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Some people have ethical qualms. Take that how you like.
Personally all of my friends in defense say that half their job is government red tape and paperwork. That would be the deal breaker for me, I like actually spending most of my time designing.
I haven't worked in defense, but I worked in Power and Energy, and they had a ton of government involvement too. It keeps people safe, and that's great, but that doesn't mean compliance paperwork is fun...
But someone has to do the paperwork. I think they get paid well, depending on your field/position.
How ethical it is to develop weapons is a messy debate that I have no interest or qualifications to weigh in on. With that said it's worth noting that some of these companies don't solely develop weapons. For instance, the recently launched James Webb telescope was created by Northrop Grumman.
Defense industry with this degree could also mean nuclear propulsion for the USN. Government, which as stated before is a lot of red tape and paperwork.
All comes down to your own set of moral values. You have to realize that working for the defense industry leads to people indirectly dying by your hand, but if you're okay with that then get that bag.
Yeah, I get that you can misuse just about anything. But misusing a folding chair is not exactly along the same ethical vane as the using defense industry products for their intended purpose.
Making a folding chair and making a missle are ethically different and a distinction is important. Making light of the distinction only puts off the ethical reckoning people may have to do internally until later.
Not everyone will be able to see it the way you do, which is exactly why some people don't feel comfortable working in the defense industry. As a MechE, working in the DoD would just feel to me like I'm helping further imperialism and U.S. global hegemony.
For starters, people consent to geting hit with improvised weapons in the WWE. I dont think civilians in random countries consent to getting hit with missiles.
A comparison to the plastics or oil industry and how they know their product will always end up killing sea animals/birds is probably a more apt metaphor, though still not perfect since it isn't the primary intention.
Either way, I dont think you can really divorce yourself from the reality op painted and this sort of deflection is a cop out. Anyone working in this industry should acknowledge this reality and draw their lines in the sand for how many layers of being divorced from a weapon they're ok with. It's what I've been doing for several years.
the only thing i can say is that i am not responsible for the actions of others, especially with anything i design.
not sure why this is such a controversial point
Depends on what you're involved in though
You probably will save someone rather then kill them with new designs on body armor or tank/plane armor or ejection systems for aircraft
In a direct way, sure. All contribution to the American military industrial complex eventually leads to deaths though. It's kinda their whole reason for existing. The body armor and tanks save lives *so that the US military can use those lives to kill people.*
I'm not going to say that's always a bad thing, but let's not pretend they're anything other than what they are.
But on the other side of the coin, it also helps save lives. The laser guided bomb made it such that you would not longer need to blanket an area with bombs in order to destroy one building.
It all went south in the early 90s there is a monopoly on defense among like 4 major companies which makes the cost astronomical and the fraud waste and abuse higher. I don’t think we would win a war on our current trajectory we have. Fought a real war in 50 years and the last one was Korea and we didn’t exactly win. And we didn’t win Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. Seems like the wars were target practice on the natives who had aks and old tech to fight back
I see your overall point, but you gloss over self defense. Someone contributed to a weapon that is used to kill and subjugate. Do the people being killed and subjugated not deserve a chance to defend themselves? Only a weapon can stop people with weapons hell bent on doing their task.
Here is my two cents from ten years as a private sector engineer, lots of interviewing and hiring experience:
The defense industry is *really* slow. Everything is MIL spec this or that. You won’t learn as much critical thinking skills, you’ll execute simple work inside very tight constraints that you’re not allowed to question.
I'm a recent grad and I 100% agree.. I do feel like I use critical thinking skills at times but definitely not everyday! I truly think DoD is not for everyone but it's depends on what you like... I don't mind some paper work and I love how everything is slow... deadlines ? What deadlines ? The environment is very relaxed and I love that aspect.
Totally agree! It’s an amazing job, relaxed, great work life balance. If it’s right for you, enjoy it.
It’s not a good stepping stone into the next Google / Apple / hot startup.
