taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/05/86)
--- I might be opening the proverbial can of worms, but I'd like to start a discussion on the ethical and moral basis for working or not working for an organization that does what you consider to be "offensive technologies". The example I'm thinking of is from my own past - I used to work at Logicon Training and Tactical Software Division in San Diego on a joint test force (Army, Air Force, Marines and Navy) project that involved some rather unsavory things. As time went on, I found it harder and harder to justify my participation in what I considered a 'bad' project. At one point, in fact, I refused an assignment based on my own sense of right and wrong - the assignment was to implement some "Probability of Kill" algorithms on the floating point processor. Details aside, there are a number of people that I know that work on some pretty terrifying stuff, yet they don't seem to have the first qualm about it. Examples are some of the projects at Lawrence Livermore Labs (or, as the employees call it, "Death Labs"). What I'd like to see people discuss is their person perspective of the impact of their job/project on society and how they either accept or reject either the premises or tasks given to them based on their own sense of right and wrong. *warning: crass generalization ahead* From my limited experience in this area, it seems like there are pretty much three reasons why people work in, say, Department of Defence companies; 1. It's a job. 2. I'm all for military buildup! 3. It's the only place I can work on such great <x>! I'd like to avoid a major diatribe about 'people shouldn't work for the government' or whatever. We should be able to have a very interesting discussion (especially if we can get some of the Defense contractors involved!) *hint hint* Also those people who work on any other sort of project that they consider to be really `good' should pipe up too! Finally, this discussion is pretty much based on the concept of "right livelihood", if anyone is familiar with that... Take care, all -- Dave
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/06/86)
This article is from pyramid!hoptoad!gnu (John Gilmore) and was received on Wed Aug 6 05:14:42 1986 I find that one of the advantages of being a consultant is that I can refuse any job that doesn't fit my standards. While I was at Sun I was constantly working to convince people that even though it would make money, they should not offer a Tempested version, they should not make greyscale versions for the military mapmakers, etc. All in vain; they set up a federal systems division and are going gung-ho to bring high tech computers to the people making better killing machines. Lord knows Sun could (and still can) sell every computer they can build to commercial concerns without helping the military, but many people there didn't see anything wrong with it. I can go along with the old "we are building tools that anyone can buy" approach (see, this isn't a war machine, it's a general purpose computer), but not once you start customizing the tools for the needs of the spooks, giving them a year of your best peoples' time for software and system integration work, etc. I often get a few funny looks when I ask prospective clients "What's the purpose of this device driver -- what is it hooking up and for whom?". Explaining the point of the question -- is it for the MillaTree -- has always gotten respect from people, and I get passed on to someone who knows the answer, if they don't. One guy I got said "If you have that attitude then you shouldn't work on this project anyway" and never did tell me what it was for...but that was fine by me. I haven't had anybody try to tell me it was nonmilitary when it really was. My attitude comes from a moral stance I choose to take: I don't want my individual efforts to further the goals of the warmakers. That includes helping them hook up a disk drive. I don't even believe in killing animals for food, I can't let myself be a party to killing people for politics. I think it's really sad that many of the best hackers in the North (San Francisco) Bay Area are being sucked in to Livermore Labs. This includes Bandy, Erik Fair, and now Berry Kercheval. These people at one time had productive commercial jobs (Dual, Zehntel, hmm, maybe Bandy was an academic?). I don't think they are building bombs, but they are hooking up disk drives. From ragging them about working there, I have some idea about why they are there, but I'll leave it for them to explain to the public, if they choose. [As people reply, please try to remember that we're more interested in WHY, not WHAT... --Dave]
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/07/86)
