Yeah, for sure. Defense contracting is as good or bad as the policies of the government which is going to change over time. All else being equal, if we want to live in a safe and successful society we want good/talented people working in defense. The trick is holding the government accountable for its policies and profligate defense spending.

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discreteevent 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Defense contracting is as good or bad as the policies of the government which is going to change over time.

This is true sometimes. But many times the companies and the government get together to kill people for money (The dead people's money or the taxpayers money - they don't mind which, money is money)

	▲	ch4s3 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> The trick is holding the government accountable for its policies and profligate defense spending.

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throwaw12 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Defense is good

Offense, killing is not good.

Current department understands that and hence renamed to department of war

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jmward01 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't agree with this. Just because the DOD says it is ethical doesn't mean it is so contractors have a duty to maintain ethical standards in the face of changing DOD standards. To me this means a DOD contractor decides before they go in that they will have limits and sticks to them. I think anyone working for Palantir right now should be considering the limits they have and if the company is going beyond them or not. I know that I for one do not consider their work ethical and would not work for them even though the DOD says it is ok. Understand before you sign.

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ch4s3 6 hours ago | parent [-]

To a large degree you can't choose how the DoD or other letter agency uses what they buy from you. Obviously you can set some contractual guardrails but realistically if you build drones that can mount hellfire missiles you have to know that it can be misused by some 22 year old. Its tempting to believe that software is different, but once its on-prem its out of your hands.

	▲	jmward01 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The difference is scale and accountability. Surveillance tech is impacting everyone and is part of every kill chain but its not what people see so there is very little accountability for it. Building a drone that launches something has far less scale and far more accountability since its effects are visible. I personally think there is a big difference between being part of something with at least some accountability and limited scale compared to unlimited scale and no accountability. Of course many people would disagree and set their levels lower (mine are actually lower than this now) but I think that DOD contractors can think in at least this level of terms and decide to be apart of some things and not others in a meaningful way. No matter what though, a problem being hard isn't an excuse for throwing your hands up and saying 'I'm good because the DOD says it is ok'