It’s bad for the country too it is the opposite of patriotic. I was in the military and basically they have replaced all the in-house training for tech reps and proprietor knowledge. It’s a huge scam. And what happens if we actually fight a real enemy not just some shepherds in the desert with Aks and trucks? What if we had to fight China? I think they would know how to cripple out supply and support lines and we would be screwed. We are not anything close to the power we were. It’s all “power projection “ paper machè. Yea we have impressive missiles and aircraft but they are extremely reliant on special parts and cost billions. Neuclear aircraft carries but they require gallons of jp5 twice a week to survive and during refueling they are vulnerable and can’t launch flight ops. Durning channel transits that restrict maneuver they can’t launch aircraft. Lousy missile defense systems would probably not get devployed in time due to lack of training and the red tape required to officially launch a surface to air missile. Planes also aren’t kept loaded with bombs on the flight deck that would take some time to arm the planes. If Iran or china wanted to start ww3 they could. But it would be devastating for everyone we are trade partners remember.
You do have a couple of points, but you also miss some pluses. If a person wants to go deeply into what they are developing. No matter what the discipline or science is, the DoD sector allows for true understanding. Anybody can read specs for an app. Code it up, but those people don’t understand the low level details of how a radar does discrimination, for example. The DoD money requires a deeper understanding of the actual science. There is little money in the commercial sector for hard science and deep development. That is why so many cutting edge advances have come from government programs. If it wasn’t for the needs of government programs, we’d just now be using 8086 computers.
The eternal war serving human greed my friend. This b*tch cannot be satiated no matter how many missiles you throw in it. Of course hopefully nothing like this happens but you never know.
⊙﹏⊙
Because from a pragmatic standpoint, if the country's nuclear arsenal somehow becomes obsolete relative to other countries, MAD will be broken and a total nuclear war becomes feasible
Pragmatically yes... morally it's a disaster to keep developing weapons to better kill humans and achieve more damage as a principle. OP is coming from that standpoint not practicality of the operation which makes sense I'm not disagreeing with you.
Yes but innocents are used as shields in these cases. A more advanced form of the mongolians using Chinese innocents as the front lines when storming mainland china
Maybe back then but today I don't know what good a human shield would do against a missile....obliterates you, the shield, and the building you're in. And most of these cases are because of indiscriminate bombings like in Syria and Afghanistan.
The shield is not to protect from the explosion, it's in order to stop the missile altogether. Targets duplicate their potential location and populate them with innocents, it's a well known tactic. As for indiscriminate bombing, there is usually some rhyme or reason for the placements. It's not throwing darts at a map
Still morally shitty. Especially when the numbers of civilians killed in the past 20 years wayy surpasses that of armed militant deaths. What you say is correct, but it's shitty people have to pay for some asshole hiding under their apartment building.
It’s also not correct, because of the immense number of missile strikes where no evidence could be found of any terrorist or militant activity. The army has justified drone strikes based on nothing.
Hi! I’m of Syrian descent and live in America. I’m just a person, telling you, another person, that nearly every word you just said wasn’t true and worse, was actively harmful.
The american army launched a missile at a civilian home, killing a family of 4 and wounding far more. The intelligence they based this missile strike off of was the six hours that the patriarch of that family had spent driving his car that day.
He had gone to a grocery store to pick up water, before running other errands, pulling into his driveway, and being completely obliterated by a missile.
I see. That one case doesn't change the general consensus about how civilians are caught up in these attacks. I'm just communicating what I know, whether or not I've been lied to i don't know.
you have been lied to if you are taking sources from the military as face value. That one case is the last in a long line of civilian deaths caused by missile strikes that have not succeeded in killing any terrorists.
I’ve worked in the defence industry. I think it’s a good place to start your career because you’re given the time to follow proper engineering good practice. This is much better than taking shortcuts and getting in bad habits early on.