This article is from topaz!phoenix!picuxa!warren and was received on Thu Aug 7 05:21:24 1986 > From my limited experience in this area, it seems like there are pretty > much three reasons why people work in, say, Department of Defence companies; > > 1. It's a job. > 2. I'm all for military buildup! > 3. It's the only place I can work on such great <x>! How about: 4. It will go on even if I quit. 5. I would rather no one had to do this job, but since we haven't achieved world peace yet someone has to do this. I think this last one is based on a sound moral position while the first four are rationalizations. I think the only way you could argue with #5 is to claim that it would be better to disarm before achieving world peace. warren
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/08/86)
This article is from tektronix!reed!kehoe (Dave Kehoe) and was received on Fri Aug 8 02:08:37 1986 [Editorial note: I trust this message isn't the harbinger of discussion to come on this topic - I don't think we're interested in hearing about the problems, per se, with DoD contractors (etc), but rather with the personal moral and ethical reasons behind either working or leaving the industry, or, for that matter, never even considering it. Also, I've taken the liberty of slightly editing the content of this message... -- Dave] Good question -- how about cross-posting to net.jobs.d? [I've posted a message with a pointer to mod.comp-soc to the group indicated] I worked for a defense contractor for 8 days last April, and quit. It wasn't so much for "conscience" as I was writing a maintenance manual on a steam co-generator to reduce fuel consumption on Navy ships. I quit because of the shabby work being done. Let me preface this by saying that I am reporting only what I heard -- I could be mistaken on some of these points. The company is called Publication Services, of Tigard, Oregon, with contracts with Tektronix and the Navy. - 4 of the 10 employees were fired or quit in those 8 days. A high turnover rate seemed to be the norm. - The owner was billing the Navy $240,000 on a project that would cost him $40,000. He gotten the contract because he knew someone at Caterpillar, the prime contractor. The contract was never open-bid. - He'd heard that the project would be cancelled before he'd gotten the contract, so got a 30-day cancellation clause written into the contract. He hired writers, and then the project was cancelled. He said, "Do a good job, our reputation is of quality work, blah, blah, BUT you can leave holes in it if you want. Don't waste time on making sure it's accurate, because no one will ever read it." - The company does contract technical writing, and doesn't own a single word processor. The employees had to share 3 typewriters. When I suggested spending $2000 on a word processor, I was told that that expense was out of the question. I got a better job offer and quit. I called two congressmen, and talked with their aides, and was told that this company was doing nothing unlawful or unusual. I'd say that there's nothing unethical about working for the DoD if you keep careful notes on all suspicious or questionable activities, and then give these to a newspaper to investigate. Remember what Che Guevara (sp.?) said about working in the heart of the beast. I think ethical people should work for the CIA or for defense contractors. If ethical people refuse to work at such places, only unethical people will work there. Let me repeat that anything I wrote about Publications Services could be wrong. I'm only repeating what I heard there. Dave Kehoe (503) 230-9454 ...tektronix!reed!kehoe
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (08/10/86)
This article is from rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw%mcnc.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA and was received on Sat Aug 9 00:48:15 1986 Dave Taylor writes; > I might be opening the proverbial can of worms, but I'd like to start a > discussion on the ethical and moral basis for working or not working for > an organization that does what you consider to be "offensive technologies". I'm not sure I understand what is meant by "offensive technologies". Take the specific example given: > the assignment was to > implement some "Probability of Kill" algorithms on the floating point > processor. What technology here is offensive? Methods of probability analysis? Floating point hardware technology? Computers in general? What? I'm at an almost total loss. My bewilderment about what "offensive technology" might mean aside, I think that if the *expected* *outcome* (note well: expected, not intended, and this must include predictable side-effects) of one's work is objectionable, then one's work is thereby objectionable. Note that this does *NOT* mean that if there is *any* *objectionable* *thing* that may be expected to result... that would include almost any conceivable job. I mean that if, in total, the objectionable results outweigh the benign results. And it is important to remember that, even if one supposes that the end justifies the means, one must never forget that the means is *part* the end. As to the classifications given of "why I work on <whatever>": > 1. It's a job. > 2. I'm all for military buildup! > 3. It's the only place I can work on such great <x>! I think it (uh, how shall I put this) somewhat overly simplistic to include folks like Oppenheimer, Dyson, and Feynmann in category 2, as it seems one must with this classification scheme. I found Dyson's comments in "Disturbing the Universe" about why he and others did the things they did to be very thought-provoking, and almost unclassifiable. Wayne Throop <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (08/10/86)
