to working in the arts and charity sector. A few years ago I worked for an international aid charity, I worked with a finance team with several colleagues who were either ex-defence (one senior guy was previously at McDonnell Douglas, another at QinetiQ ) or had worked at oil companies beforehand, they'd all taken pay cuts to work with us.
better that we have better technology than the other lot and have the advantage than the other way around. if you can contribute to that, crack on. it's up to governments to make sure our stuff doesn't end up in the wrong hands.
That's easy to say but far harder to do when you realise we aren't in a traditional war, but a technical, economic, cyber war already
Long video but worth a watch if you have an interest. It's also nicely split to chapters so you can look eg: at about 14:00 on for the innovation war.
I could easily have posted this in the election thread as well, earlier chapters on that. What is truth and who controls it?
or try this from about 14:30
If I was an adversary of the UK and the west, I'd definitely be running online influence campaigns to turn young scientists and engineers away from the defence industries on moral grounds.
I worked in defence systems for five years I would advise that you don’t. It will effect you, when you find out what they are used for and what you have done. It had effects on my mental well being and because of what I worked in some friends I lost. Just don’t do it…
Sorry to hear that. Easy enough for me to sit here with my mostly irrelevant skillset and argue that we need people to work on weapons. I'd be surprised to have a "when you find out" moment though; surely staff know up front what the product is capable of, and it'll be sold and resold so some of it will inevitably end up in the wrong hands, but I see perhaps it hits home harder when you hear or see evidence of actual cases of that happening.
after a career in the RN I had a couple of jobs in MOD and then moved to BAE systems in submarines weapon systems.
It did niggle me a bit and after 4 years I left (for other reasons) and moved to civil aviation, where I realised just how many aeroplanes are polluting our skies but they pay a lot more so Meh, we're all screwing the world in our own little way.