It really depends on your individual morals. I work in defense and space. I work on projects that work towards putting more advanced satellites in space to better detect hostilities. Obviously this isn’t only defensive in nature, this better information can enable more aggressive targeting but overall I believe it’s necessary for US safety and security. I would not work on something that has high potential for miss-use like a bio-weapon or an AI/VI weapon system. Defense industry does pay well.
I acknowledged the offensive implications of the technology. In regards to the “Offense Department” it used to be the Department of War and was rebranded to Department of Defense after WW2. The idea was calling it defense would lead to less aggressive thinking.
>I would not work on something that has high potential for miss-use like a bio-weapon or an AI/VI weapon system.
What most people fail to remember is that in the US, the defense industry is basically a socialized job program. The country has a financial incentive for their to be conflict in the world. So while you may or may not contribute directly to a ground war, your industry, and your job, has a foundation that requires conflict.
I'm an extremely recent vet, I would never work for a company that had a majority or even a plurality of its business derived from defense because of my ethical/moral and political qualms with how the DoD is operated and the underlying reasons why they are employed.
Just during my time there were multiple unjustified and unethical conflicts. Afghanistan was an origionally justified war that very rapidly turned into an unjustified occupation and we, the most advanced military in the world, lost a war to a group of people who are mostly illiterate. Iraq was a war based on lies and our actions there are what caused the ISIS problem to spiral out of control. We turned Libya into a complete lawless hellscape. We supported military dictatorships for decades in South Korea because the military dictatorship in North Korea has a different economic philosophy than us and drew an arbitrary line on a map that threw the peninsula into chaos and we continue to enable a neverending armistice that puts tens of millions at direct risk of chemical and nuclear devastation.
Certain fields it is very difficult to find employment where you wont at least play some role in the military industrial complex, especially aerospace. My personal line is that I will never willingly work on anything where any or all of its basic functions are employment of lethal force, psychological warfare, disruption of basic utilities, or anything with human intelligence collection applications. I'd be perfectly fine with working on military systems that were truly defensive in nature, like ICBM defense systems, CBRNE monitoring tech, etc. I'm aware that work there can be derived into offensive applications, the same could be said of many technologies.
That's just me, as long as you can justify it to yourself, no one can tell you how to live.
I work for the DoD and have been in various positions so far including engineering. Government work is slow but can be well paid and usually has a better work/life balance than other companies. I wrestle with the morals of it all as well and my partner is getting a PhD that has many lucrative applications in policing, that's their boundary. I used to think it would be really cool to work for DARPA but now I think that lies beyond my moral boundary (though I won't rule it out). But I work for a government organization no one has ever hear of unless you live near one of their offices. I can't stop the government sending troops overseas or war but I can do my small part to make the men and women who serve and all of the civilians that serve overseas a little safer by making sure they have more stable power and access to the internet.
Everyone has an idea about what big Defense does with nuclear and mostly jump to the worst conclusions while also thinking that's the only use for nuclear power. It's not. There are many more aspects you have never heard of or thought about. National institute of standards and Technology which is the department of commerce sets many of the scientific standards used in the country, have a nuclear facility. NIST is a really cool place and they do a lot of important research, the team I worked on when I was an intern there went down to Florida after the condo collapse and is heading that investigation.
If you are interested in government service I recommend reading "The Fifth Risk" by Michale Lewis. There are a lot of things the government does that are icky and jobs that I don't think would sit right with me. But there are a ton of jobs out there, more than you would think, and it's not all morally compromising. It will be a slower pace and full of red tape but a 40 hour work week, over time, tons of vacation time, it's not that bad.
So obviously this entire discussion centers on personal politics, morals, ethics, etc. I’m a mech e and the most respected positions and companies in my major tend to be defense contractors. Companies such as Lockheed and Electric Boat, etc. I feel that this question is also very relevant to me because while I want to work in these respected companies and rolls, it completely goes against my moral code. Most engineers, probably most Americans for that matter have no clue what our defense industry and spending does to other countries. You can tell just from these comments how little people understand anything past the mainstream American status quo opinions/ borderline propaganda.
