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Anonymous Google Employees Voted Arms Control Persons of the Year

178 points by Nemant 8y ago

threatofrain 8y ago
Perhaps for political purposes the businesses which bid over government contracts ought not also be consumer-facing ones.
ve55 8y ago
But yet all 4,000 of them still work for the largest surveillance corporation that has ever existed. At least now they think they have the moral high ground.
- citilife 8y ago
  They track us in real-time down to a meter, predict when and where we will travel, know who we interact with, know our DNA[1], know what food we like, when we are sick, what our political leanings are, can predict what our children will like / dislike and probably can predict when we'll die... If any of that isn't completely true yet, it will be. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/23andme-is-terrifying-but-not-for-the-reasons-the-fda-thinks/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/23andme-is-terrif...
  - tehsauce 8y ago
    That's true and it's terrible. But they are not building actual weapons that kill people. That's worth something.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      They are building the infrastructure for the people who want to use weapons.
    - sodosopa 8y ago
      Being in China and calling Xi Jinping Winnie the Pooh over gmail would be a good test of this, no?
- archgoon 8y ago
  It occurs to me that attacking people who are probably on your side, and are in a position to influence Google's policies, is probably not the most effective way of enacting change. Unless your real argument is "Everyone's evil so don't bother trying".
- DannyBee 8y ago
  Ah, the ole "sitting on the sidelines is helpful" argument. It's morally defensible for sure, and neutral, but pretending it is actually helpful is wrong. It doesn't help in any meaningful way to change things (in any direction) if you sit on the sidelines. Ironically, people who are the ones who always seem to think the have the moral high ground. Of course that doesn't mean you have to join google to make a difference, but pretending that you have to not be working at Google to be helping change things is just silly nonsense.
  - lallysingh 8y ago
    No it's different. It's closer to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cooperation_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cooperation_movement It has an effect, you just need to have a large mass of people to make it work.
    - DannyBee 8y ago
      I agree you can have an active non-cooperation movement. That does not appear to be suggested here. It's the difference between "i won't participate in patenting software" vs "i'm actively avoiding any companies or software that file patents" The former i see a lot, and it does not help in any meaningful way, in part because their participation is not required. It doesn't help, it's just something people do to pretend they are helping without having to do anything real. The latter would be something useful, though it does take large groups. Not working for google "as a way of helping" is clearly the former. Google doesn't need their help, they will do no good by leaving. They have plenty of other jobs, so it's not hard either. They likely can do more good by staying and agitating than by leaving and being ignored. Additionally, the argument that they must leave google to have an impact is also clearly silly.
  - bogomipz 8y ago
    >"Ah, the ole "sitting on the sidelines is helpful" argument." That's not even the OPs argument, nor is it some "ole" argument. You have both put words in their mouth and framed it as some classic well-known fallacy of which it is not. The OP is making the distinction between "voting with your feet" which takes real commitment and has immediate effects versus "signing a letter"[1] which involves nothing more than a few seconds of your time without having to leave your desk. If Google has trouble attracting talent due to matters of conscience it directly impacts its abilities to build new services as well as improve existing service in order to increase revenue. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo-pentagon-project.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-...
- JarlUlvi 8y ago
  Google is like Facebook A morass of compromised individuals, claiming the moral highground while attacking freedom of speech, whilst spying on our every move, and selling our data to the highest bidder/advendor. All of this, with, or without your permission.
chrisco255 8y ago
Isn't it inevitable that AI will be used to improve targeting technology for weaponry? Am I wrong in assuming that if U.S. doesn't develop this tech some other country will?
- BurritoAlPastor 8y ago
  It’s not inevitable if we aren’t willing to let it happen. It used to be “inevitable” that poison gas, napalm, cluster mines, etc. were inevitably the future of war, but as a species we decided we weren’t okay with the effects of those technologies, and we’ve subsequently been reasonably successful at not using them.
  - 21 8y ago
    The progression was always towards more targeted weapons, because they have less collateral damage.
    - slededit 8y ago
      And a much higher chance of actually destroying the target. The US dropped more tonnage of bombs on Vietnam than the entirety of WWII, and yet random destruction is rather ineffective.
  - drak0n1c 8y ago
