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This isn't about the nations taking actions off the table, it's about: > Serious question: should companies not participate in contracts from their country's d

This isn't about the nations taking actions off the table, it's about: > Serious question: should companies not participate in contracts from their country's defense department? I contend that unless you want your government to be toppled by a foreign invader, companies contributing to your nation's military capabilities is something you should generally be in favor of.

slg 5d ago
This is from the comment you replied to: >As for "someone else will do it if i don't".... (aka your argument). That's true of a lot of things, and I sleep great at night choosing not to steal from people even though I know others will choose to steal. It turns out I don't have the ability to choose their actions for them, only my own. This is from your response: >It's more like "if I don't do it then I better hope somebody else will, otherwise my whole country will inevitably become subservient to a despotic regime". Are you now claiming that all those "I"s are really "companies"? You think you were having a conversation about how "[companies] sleep great at night"?
- Ajedi32 5d ago
  The "I" a person. If a company has no employees, it ceases to exist in any meaningful sense, so if you refuse to work for such companies you better hope somebody else will do so in your place. Just to be clear, the conversation so far: > beloch: It's also completely fine to say, "I don't want to deal with moral grey zones" and refuse to work for companies that do military work. > JumpCrisscross: Idk, there's something unethical in outsourcing ethical grey areas [working for defense contractors] to other people while reaping the benefits of the peace (or war far from your home) it brings. > sophacles: "someone else will do it if i don't".... (aka your argument) > me: That's not the argument. It's more like "if I don't [work for defense contractors] then I better hope somebody else will. [Because strict pacifism isn't tenable.] You then somehow interpreted this comment as me saying "a nation taking actions off the table "will inevitably become subservient to a despotic regime"", which wasn't at all what I said, so I jumped back in correct that. Then the whole conversation went off the rails.
  - slg 5d ago
    You and other people who replied removed nuance from beloch's comment. The "moral grey zones" were not merely a question of working for a military contractor or not. Just from a basic grammar perspective, the use of the plural "zones" should indicate this isn't a singular question. I read that as a reference to the moral and ethical issues described in the three previous paragraphs. Yet by the time you replied, those three paragraphs of nuance were flattened. It was no longer a question of which military programs and actions can be morally and ethical justified, it is now simply a question of whether they are done or not. And once it is flattened into a binary yes or no, all that nuance of potentially unjustifiable uses of the military in beloch's comment fall into the "yes" category. Making it into a binary reduces the issue to pacifism versus total war.
    - Ajedi32 5d ago
      I think saying you "refuse to work for companies that do military work" because you "don't want to deal with moral grey zones" is a pretty binary choice with not a lot of nuance, but whatever. I think both our positions have been made pretty clear at this point and I'm not that interested in continuing to debate the semantics of previous comments.

slg 5d ago

This is from the comment you replied to: >As for "someone else will do it if i don't".... (aka your argument). That's true of a lot of things, and I sleep great at night choosing not to steal from people even though I know others will choose to steal. It turns out I don't have the ability to choose their actions for them, only my own. This is from your response: >It's more like "if I don't do it then I better hope somebody else will, otherwise my whole country will inevitably become subservient to a despotic regime". Are you now claiming that all those "I"s are really "companies"? You think you were having a conversation about how "[companies] sleep great at night"?

Ajedi32 5d ago
The "I" a person. If a company has no employees, it ceases to exist in any meaningful sense, so if you refuse to work for such companies you better hope somebody else will do so in your place. Just to be clear, the conversation so far: > beloch: It's also completely fine to say, "I don't want to deal with moral grey zones" and refuse to work for companies that do military work. > JumpCrisscross: Idk, there's something unethical in outsourcing ethical grey areas [working for defense contractors] to other people while reaping the benefits of the peace (or war far from your home) it brings. > sophacles: "someone else will do it if i don't".... (aka your argument) > me: That's not the argument. It's more like "if I don't [work for defense contractors] then I better hope somebody else will. [Because strict pacifism isn't tenable.] You then somehow interpreted this comment as me saying "a nation taking actions off the table "will inevitably become subservient to a despotic regime"", which wasn't at all what I said, so I jumped back in correct that. Then the whole conversation went off the rails.
- slg 5d ago
  You and other people who replied removed nuance from beloch's comment. The "moral grey zones" were not merely a question of working for a military contractor or not. Just from a basic grammar perspective, the use of the plural "zones" should indicate this isn't a singular question. I read that as a reference to the moral and ethical issues described in the three previous paragraphs. Yet by the time you replied, those three paragraphs of nuance were flattened. It was no longer a question of which military programs and actions can be morally and ethical justified, it is now simply a question of whether they are done or not. And once it is flattened into a binary yes or no, all that nuance of potentially unjustifiable uses of the military in beloch's comment fall into the "yes" category. Making it into a binary reduces the issue to pacifism versus total war.
  - Ajedi32 5d ago
    I think saying you "refuse to work for companies that do military work" because you "don't want to deal with moral grey zones" is a pretty binary choice with not a lot of nuance, but whatever. I think both our positions have been made pretty clear at this point and I'm not that interested in continuing to debate the semantics of previous comments.