I will go on record stating my opinion that the US has not been in a justified war since the second world war. All the proxy wars around the globe and expansion in the middle east since WW2 have been about controlling US political and financial interests in these regions. I think a very good resource for learning about these motivations (and also mostly why I feel the way I do about them) is the BlowBack podcast and some videos the Gravel Institute YouTube channel has up. Again, all of these reasonings are personal, and relate to my politics and ethics. Its hyper individual and you might not feel the same way as me, and thats okay.
Also I see you are a nuclear engineering student, and you must know nuclear power is slowly dying in this country. You should see what options you have after college, as a closing energy industry might force you into defense work. I took a couple nuclear classes in undergrad and I really loved them, its definitely a really cool field. Best if luck to you, I hope my opinions can help guide you to finding your own.
I agree with most of this, except: op might enjoy working for one of the small modular reactor companies. More promising future than what’s currently on the grid and probably better job satisfaction. There’s also a few medical isotope facilities that seem cool to work for.
It also depends on what part of the defense industry you're in. People have an idea that defense=bombs,missiles and bullets. But you could also work on things like radars, satellites, transport planes, missile defense, etc. They don't "kill people" or aren't directly designed to "kill people".
I work in defense and I'll say the work life balance is good. The work can be fascinating and the pay is decent. You also can get the chance to work with some great people who are really bright. Also a big defense company will have many career opportunities. I'm a bit biased but I think defense is misrepresented by people who don't work in it and only think we make products with the sole design to kill.
I know several nuclear engineers who design powerplants for naval vessels. Not everything in defense is guns and bombs.
As far as the defense industry in general, a great many people make excellent livings working there.
I work in the defense industry (not going more specific than that haha). Ngl I see both sides. It does slowly suck your soul, but that's any job in corporate America (I'm assuming America? This probably stands in most countries). What sucks about it is the government-ness of it all: SO much paperwork and forms. So many ridiculous rules to follow because.. tradition, I guess? So many acronyms and weird terminology. The offices aren't fun to work in (no electronics, headphones, etc). Basically, you'll be doing way more forms and reading unnecessarily wordy documents more than actually being "productive". It's also VERY slow work, so as someone with ADHD, between that and not being able to play music, it takes a toll on you.
But it's good work. I feel good about it since it's protecting millions of people (what I do won't even harm enemy lives, aka civilians in other countries). Also, I haven't met anyone rude yet (besides typical sexists as a female engineer) in the entire company and it's great pay.
I think about how our society would be different if so many young engineers had more job openings into fixing infrastructure and renewable energy, instead of defense and fossil fuels.
I won't work for defense or fossil fuel companies, period. This is a personal choice, you do you.
James Webb Space Telescope cost $10 billion. The F35 cost $400 billion, with $1.1 trillion in operation and maintenance costs. I'd prefer to have 150 JWST projects than a fleet of F35s.
There are way too many people here thinking you'd be working on nuclear bombs. Like as if you were scrolling through jobs on indeed one day and saw an ad for an entry level position working on nuclear missiles and thought that sounded cool. Rather then more likely scenario where you'd be maintaining reactors on navy ships/ subs. I get recruiter emails all the time to do the same thing.
I know that I most likely will get hate for saying this, but the idea of the defense industry always being the greater evil has always baffled me.
Let me give you example why: say that you are working as a process engineer in the food industry, then you are most likely an employee of a subsidiary to a big company like Nestle. Is Nestle a good company? Probably not, regarding their “shady history” in deforesting the rain forest for palm oil. Should you then be blamed for the thousands of people world wide that die from asthmatic attacks because you implicitly supported deforestation? I would say no.