This article is from pyramid!utzoo!henry and was received on Sat Aug 9 20:38:11 1986 John Gilmore writes, in part: > Lord knows Sun could (and still can) sell every computer they can build > to commercial concerns without helping the military, but many people > there didn't see anything wrong with it. > ... > My attitude comes from a moral stance I choose to take: I don't want my > individual efforts to further the goals of the warmakers... There is a distinction here, which John may be aware of but didn't mention explicitly, and it's important: "military" is not synonymous with "warmaker". It is fashionable to ignore the distinction, and in the case of the US or the USSR this may be justifiable. But it's not a universal principle. Consider, for example, whether one would feel differently about a contract for the Swiss military. Switzerland's armed forces are solely, entirely, 100% defensive, devoted entirely to the objective of shredding any army which attempts to invade Switzerland. (They probably could, too. Even Hitler declined to take them on.) It seems to me that this is reasonable and honorable, and there is nothing wrong with assisting in it. There clearly is room for some debate here, since some (perhaps including John) consider violence immoral regardless of motive. However, I suspect that the vast majority of readers of this group would take the more moderate stance that self-defense against unprovoked attack is legitimate. I do wish the US military didn't insist on calling everything they do "defense" (remember what "DoD" stands for); it's giving the word a bad name. Yes, there is a moral difference (to most people, and to the laws of most nations) between mugging someone and defending yourself against someone attempting to mug you. Even when dealing with the US military, there are situations where a complete no-military-work rule seems dubious. I remember a Usenix meeting, back before it was called Usenix actually, when one speaker described an interesting and useful piece of software with the proviso that it wasn't available to the military. One of the questions asked at the end was "does monitoring of the Test Ban Treaty qualify for an exemption?". The answer was "no". This seems a clear case of "redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aims", to borrow Santayana's definition of fanaticism. Not everything labelled "military" is evil. Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (08/10/86)
This article is from allegra!rayssd!gmp (G.M. Paris) and was received on Sat Aug 9 22:01:26 1986 > What I'd like to see people discuss is their person perspective of the > impact of their job/project on society and how they either accept or > reject either the premises or tasks given to them based on their own > sense of right and wrong. I used to work for (Navy) projects here, but was not too thrilled and after three years as a design engineer transferred to computer operations. Although the division produced (at the time) nothing more deadly than sonar, I couldn't get very interested in the latest and greatest new project, because I'm not interested in building weapons. My lack of motivation didn't produce the best I had to offer. I wonder how many other under-motivated people work in the defense industry and whether or not that under-motivation is part of the industry's problems. Greg Paris
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/11/86)
This article is from pyramid!nbires!rcd (Dick Dunn)
and was received on Mon Aug 11 00:29:36 1986
The question of whether to work for the military complex is likely to get a
lot tougher in the next few years. The "computer industry" is still pretty
soft except for military. We're looking at SDI cranking up a whole bunch
(depending on political battles, of course) and non-military government
work withering.
In the latter case, I'm thinking of things like, to take an example near
home, the National Center for Atmospheric Research. They work on stuff
like figuring out hailstorms or wind-shear phenomena. They're only
working on saving lives, crops, and money; they're not doing anything to
save us from the massive global threat of the godless commies of the Evil
Empire (oops, sorry, getting a little too political there), so their budget
gets lopped.
I know of one guy who got laid off at NCAR and was faced with the rather
nasty problem that for his sort of skills, there wasn't much of a choice
on where to go--LLL and LANL were two of a tiny number of choices. He
ended up choosing LANL because of his perception that LLL is far more war-
oriented, but I don't think he was entirely thrilled about the sort of work
that's going on even at LANL.