    Imagine if all engineers had boycotted weapons development due to the heinous nature of napalm firebombing in WW2. US military competency stagnates at the stage of napalm. Would that actually change the behavior of the government's military, or would they continue to use napalm in Vietnam and beyond? As history has borne out, I think the latter is the case. The gov will assume it is the best tool so far to do the job, and preferable to the prior alternative of mass cannon bombardment and infantry deployment. Development of smart munitions, better sensors/intel, and targeting precision has reduced the scale of military operations, entrenchment, and collateral damage. I think that was a form of technological disruption that was overall for the better. There's a valid counter-argument that making war smaller and easier will lubricate the willingness for politicians (and the public) to enter into war, or maintain a state of pseudo-war. That is certainly a drawback.
drak0n1c 8y ago
Unfortunately, the divide between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon will be bad for national security in the long run. Recent news cycles keep revealing yet another piece military equipment suffering from software weaknesses. Technology does not stand still, if Russia and China have more of their most talented engineers willing to work on national projects than us that will inevitably lead to a competence gap. Here is an interesting article about the cultural divide and how it can be mediated: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/12/divide-between-silicon-valley-and-washington-national-security-threat/153562/ https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/12/divide-between-sili...
- PhasmaFelis 8y ago
  That's probably true, but the blame belongs squarely on the government. Edit: Not clear why this is getting so many downvotes. If the government is not trustworthy, people won't want to cooperate with the government. Demanding that they put aside their ethics for the sake of patriotism/national security/etc., while ignoring their legitimate concerns, is pure propaganda.
- mattnewton 8y ago
  The article makes it feel like these changes happened because less people are enlisting or know people enlisting. I think that’s just another symptom of how some military programs lost a lot of legitimacy in the minds of some of my generation who were coming of age around the war on terror. It’s hard to feel like the good guys in a lot of these issues like drone warfare against non-combatants, and so the military was never a career I considered as a result, and I suspect I am not alone? Edit: I’ll add, my generation clearly remembers 9/11 and the response to it. I think it’s not a lack of awareness of the current mission but _because_ of awareness to parts of it that many people write off the military. Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer, but with no work relationship to their AI efforts and my opinions are my own.
  - NotAnEconomist 8y ago
    I think the media has a lot to do with that. They run stories about how the military bombs some civilians while fighting jihadists, but not about how those same jihadists routinely round up and torture children, kill scores of locals, etc. Outside of Iraq, which fuck Bush, can you name something about the "War on Terror" you think we'd be better off not doing? I think it's a really shallow view to say it's better to not bomb a few civilians... then leave them to be preyed on by violent locals instead. I'm a millennial, and didn't enlist at 18 because I didn't want to go to Iraq (and still don't support starting that war), but I'd have gone to Afghanistan, and as I get older, I find myself much more willing to support the military. I suspect I'm not alone in that, either.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Whygul 8y ago
There is a lot of cynicism here in response to a strictly positive social effort. If we (nationally) are actually behind in some kind of "AI" drone-targeting arms race, I suspect a great many of these objectors would be willing to do work to, say, disable incoming drones, or develop systems to scramble/mislead automated targeting systems. I feel that it is the responsibility of every moral and conscious agent to oppose dark patterns and negative trends within their place of work whenever possible, and while it is easy (and apropos) to accuse Google of perpetrating malicious patterns, I think we ought to laud and publicly encourage internal currants that oppose that trend, not smirk at them or deride them for not doing enough.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
avar 8y ago
I'm cautiously optimistic that increased AI use in the military is going to be a good thing for everyone. Realistically we're not going to solve the problem of nation states wanting to protect their interests halfway across the world, which'll among other things mean killing some "combatants" from a drone. But we can hope to do things like improve targeting, and a reduction in civilian casualties or collateral casualties. Right now the "AI" is some group of 20-somethings sitting behind a computer in Nevada, what if we trained an AI instead, and could e.g. hold legislative audits on what that software was configured to target?
- brokenmachine 8y ago
  > I'm cautiously optimistic that increased AI use in the military is going to be a good thing for everyone. > what if we trained an AI instead, and could e.g. hold legislative audits on what that software was configured to target? You are much more optimistic than me. If those audits ever happened, they would be held in secret, and have very different goals than most people would consider moral.
geoalchimista 8y ago