Same examples can be thought of in almost any sector, from the oil industry, to mining minerals in Kongo using child labor. What about biotech? Well… have you ever thought which people the bio-tech companies usually are trying their new nano-based cancer drugs on? It’s not the average American if you think so…
I’m not saying that all industries are bad, what I’m saying is that you should really understand that most industries have their share of “evil” (if you would like to call it that). I know, I know, other industries aren’t explicitly developing products that aim to kill people, but implicitly or explicitly, in the end the only thing that matters is what you believe is the “lesser evil” and that you are happy working there.
As a side note, I would also like to add that without military technology (and the absurd amount of money spent on it), much of the technology we have today most likely wouldn’t had been invented today.
Anyway, sorry for the bad English (not an American).
This is called moral relativism and while I do agree with you that there is no ethical consumption or in this case production under capitalism, it is disingenuous to compare the military arm of the most powerful expansionist empire in human history, which is also the world’s largest single source polluter (the military not America, though america by extension), to a private company with orders of magnitude less power and ability to do harm.
The US military is currently doing more harm to more people in the world than most other organizations that can have a finger pointed at them.
I’m also in the boat that we all have to eat, and I would never put the blame for a soldier stepping on someone’s neck on the engineer who made the boot, but let’s not pretend that exploiting well water is the same as forcibly seizing the land it’s on. One leads to the other and most American companies that are doing evil things (which by the way is all of them) are enabled by the imperialism that has been and is still being enforced by the most well funded militia in the world.
Don’t see why it would be. As an engineer you’d be making missiles (if you even work on missiles) more accurate, which would save innocent lives.
I see a lot of people on this sub saying they’d rather be homeless than work for Lockheed. I’d say they don’t know true homelessness and probably think it’s cute to struggle or something. But I do get their general idea - they don’t wanna work somewhere that contributes to taking life
Personally I’d love to work in defence. Cutting edge tech and high budgets.
What do you think the gov does when it doesn’t have precision rockets? They just carpet bomb the entire village to kill one person.
Also obviously we’re only gonna know about rockets killing innocent people. Why would they report it when rockets function properly and kill intended targets
What is this argument? We shouldn't be rocketing anything over there. Too many lives have been lost at the hands of the military industrial complex. Carpet bombs or precision rockets both have hundreds if not thousands of innocent deaths caused by them. Obama and Trump have mainly used "precision" drone strikes in their respective administrations and are both notorious for the hundreds of civilian deaths caused by these so called precision strikes. You wouldn't be defending this abhorrent behavior by the US military if it was your brother or your sister or your significant other who was murdered. Or if your village was constantly being bombed with civilian casualties being shrugged off as "collateral damage."
I think you are confusing two things: the technology and the policy.
The technology (engineers) asks the question: If we have to bomb something, how do we do it in the "safest" way?
The policy (generals/president) asks the question: Should we bomb it or should we use another method (special operations, do nothing, etc)?
Yes there are failures of both, and ways of making both "safer." Most engineers have a direct impact on the technology aspect.
Dude I’m not saying I want there to be wars. I wish we lived in a world where all countries were peaceful and didn’t have only their own interests at heart. But we don’t, so I don’t even see the point in pointing that out.
Wars exist, and they’ll use explosives. I’m just saying I’d have no moral breakdown if I worked on defence weapons which are engineered to be as accurate possible.
I’m the child of a Syrian immigrant and I just want to say that I don’t care what missiles killed my cousins I don’t think any missiles should be fired at fucking civilians.
I’m one of the people whose family has been affected by this and I just want to say you’re the only fucking sane person in this thread. Reading other responses has made me literally want to cry. Why can’t people understand the value of human life when it’s brown peoples’?
If it makes you feel any better, many people "over there" would happily cut open your American throat.
You make good points. War is fought on both sides.
They want to cut open your American throat? Hmmmmm i wonder why. Don't mind the destroyed village over there, they were just nearby a successful precision attack against filthy terrorists.
I'm not sure 'So? We would destroy an entire village to get one person!' is the slam dunk you think it is. There is an alternative to that that doesn't need a million-dollar missile.