This is the sort of dilemma that will be facing an ever-larger number of
top programmers, scientists, engineers, etc.--namely, if we don't start
working for the military, where do we work? Face it, the current political
mood is one of converting the country to a wartime economy! In fact, if
you like conspiracy theories, you can probably invent one that says that
the government is trying to crank up military work and keep commercial
computer business soft just so that they can capture top talent. (I don't
buy conspiracy theories much, though...)
Someone brought up, peripherally, the distinction between offensive and
defensive military work. I hope that people can address that in their
responses. (Obviously it makes a difference to some people, not all.)
Personally, I won't get involved in the offensive-weapon stuff, nor the
cloak-and-dagger business, for moral reasons. (That's an incredibly stupid
overgeneralization in the interest of brevity.) I'm not much interested in
other stuff that requires a security clearance just because I don't like
the work conditions implied--I like to speak my mind on things without
asking permission. But I do distinguish the two types of work even though
I avoid both.
Finally, I guess I'd like to see the discussion broaden out to include
"What do we want to do if we want to stay high-tech but we don't want to
play the security-clearance games?"
Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086
[I appreciate the requests to broaden the discussion, but I don't think that
questions of security clearances and offensive vs. defensive work fit in to
this group. (Note that offensive vs. defensive TECHNOLOGIES does, though,
if we approach it from the 'can technology have anthropomorphic attributes')
When I sent out this question I didn't realize we'd spawn off such interesting
but away from topic discussions. Maybe we need to create a temporary mailing
list that's more to do with 'CPSR'-type topics (CPSR = Computer Scientists for
Social Responsibility) that we're hitting. Any volunteers? -- Dave]taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/12/86)
This article is from opus!bellcore!ki4pv!tanner@hplabs.HP.COM and was received on Mon Aug 11 18:56:14 1986 ) picuxa!warren indicates, as a final point, that a reason for doing ) an "evil" job is that we haven't achieved world peace, so someone ) must do it. This overlooks the argument that we haven't achieved world peace because someone \fBis\fR doing this kind of work. One way to assure peace is to have reasonably unanimous rejection of the alternative. (cribbed)--> What if they gave a war, and no one came? [an interesting point... --Dave]
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/12/86)
This article is from Michael C. Berch <mcb%lll-tis-b.ARPA@lll-tis-gw.ARPA>
and was received on Tue Aug 12 12:03:19 1986
Dave Taylor and John Gilmore's articles about the ethics of doing
defense work caused me to think about why I do what I do, and how I
feel about it. It is important to me to do things that I consider
socially useful, which is one reason I gave up practicing law three
years ago to return full-time to computer science.
The ethical questions that Dave and John pose are real, and I will
attempt to answer them in this public forum in a straightforward
manner. While I do not claim to speak for others who are currently
involved in defense work, I would not be surprised to learn that others
share my opinions; perhaps more than one would expect.
To put the summary first -- I do not consider it unethical or immoral
to do defense work, nor do I find it a contradiction that one can be an
informed, moral, peace-loving person and also work on terrible
weapons. I am not a weapons scientist; most of the work I'm currently
engaged in is for rather non-lethal military applications like office
automation, records processing, networking, C3I, and so forth.
Nevertheless, it does have applications for both tactical and strategic
weapons systems, and our project provides some support in those areas
as well. So I do not propose to hide behind the idea that I am merely
plugging in disk drives instead of building bombs; I agree that doing
the former may support the latter, and hope to explain why this is
consistent with my goals and how I view the way my work may affect
society.
1. Building weapons does not necessarily mean making war.
It seems to me that there are only two consistent points of view about
maintaining a military: either you accept the necessity of defending
your country (or planet, state, village, whatever) from those who mean
to do it harm, or you are a pacifist who does not condone the use of
violence, even in self defense. I am comfortable with people of either
persuasion, since they are internally consistent, non-hypocritical
philosophies based on solid values.