That is virtue signaling on a whole new level. Boycotting Pentagon yet aiding authoritarian regimes with mass-surveillance technologies, I can't help but see the irony in their double standards.
- izacus 8y ago
  Can you explain more?
  - ryanmercer 8y ago
    Not the person you asked but I suspect their comment is along the lines of how Google employees threw a fit when learning about working on a military project (Project Maven) fairly recently but didn't make any noticeable objections when Google was like "why yes China, we will gladly build a custom censored search engine just for you" as well as opening the Google AI China Center which you can basically guarantee is lousy with agents of the Chinese government and honestly it would even be realistic to make every Chinese national that was an employee a government 'spy'. 'Let us debrief you on a regular basis everything you do, as well as save copies of all of your work to hand over to us, or you family goes to prison' kinda thing.
    - izacus 8y ago
      Huh, there was certanly "a fit" inside Google around Dragonfly as well - and the only big corporation that actively assists China at this point is Apple. So I'm not quite sure what the OP meant?
      - ryanmercer 8y ago
        I feel like Maven got saber rattling from employees at least one order of magnitude more than Dragonfly. At least I saw a LOT more press and general discussion.
        namirez 8y ago
throwaway010919 8y ago
> The runners-up in the vote for the 2018 Arms Control Persons of the Year were the founders and co-chairs of the International Gender Champions Disarmament Impact Group... The impact group developed specific aims for expanding knowledge about the importance of gender issues and practical actions for bringing gendered perspectives into disarmament discussions. I find it just a little bit hard to take them seriously if they feel this is the second most significant group in arms control last year.
- tengbretson 8y ago
  The world must be a wonderfully prosperous place if these are the remaining sorts of problems we have chosen to organize around.
- standardUser 8y ago
  No one is intended to take a "Arms Control Persons of the Year" seriously as an objective ranking. It's about raising awareness and driving the discussion.
- mbo 8y ago
  I don't understand why you don't think gendered perspectives regarding disarmament discussions are useful. Feminism has a long and entrenched history within peace and conflict studies and international relations, and its insights are often useful, particularly with respect to things like disarmament and post-conflict peacekeeping.
  - justtopost 8y ago
    I'll bite. Got any concrete examples of this in actual application? To say it sounds like a parody of the current mess of 'gender studies' would be an understatement.
Jedi72 8y ago
Please watch and share this video. For the people who support SV building weapons, at least know that this is how the world sees you (first 1min) https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA
itry2develop 8y ago
Great, more dead US soldiers trying to protect fat google employees and their BMWs.
crb002 8y ago
Meanwhile Amazon makes $$$ and increases their overwhelming user base from D.C.
neaanopri 8y ago
I think younger engineers' morality towards the military distinguishes between technology for great-power warfare, and technology for bombing weddings in Yemen. Aside from some real outliers, nobody of any age wants to lose a war with China. However, it's the "wars of choice" that are problematic.
- izacus 8y ago
  Why are you talking about a war with China? Is USA preparing to attack China in the near future? There has been a very concerning rise of targeted anti-Chinese articles on this site, is that a preparation for war?
bliblah 8y ago
>The second runner-up was South Korean president Moon Jae-in. He was nominated for promoting improved Inter-Korean relations and a renewed dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang on denuclearization and peace that has led to a number of significant steps to decrease tensions, including a North Korean moratorium on long-range missile and nuclear testing, a halt to U.S.-South Korean military exercises, and steps to avoid military incidents along the demilitarized zone that divides North Korea and South Korea. IMO this is the only one that matters in the list. The Pentagon will get another US Based Tech company to aid them in the pursuit of new weapons because there is just too much money to ignore it. Meanwhile peace talks between South and North Korea actually reduces the chance of a thermonuclear war between two nations. We can only hope that other nations follow suit.
PHGamer 8y ago
I wonder how many of these employees are actual us citizens or not.
buboard 8y ago
Title Confused Me To No End
sodosopa 8y ago
They're perfectly ok with scanning emails and providing that data to hostile countries and getting someone shot in the face, but if the person is shot in the face with an AI-powered weapon, they're not? Wow the faux ethical reach-around they've giving each other over this is comical.
heyjudy 8y ago
Beware of the hubris of those surrounding Peter Thiel, whom are war hawks and pro military startups of all sorts... including Palantir which is used to target and eliminate dissidents. And even more troubling are a few of the Ukrainian and Russian "entrepreneurs" whom come to the Valley as being flag-waving capitalists, but it's difficult to ascertain their actual allegiances because the Valley lets people pop up out of nowhere without references, and hands them money and influence.

