• jasondj@ttrpg.network
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    10 months ago

    Eh, that may be how you see it.

    Personally I’ve been more directly involved in actually helping people and things go to the fricken moon than I have in all of my defense projects, combined. And space is just one of our cool science markets.

    I can do defense stuff, I’m authorized to, in a pinch I can (and have), but I would really rather not. Work on that side of the house sucks.

    Nobody likes how the sausage is made, but it’s going to get made as long as someone buying it. I’m not eating the sausage. I’m not buying the sausage. I’m having a satisfying job, managing operations at a small pig farm that also develops new cutting-edge cancer medications inside of pig pancreases. Different group of pigs, though.

    • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      It’s not so much “how I see it” as it is “how it is” and you don’t seem to deny that.

      I understood that you prefer not to work on the child-killing devices the first time. Nonetheless all the other “cool science markets” still help your employer make those child-killing devices.

      While the sausage will keep being made, I can actively choose not to be the butcher and I’m having a hard time respecting people gushing about their work on the non-butchering side of the same company.

      • jasondj@ttrpg.network
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        10 months ago

        No, you have it backwards, the child killing devices enable my employer to do the cool science markets.

        Revenue from child killing devices and related patents pays for the science research. And as it turns out, a lot of those patents also work really well for the cool life-saving science stuff.

        • hdnsmbt@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Oh, now I get it, your employer has to facilitate killing children, so they can do cool science stuff! Wow, that’s instantly so much better! The kids will be so happy when they hear that!

          Damn, if only somehow could figure out how to do cool science stuff without all the dead children, though. Maybe you could do some cool science stuff on that maybe? Like soonish?

          • jasondj@ttrpg.network
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            10 months ago

            I put an ETA on as you were responding, so I’ll move it here for your convenience.

            ETA, this is why I see it as more a necessary evil. War pays the bills. My company is probably pretty unique in that we are not a prime and we put most of our revenue towards private research. We are not unique in how our war revenue gets used to subsidize more humanitarian tech, and I imagine even Boeing or LM wouldn’t be able to keep their lights on with just their commercial businesses, either, or the cost of commercial aviation would be unattainable to most people. And without them I imagine FedEx and UPS would crumble, as would USPS. And then the entire economy after that. Just as one example.

            World peace is a terrific goal. But getting there will have a lot of unintended consequences, just due do how ingrained the war machine is with the commercial sector and contemporary lifestyle. At least in America.

            ETA, again, and that wouldn’t even account to the number of displaced workers inside the war machine, be it on commercial or defense sides. It’s one thing to selfishly think of this for myself, it’s another thing to think of the economic and societal impact of millions of simultaneously displaced, highly skilled workers.