I personally believe in the necessity for defense, and base my belief
on the lengthy history of human conflict, and the pragmatic observation
that there are forces in the world that desire to destroy our way of
life, our property, or our lives. (Please do not think that I am some
kind of raving right-wing militarist; I'm not, and I've spent a good
deal of time in my life opposing unjust wars and military adventures
and aid to totalitarian dictatorships and the like.)
>From this postulate I derive the necessity of building weapons for
defense. There are those who accept the necessity of defense but refuse
to have anything to do with it PERSONALLY on "moral" grounds; I find
this irritating and hypocritical, like meat-eaters who don't mind
seeing packaged cold cuts but do not condone the existence of
slaughterhouses.
2. Weapons are tools.
Weapons are tools, and like other tools are capable of being used
rightly or wrongly. A handgun in the possession of a police officer
patrolling a crime-ridden area or held by a homeowner defending his/her
home are (to me) "right" uses. The SAME handgun in the possession of a
criminal is a "wrong" use. Is it therefore "right" or "wrong" to be
involved in the manufacture or distribution of handguns?
In my mind, this same analogy applies to the more terrifying weapons of
war. I firmly believe that if this nation had not developed nuclear
weapons during/after WWII, and the Soviets had, this particular
dialogue could not be taking place, and that many of us (if in fact we
had been born at all) would currently be inside Soviet gulags, given
our penchant for free thinking and expression.
3. Nuclear weapons and stability.
Nuclear weapons, like handguns, are often accused of having the single
purpose of killing humans. This is not true: a much more important
purpose of both is coercion. Coercion by threat of force is not
pleasant to me; nevertheless the superpowers of the world have engaged
in a standoff for nearly forty years based on the threat of mutual
destruction (MAD). There is significant reason to believe that
notwithstanding the massive expenditures (and resultant economic
displacement) caused by the US-USSR arms race, it has probably
prevented the occurrence of a major war for global domination for the
last 40 years (with massive loss of life resulting), and is likely to
do so for the indefinite future.
The key to avoiding a nuclear war is stability. Whatever the drawbacks
of the current MAD situation, it is relatively stable, even taking into
consideration nuclear third parties and others. There are various ways
to stop an arms race: unilateral disarmament, multilateral disarmament,
demonstration of clear superiority, and mutual or unilateral development
of a defensive capability. All except unilateral disarmament (which I
consider unwise) depend on the continuation of a weapons research,
development, and testing program. The last depends on continued research
into a defensive capability such as SDI.
4. Scientific workers as ethical forces in the defense industry.
Whatever your opinions about my analysis of the nature of weapons and
defense technology, there is a further point that I would like to bring
up: the necessity of having ethical, "good" people in the defense
industry. While I consider technology (including weapons) to be
neutral, that does not mean that I endorse every (or even most)
military actions -- far from it! I believe that it is the
responsibility of scientific workers (who are the most highly educated,
and probably most intelligent people, in the defense industry) to take
positions about warfare, defense policy, and the use of weapons.
I've found the weapons and defense scientists that I've worked with to
be a highly thoughtful, moral, and ethical group of people, well
informed about public policy, arms control, critical technologies, and
the like. They are as horrified as I am at the idea of nuclear war, and
hope, through a strong R&D program, to maintain stability so that a
nuclear war can never occur.
If you decline military-related projects on a "moral" basis, remember
that the consequence of this is that the work might be done by others
who are of less high purpose. Would you rather the DOE, DOD, CIA, and
NSA were staffed by "good" people, or just whomever the agencies could
hire after all the "good" people refused to get involved? Think about it.
Comments welcomed.
