ethics

[Kjel Anderson]

Your comments are well taken. I do question the advisability of
talking about "Asperberger victims" on this list in such a derogatory
way. I don't think that it adds to the discourse, and it is offensive.

Kjel

On 5/2/07, Adam Russell <rus20376 at infolaunch.com> wrote:
> > Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 10:52:13 -0400
> > From: TheBlueSage <tbs at bsvn.net>
> > Subject: Re: ethics;
> > To: L-blu <discuss at blu.org>
> > Message-ID: <1178117533.11648.66.camel at localhost>
> > Content-Type: text/plain
> [snip]
> > A friend of mine worked in the AI development field (attached to a UC
> > campus) and their entire operation was funded by the Military. When I
> > asked him how he can sleep at night he said, 'Well if I dont do it,
> > someone else will'. A classic excuse that has funded slaughter the world
> > over, but he is partly right. If you could develop, for example, cold
> > fusion, and give free power to the world, but the Military funded the
> > project so as to create small and terrifyingly nasty 'nukes', would you
> > do it....
> [snip]
> These and other comments from other posters to this thread have been amusing.
> As someone who actually does have a security clearance and has
> served in the military let me give you a realistic perspective.
> The viewpoints I have seen so far seem to have been based by reading
> comic books
> and Roger Corman films(or even worse, Tom Clancy novels). Here is
> reality: The military has a good and reasonable purpose. While you may
> object to the Iraq
> occupation do you object to, say, the humanitarian response to the Horn
> of Africa? What about
> the assistance given after the tsunami in thailand? What about simply
> maintaining a sound defense of the country? You cannot seperate these
> actions from those which you might object without dismantling the DoD.
> This is not realistic, although I suppose the thought has been
> entertained by the Asperberger victims on this list.
> There is no easy way to collectively assess "the military". The DoD is
> so large as to defy easy classification. Probably 99.99% of what goes
> on is, I can assure you, boring beyond belief. Would you turn down DoD
> money if it was to buy, say, a web application for managing food
> purchases or something similarly banal? Well, that is where a lot of
> money goes. For the bigger scientific stuff I honestly think that the
> government really wants to fund basic research but it is easier to sell
> the idea of funding scientists to Joe Sixpack in Alabama if it is
> under the guise of defense spending. Of the insane amounts spent on
> research just how much do you think turns into something that is
> actually ever used by anybody? I would bet about 1/100 of 1 percent. I
> am happy that the DoD so generously funds basic research. Even for the
> stuff that is objectionable to most anybody such as nuclear weapons I
> think has a real value to being studied. Much like the Shaolin monks
> that studied fighting techniques so as to better understand the
> dynamics of human aggression and violence I think that understanding
> modern weapons makes sense. Violence is part of being an animal. Us
> human animals should use our higher brain functions to study and
> understand violence and weaponry, not simply dismiss it or treat it as
> a distasteful affect of the lower class or uneducated.
>
>
>
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