178 points by Nemant 8y ago

Perhaps for political purposes the businesses which bid over government contracts ought not also be consumer-facing ones.

ve55 8y ago

But yet all 4,000 of them still work for the largest surveillance corporation that has ever existed. At least now they think they have the moral high ground.

citilife 8y ago
They track us in real-time down to a meter, predict when and where we will travel, know who we interact with, know our DNA[1], know what food we like, when we are sick, what our political leanings are, can predict what our children will like / dislike and probably can predict when we'll die... If any of that isn't completely true yet, it will be. [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/23andme-is-terrifying-but-not-for-the-reasons-the-fda-thinks/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/23andme-is-terrif...
- tehsauce 8y ago
  That's true and it's terrible. But they are not building actual weapons that kill people. That's worth something.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    They are building the infrastructure for the people who want to use weapons.
  - sodosopa 8y ago
    Being in China and calling Xi Jinping Winnie the Pooh over gmail would be a good test of this, no?
archgoon 8y ago
It occurs to me that attacking people who are probably on your side, and are in a position to influence Google's policies, is probably not the most effective way of enacting change. Unless your real argument is "Everyone's evil so don't bother trying".
DannyBee 8y ago
Ah, the ole "sitting on the sidelines is helpful" argument. It's morally defensible for sure, and neutral, but pretending it is actually helpful is wrong. It doesn't help in any meaningful way to change things (in any direction) if you sit on the sidelines. Ironically, people who are the ones who always seem to think the have the moral high ground. Of course that doesn't mean you have to join google to make a difference, but pretending that you have to not be working at Google to be helping change things is just silly nonsense.
- lallysingh 8y ago
  No it's different. It's closer to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cooperation_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-cooperation_movement It has an effect, you just need to have a large mass of people to make it work.
  - DannyBee 8y ago
    I agree you can have an active non-cooperation movement. That does not appear to be suggested here. It's the difference between "i won't participate in patenting software" vs "i'm actively avoiding any companies or software that file patents" The former i see a lot, and it does not help in any meaningful way, in part because their participation is not required. It doesn't help, it's just something people do to pretend they are helping without having to do anything real. The latter would be something useful, though it does take large groups. Not working for google "as a way of helping" is clearly the former. Google doesn't need their help, they will do no good by leaving. They have plenty of other jobs, so it's not hard either. They likely can do more good by staying and agitating than by leaving and being ignored. Additionally, the argument that they must leave google to have an impact is also clearly silly.
- bogomipz 8y ago
  >"Ah, the ole "sitting on the sidelines is helpful" argument." That's not even the OPs argument, nor is it some "ole" argument. You have both put words in their mouth and framed it as some classic well-known fallacy of which it is not. The OP is making the distinction between "voting with your feet" which takes real commitment and has immediate effects versus "signing a letter"[1] which involves nothing more than a few seconds of your time without having to leave your desk. If Google has trouble attracting talent due to matters of conscience it directly impacts its abilities to build new services as well as improve existing service in order to increase revenue. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-ceo-pentagon-project.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/technology/google-letter-...
JarlUlvi 8y ago
Google is like Facebook A morass of compromised individuals, claiming the moral highground while attacking freedom of speech, whilst spying on our every move, and selling our data to the highest bidder/advendor. All of this, with, or without your permission.

chrisco255 8y ago

Isn't it inevitable that AI will be used to improve targeting technology for weaponry? Am I wrong in assuming that if U.S. doesn't develop this tech some other country will?

BurritoAlPastor 8y ago
It’s not inevitable if we aren’t willing to let it happen. It used to be “inevitable” that poison gas, napalm, cluster mines, etc. were inevitably the future of war, but as a species we decided we weren’t okay with the effects of those technologies, and we’ve subsequently been reasonably successful at not using them.
- 21 8y ago
  The progression was always towards more targeted weapons, because they have less collateral damage.
  - slededit 8y ago
    And a much higher chance of actually destroying the target. The US dropped more tonnage of bombs on Vietnam than the entirety of WWII, and yet random destruction is rather ineffective.
- drak0n1c 8y ago
  Imagine if all engineers had boycotted weapons development due to the heinous nature of napalm firebombing in WW2. US military competency stagnates at the stage of napalm. Would that actually change the behavior of the government's military, or would they continue to use napalm in Vietnam and beyond? As history has borne out, I think the latter is the case. The gov will assume it is the best tool so far to do the job, and preferable to the prior alternative of mass cannon bombardment and infantry deployment. Development of smart munitions, better sensors/intel, and targeting precision has reduced the scale of military operations, entrenchment, and collateral damage. I think that was a form of technological disruption that was overall for the better. There's a valid counter-argument that making war smaller and easier will lubricate the willingness for politicians (and the public) to enter into war, or maintain a state of pseudo-war. That is certainly a drawback.