Michael C. Berch
ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA
UUCP: {ihnp4,dual,sun}!lll-lcc!styx!mcb
The opinions above are solely those of the author, and should not be
attributed to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory nor Control Data
Corporation, to whom the author is a non-employee consultant.taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (08/15/86)
This article is from pyramid!dual!islenet!scott and was received on Fri Aug 15 07:21:52 1986 Henry Spencer writes: > There is a distinction here, which John may be aware of but didn't mention > explicitly, and it's important: "military" is not synonymous with "warmaker". > It is fashionable to ignore the distinction, and in the case of the US or > the USSR this may be justifiable. But it's not a universal principle. > To equate the military of a totalitarian state and a democratic one is both fatuous and dangerous. Let's face it, there are bears in the woods, and we need defense. Switzerland's stance will only work for Switzerland when there is a third party to conquer aggressors. In WWII Switzerland would ultimately have been overrun but for the allies. Thus, if one grants defense is necessary, there is a social duty to provide it. You are of course quite correct that not all "military" work is aggressive. However, there is no effective defense that is not warlike. The whole objective is to be more effectively warlike than the aggressor, for there is no reward for second best in war. Now, there are those who argue that such violence is not required for national survival in this day and age. If deterrence works, perhaps not. But non-violent deterrence leaves to the aggressor the freedom to use as much violence as he wishes without opposition. Frankly, I find the efforts of engineers to analyse strategic issues such as these rather tedious and simplistic. I fear for the future of free societies when skilled persons choose to withdraw from the defense of the society on which their own survival depends. In the final analysis, such people make themselves irrelevant to the most important issue of these times.
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/16/86)
This article is from rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw@mcnc.CSNET (Wayne Throop) and was received on Sat Aug 16 01:11:03 1986 > ki4pv!tanner writes; > One way to assure peace is to have reasonably unanimous rejection of > the alternative. (cribbed)--> What if they gave a war, and no one > came? > [an interesting point... --Dave] I'd like to point out that the above seems to be an obverse of the "If I didn't do it, then somebody else would" rationalization. In that case, the argument is that "there will be war anyhow, so I'll participate". In this case, the argument is that "it would be better if there were no war, so I won't participate". Neither seem valid to me. - I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it the right way, did not become still more complicated. --- Poul Anderson - Wayne Throop <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/16/86)
This article is from Eyal mozes <eyal%wisdom.bitnet@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> and was received on Sat Aug 16 05:47:07 1986 >) picuxa!warren indicates, as a final point, that a reason for doing >) an "evil" job is that we haven't achieved world peace, so someone >) must do it. > >This overlooks the argument that we haven't achieved world peace >because someone \fBis\fR doing this kind of work. > >One way to assure peace is to have reasonably unanimous rejection of >the alternative. (cribbed)--> What if they gave a war, and no one >came? This discussion has been going on for some time, but for some reason no-one has yet raised the central question, which is: is there a moral difference between the two sides? The above message is a typical example of what happens when you try to discuss the issue while ignoring this question. You may object to some specific things the USA is doing in the name of defending its people's freedom, but you have to admit that the primary purpose of its military activities IS to defend its people's freedom; this is obviously not true in the case of the USSR. I suggest that the poster of the above message ask himself the following two hypothetical questions: 1. what would happen if everybody in the USSR stopped doing war-related work? 2. what would happen if everybody in the USA stopped doing war-related work? A honest look at the facts should make the answers clear: in the first situation, the USA will have no reason to continue the war, any attempt to do so would be political suicide for all politicians involved, so the war will immediately end; in the second situation, the USSR will proceed to conquer the world with no-one to oppose it. "Reasonably unanimous rejection of the alternative" will achieve peace only if it comes from the USSR. It should therefore be clear that refusal to work on war-related jobs for the USSR is a true anti-war stand, and refusal to work on war-related jobs for the USA is not (this is also why, in the USSR, the alternative is not taking a lower-paying or less interesting job, but imprisonment; and why people in the USSR never have such discussions). I suggest, for the sake of clarity, that future posters on this subject state explicitly whether they do or do not see a moral difference between the two sides. Eyal Mozes [Of course, I don't think that Eyal is exactly right - there isn't a *moral* difference between the two sides (as he puts it) but, if anything, between the two ideologies. BUT I don't want this group to get into a discussion of 'us versus them' regardless of what direction we approach from. Let's stick to individual morals and ethics, please.... -- Dave]
