Anybody working in defence weapons sytems?

Defence technologies stop wars.

But, once again, that goes both ways as they also start wars

“He can’t be to blame for all that, the poor guy would need to be 250 years old”

I laughed out loud,

Man starts wars not technology as you have probably seen over tha past 30 years technological superiority does not necesarily win conflicts directly.

Frightningly however it has been reported that autonomous systems can now function with no human intervention and prosecute their end goal , the actual technology of that makes you think far more deeply

But that goes both ways. What about the weapons that Russia are using against Ukraine?

That factor is out of our control.

How much of the arms race is down to both sides having willing participants?

The other side will always have participants – naturally willing, willing for high incentives, or forced to.

It’s naive to think one side could just stop or one person not doing it makes a difference but you have to start the process somewhere and do what you can as an individual, much like climate change.

What would be a reasonable milestone of progress in your view from this starting somewhere?

HST (1990) and the KH11s (1976) look similar, they’re very, very different

Optically, they are more than similar (although the focal plane route is different), of course the radius of the mirror is dictated by the shuttle bay, but optical science is optical science and mirror manufacture is better at scale. Detector science has obvious Defence pull through and the laws of Physics don’t respect utility. Many of my fellow Physicists were sponsored by and/or worked at the MoD.

And surely everyone has watched the charming Boston Dynamics videos. Have any been released where Spot the robot dog is fully armed. Whilst they pledged not to weaponise their robots, this is a natural progression, likely by others.

All technologies can have Defence applications. Not necessarily by primary intent. The ones I work on are prohibited by international agreement.

But, once again, that goes both ways as they also start wars

It’s mostly politicians and/or despots who start wars. Defence tech is a tool of those tasked with waging war, irrelevant of who started it.

Optically, they are more than similar (although the focal plane route is different), of course the radius of the mirror is dictated by the shuttle bay, but optical science is optical science and mirror manufacture is better at scale. Detector science has obvious Defence pull through and the laws of Physics don’t respect utility. Many of my fellow Physicists were sponsored by and/or worked at the MoD.

Well, in that they share a similar architecture based up well proven principles, sure.  But the primary and secondary for Hubble are quite different (from what I learned at NASA) to the NRO and the image processing software and thermal control is very different.  GNC for Hubble is also very different as retasking isn’t a priority where’s as stability control and partial oscillation is.

As for large scale mirror manufacture being simpler, I’d have to take your word for that but with the caveat that they did get it wrong for Hubble.  Not much (2-3 microns) but more than enough to make a difference.

Hiya,

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…

Br

JeZ

FWIW, the jobs i was offered actually *in* the industry of death and destruction followed on from a good few years trying to use tech that was already being used for death and destruction and applying it to commercial applications.

Successfully i might add.

Thanks for sharing and your reasoning. I respect your choices.

What do you think about the weapons we have available to give to Ukraine? Are you fine with it as long as it’s other people doing the work to design and produce them?

Generally I think people have all sorts of opinions and weapons and the military, until someone else turns their weapons and military against them and their friends. Then, suddenly there’s nothing else more important.

Happy to discuss – but on another thread, not this one.

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.