drak0n1c 8y ago

Unfortunately, the divide between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon will be bad for national security in the long run. Recent news cycles keep revealing yet another piece military equipment suffering from software weaknesses. Technology does not stand still, if Russia and China have more of their most talented engineers willing to work on national projects than us that will inevitably lead to a competence gap. Here is an interesting article about the cultural divide and how it can be mediated: https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/12/divide-between-silicon-valley-and-washington-national-security-threat/153562/ https://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2018/12/divide-between-sili...

PhasmaFelis 8y ago
That's probably true, but the blame belongs squarely on the government. Edit: Not clear why this is getting so many downvotes. If the government is not trustworthy, people won't want to cooperate with the government. Demanding that they put aside their ethics for the sake of patriotism/national security/etc., while ignoring their legitimate concerns, is pure propaganda.
mattnewton 8y ago
The article makes it feel like these changes happened because less people are enlisting or know people enlisting. I think that’s just another symptom of how some military programs lost a lot of legitimacy in the minds of some of my generation who were coming of age around the war on terror. It’s hard to feel like the good guys in a lot of these issues like drone warfare against non-combatants, and so the military was never a career I considered as a result, and I suspect I am not alone? Edit: I’ll add, my generation clearly remembers 9/11 and the response to it. I think it’s not a lack of awareness of the current mission but _because_ of awareness to parts of it that many people write off the military. Disclaimer: I am a Google engineer, but with no work relationship to their AI efforts and my opinions are my own.
- NotAnEconomist 8y ago
  I think the media has a lot to do with that. They run stories about how the military bombs some civilians while fighting jihadists, but not about how those same jihadists routinely round up and torture children, kill scores of locals, etc. Outside of Iraq, which fuck Bush, can you name something about the "War on Terror" you think we'd be better off not doing? I think it's a really shallow view to say it's better to not bomb a few civilians... then leave them to be preyed on by violent locals instead. I'm a millennial, and didn't enlist at 18 because I didn't want to go to Iraq (and still don't support starting that war), but I'd have gone to Afghanistan, and as I get older, I find myself much more willing to support the military. I suspect I'm not alone in that, either.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Whygul 8y ago

There is a lot of cynicism here in response to a strictly positive social effort. If we (nationally) are actually behind in some kind of "AI" drone-targeting arms race, I suspect a great many of these objectors would be willing to do work to, say, disable incoming drones, or develop systems to scramble/mislead automated targeting systems. I feel that it is the responsibility of every moral and conscious agent to oppose dark patterns and negative trends within their place of work whenever possible, and while it is easy (and apropos) to accuse Google of perpetrating malicious patterns, I think we ought to laud and publicly encourage internal currants that oppose that trend, not smirk at them or deride them for not doing enough.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

avar 8y ago

I'm cautiously optimistic that increased AI use in the military is going to be a good thing for everyone. Realistically we're not going to solve the problem of nation states wanting to protect their interests halfway across the world, which'll among other things mean killing some "combatants" from a drone. But we can hope to do things like improve targeting, and a reduction in civilian casualties or collateral casualties. Right now the "AI" is some group of 20-somethings sitting behind a computer in Nevada, what if we trained an AI instead, and could e.g. hold legislative audits on what that software was configured to target?

brokenmachine 8y ago
> I'm cautiously optimistic that increased AI use in the military is going to be a good thing for everyone. > what if we trained an AI instead, and could e.g. hold legislative audits on what that software was configured to target? You are much more optimistic than me. If those audits ever happened, they would be held in secret, and have very different goals than most people would consider moral.

geoalchimista 8y ago

That is virtue signaling on a whole new level. Boycotting Pentagon yet aiding authoritarian regimes with mass-surveillance technologies, I can't help but see the irony in their double standards.