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/20/86)
This article is from pyramid!ut-sally!harvard!bu-cs!bzs (Barry Shein) and was received on Tue Aug 19 17:12:26 1986 Perhaps a slightly different slant; Some people I know won't work for defense projects because they are afraid it would make things work too well. I know this is a strange attitude. Consider the moral nightmare Einstein claimed to have suffered upon discovering, from documents delivered to him (ransacked from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute) that the Nazis were not even close to designing a working atomic bomb. It was a fear of the Nazis perfecting the bomb that finally motivated Einstein to work with Fermi et al and solve some nagging problems that remained (I believe Clark's biography of Einstein goes over this.) That is, he was a great mind, and did not realize that other great minds were incapable of what he found simple (he wrote that he feared the Nazis would develop the bomb because it was so simple, for him perhaps.) I realize it takes a great egotist to accept this rationale for him or herself, but it's worth a thought. You don't have to be on par with Einstein, that is only a dramatic example. Better the mediocre should work on such projects. I have this fantasy that truly great minds on all sides realize this intellectual burden after the experiences of the 20th century. Perhaps it's not a fantasy? -Barry Shein, Boston University
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (08/21/86)
This article is from pyramid!hoptoad!gnu (John Gilmore) and was received on Wed Aug 20 00:27:02 1986 islenet!scott writes: > To equate the military of a totalitarian state and a democratic one is both > fatuous and dangerous. It depends on how each state chooses to act with the other world states. I don't see that having democracy in the US has prevented us from waging war against Nicaragua, nor has having a totalitarian state caused Russia to attack every country it neighbors. > Frankly, I find the efforts of engineers to analyse strategic issues such > as these rather tedious and simplistic. I fear for the future of free > societies when skilled persons choose to withdraw from the defense of > the society on which their own survival depends. I fear for the future of free societies when skilled people choose to follow moronic "leaders" without relying on their own efforts to analyse the issues. Michael C. Berch writes: > Would you rather the DOE, DOD, CIA, and > NSA were staffed by "good" people, or just whomever the agencies could > hire after all the "good" people refused to get involved? Think about it. I have thought about it. I will think more. I would rather that the DOD, CIA, etc were staffed by "non-good" people than that they were staffed with "good" people. (Is there a correlation between being intelligent and being "a good person"? I hope so.) The last thing we need is a government full of people who are good at what they do. The only thing that saves us from the government we have now is that it is so ineffective. I would rather have all the malicious dumb people trapped in bureacracies (by their own choice!), believing that they must follow orders, rather than roaming the streets. Certainly the civil service system is set up to reward stupidity and mediocrity and discourage intelligence, and that's as it should be. Our society's structure is not too bad, it gives these people a big pile of toys to play with but lets them know where to keep their hands off (civil liberties, etc). The only screwup is modern: the civilian militia used to defend the country, now it's the job of the bureacracy. No wonder we are poised for nuclear war! I don't think these 3-letter organizations can be changed from within. Their structure is imposed from without, and I'm working to change the "without" society to obsolete the organizations. E.g. we pay the NSA to keep our information secret and to find "other peoples" information. But they have twisted this into believing that to do so, they must keep "our information" (of our own citizens and companies) from being secret. This led to the DES debacle, their new "black box" encryption screw, and their current attempt to pass the Electronic Communications "Privacy" Act so that fewer US citizens will feel they have to encrypt their email. Funny that the government feels the need for good encryption but doesn't see that anyone else deserves the boon -- even though we pay for it. Are we too far off the topic of Computers and Society? I think so...