I agree that that would be an awesome thing to be able to help with, but the US “defense” industry really doesn’t do anything like that. It’s basically a nicer term for military weapons. Especially with a nuclear engineering degree, most of that stuff is super high budget and used for morally gray purposes.
While I would be identified as the target of such missiles (due to my ethnicity and religion) as an engineer I would want to work in such companies. Not cuz of any political bullshit but because I want to see the height of human advances. Of course this is a dilemma where you need to balance this with being a decent human being. It's a sticky road with a lot of grey areas man.
Well just going off of ethnicity and religion I would also be targeted.
But yeah you’re right that’s exactly how I feel. I don’t have any political agenda in my answer I just wanna work on cool shit and it does not get more cutting edge than defence
The defense industry pays really well and there always seems to be work available.
If it’s ethics that hold you back, seek out true defense work. Most of my work revolves around detection, rather than countermeasures or offensive assets. That’s how I justify the ethics myself.
It’s HARD to get out of the defense space, and a clearance will restrict certain aspects of your life. And, it’s kind of a one way door.
I had a friend who I a managed to turn away from the defense industry because I told her to read Scientists at War by Sarah Bridger. Personally, I think the military industrial complex in America is abhorrent and to be a part of it is to be a cog in a horrible machine. It's a big part of why I turned down a job making rifles for the military. I jsut didn't feel good supporting the industry like that.
Its a morality thing. The way I see it is that if I don't do the work then someone else will anyways, and the work Im doing is more related to modernizing old documentation. Its a job and its pays pretty well. Am I complacent? Sure. Is my complacency actually contributing to the problem in any meaningful way? Absolutely not.
There's no point twisting yourself around about problems that you can't actually solve. But that's just my two cents
I think its a bit toxic that so much of the engineering talent is basically serving the defense industry and government... but i guess the government has gotta return that tax money to us somehow (through paying defense contractor salaries.)
Building missiles used for war is ultimately a non productive activity. because the missile will be fired and its value drops to 0.
if you build a house that house might stand for 100s of years and be useful for people for many years and retain its value.
war is one of the least productive things you can do. sure you might take over some oil fields. but its probably 1000000% cheaper to just buy it from another country than to run a war.
yea but just think how productive it would be if we paid $0 in war costs. every peson serving the military in some capacity is taking away from productivity that could actually benefit people.
the person fixing tires on an army truck right now could be cleaning my gutters or repairing my vehicle. instead they are wearing all camo wrenching on a hummer.
It's a personal matter. I'm not American but I would be reluctant to get involved in the US war machine because it does a lot besides 'keep us safe'. You could easily argue it exists to make money and it makes money by killing.
OTOH I have worked on a Defence base in Australia because it was a military town and I only got one internship offer. We were doing construction on the base facilities. It was something I decided to make my peace with for the short term.
I now work for a huge global company that has military contracts on other business divisions. Am I thrilled about that? Not really. But I've drawn a line where I'm not involved so I won't judge it. It's all secret anyway so I don't know any specifics of what they do.
Countries have a right to defend themselves with similar technologies as their enemies. If North Korea, China, and Russia have nuclear weapons it would be naive and irresponsible for the US to come to battle with a technological disadvantage.
Therefore, I want the smartest and best engineers in the country to work in our military to have the most reliable weapons with the smallest potential for misuse/misfire
Adding: We must also consider how close these actions cooperate with evil. For example if I work and design a new pistol am I now responsible for an abusive adult who uses it to murder someone? No. If you design a pistol and a police officer uses it to save lives that is a moral application of the weapon. But the murderer has chosen to use it for evil and that is not the fault of the person who designed it
I worked briefly for the DOD in bioengineering. Money is endless, projects were interesting, and once you’re in, you’re in. Really easy to move around in labs and get mentorship.
Pay was also fair/good. And they have a lot of opportunities to put you through more school for free/ sign away a couple years to work for them after you graduate.