izacus 8y ago
Can you explain more?
- ryanmercer 8y ago
  Not the person you asked but I suspect their comment is along the lines of how Google employees threw a fit when learning about working on a military project (Project Maven) fairly recently but didn't make any noticeable objections when Google was like "why yes China, we will gladly build a custom censored search engine just for you" as well as opening the Google AI China Center which you can basically guarantee is lousy with agents of the Chinese government and honestly it would even be realistic to make every Chinese national that was an employee a government 'spy'. 'Let us debrief you on a regular basis everything you do, as well as save copies of all of your work to hand over to us, or you family goes to prison' kinda thing.
  - izacus 8y ago
    Huh, there was certanly "a fit" inside Google around Dragonfly as well - and the only big corporation that actively assists China at this point is Apple. So I'm not quite sure what the OP meant?
    - ryanmercer 8y ago
      I feel like Maven got saber rattling from employees at least one order of magnitude more than Dragonfly. At least I saw a LOT more press and general discussion.
      - namirez 8y ago

throwaway010919 8y ago

> The runners-up in the vote for the 2018 Arms Control Persons of the Year were the founders and co-chairs of the International Gender Champions Disarmament Impact Group... The impact group developed specific aims for expanding knowledge about the importance of gender issues and practical actions for bringing gendered perspectives into disarmament discussions. I find it just a little bit hard to take them seriously if they feel this is the second most significant group in arms control last year.

tengbretson 8y ago
The world must be a wonderfully prosperous place if these are the remaining sorts of problems we have chosen to organize around.
standardUser 8y ago
No one is intended to take a "Arms Control Persons of the Year" seriously as an objective ranking. It's about raising awareness and driving the discussion.
mbo 8y ago
I don't understand why you don't think gendered perspectives regarding disarmament discussions are useful. Feminism has a long and entrenched history within peace and conflict studies and international relations, and its insights are often useful, particularly with respect to things like disarmament and post-conflict peacekeeping.
- justtopost 8y ago
  I'll bite. Got any concrete examples of this in actual application? To say it sounds like a parody of the current mess of 'gender studies' would be an understatement.

Jedi72 8y ago

Please watch and share this video. For the people who support SV building weapons, at least know that this is how the world sees you (first 1min) https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA https://youtu.be/9CO6M2HsoIA

itry2develop 8y ago

Great, more dead US soldiers trying to protect fat google employees and their BMWs.

crb002 8y ago

Meanwhile Amazon makes $$$ and increases their overwhelming user base from D.C.

neaanopri 8y ago

I think younger engineers' morality towards the military distinguishes between technology for great-power warfare, and technology for bombing weddings in Yemen. Aside from some real outliers, nobody of any age wants to lose a war with China. However, it's the "wars of choice" that are problematic.

izacus 8y ago
Why are you talking about a war with China? Is USA preparing to attack China in the near future? There has been a very concerning rise of targeted anti-Chinese articles on this site, is that a preparation for war?

bliblah 8y ago

>The second runner-up was South Korean president Moon Jae-in. He was nominated for promoting improved Inter-Korean relations and a renewed dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang on denuclearization and peace that has led to a number of significant steps to decrease tensions, including a North Korean moratorium on long-range missile and nuclear testing, a halt to U.S.-South Korean military exercises, and steps to avoid military incidents along the demilitarized zone that divides North Korea and South Korea. IMO this is the only one that matters in the list. The Pentagon will get another US Based Tech company to aid them in the pursuit of new weapons because there is just too much money to ignore it. Meanwhile peace talks between South and North Korea actually reduces the chance of a thermonuclear war between two nations. We can only hope that other nations follow suit.

PHGamer 8y ago

I wonder how many of these employees are actual us citizens or not.

buboard 8y ago

Title Confused Me To No End

sodosopa 8y ago

They're perfectly ok with scanning emails and providing that data to hostile countries and getting someone shot in the face, but if the person is shot in the face with an AI-powered weapon, they're not? Wow the faux ethical reach-around they've giving each other over this is comical.

heyjudy 8y ago

Beware of the hubris of those surrounding Peter Thiel, whom are war hawks and pro military startups of all sorts... including Palantir which is used to target and eliminate dissidents. And even more troubling are a few of the Ukrainian and Russian "entrepreneurs" whom come to the Valley as being flag-waving capitalists, but it's difficult to ascertain their actual allegiances because the Valley lets people pop up out of nowhere without references, and hands them money and influence.