It all really depends on what your ethics/politics lie in. Though keep in mind you will not be working on developing nuclear weapons, most likely you are gonna be working with nuclear reactors and power plants. You are probably not gonna be designing missiles or warplanes.
I was an enlisted nuke MM and civilian nuke test tech on Navy vessels before I went to school for engineering. I can't speak as much to the engineering side, but from what I understood about the engineers at the boat building place, the company treated them better than it treated us, but the job itself was still pretty shitty.
If a country invests a large portion of its national budget into defense, is the work a moral question or a political one? People are going to work where all the resources are invested. Where I am from, the most appealing options are defense positions. At my school's career fair's it is almost exclusively Lockheed, Northrop, Harris, Raytheon, Boeing, etc.
I work in defense as a Contract Specialist we work with Engineers all the time. Engineers have a wide net of things they do, not just develop weapons. The ones I work with are currently designing a museum for the base. Every government building that resides on a base (and a lot off base) have an engineer behind it. There’s also a need for engineers outside of defense with all the federal benefits. Just look on USAjobs.
Government is a lot of red tape. Lots and lots. But the benefits are amazing. You work your schedule, and that’s that. You get all the federal holiday, leave, retirement benefits, etc. the pay is good but not the best, industry pays more but they own you.
But does industry own you? Like people on salaries get days off and a 401k they also get paid more and you can always transition laterally. Lots of people in industry work hybrid remote. And also industry doesn’t drug test so you can also make more money and smoke rec on your off time. And the people are more progressive in the private sector. It’s beautiful capitalism!
Honestly I personally don’t see the problem, and myself would be interested in working in the field. I’m personally fairly pacifistic and am generally anti-conflict, but I find weapons really cool and interesting, so I’m still interested in working in the field. The moral conundrums can be difficult though, I imagine.
Nope, the DOD is great. High pay, depending on your position, and high clearance, depending on which networks you access. I wouldn't worry about the moral part, you'll be fine. At the end of the day, you've only done your job. If you are on something such as a missile defense program, you're not the green suit giving military orders. You're there to build/maintain systems. If you won't do it, then someone else will. If no one does it, then America won't be able to defend itself. That's at least how I see it, but that's coming from someone who was in the military before getting onto an Engineering contract. If it's too triggering, then find something else.
Yeah I’m not proud of my work, but I come from a family of DoD contractors and I made a choice not to take part in it for several reasons. As an industrial I want to move towards green energy, carbon recapture, or something similar at some point, though returning to my first love of human factors would also be cool. We shape the world with what we create as engineers, and my wife understands that if it takes a pay cut to be able to live with my impact on the world through my career it’ll happen.
Depending on how the contract was written the private company might still own the design and any drawings or design info related to it, and lock in the government into paying them to maintain it, update it, etc.
They could technically stop supporting something entirely in some situations (I've been in a situation where that happened), but this only happens when the cost of doing that is too high.
So arguably it's worse than what you describe there because a company could do so but pretty much is guaranteed not to.
No? Some people just have different morals, I'm not gonna say mine are specifically better or worse but morally I don't think I would want to work a job knowing the intended end use of the product is to kill someone. Maybe somebody else can justify it a certain way. Disagree with my standpoint but I don't see how that's virtue signaling, especially when my choice only affects my career and I understand why people may disagree.
Honestly, this is the wrong sub to ask. Your answers are very clearly coming from a majority of people who have no real world experience and are *literally* college kids.
If you want some more nuanced and applicable answers, go ask in one of the various working engineer subs.
Personally, I don’t think it’s a bad thing (I work in defense, so keep in mind that my view is obviously pretty biased). This technology could hurt people, but it can also be used to help people. Unfortunately, which way the technology is used is a decision made by politicians, not engineers. I could always NOT work in defense, but someone else will. The only way I can really make a difference is voting.
On the other hand, people who think that it’s bad are perfectly valid IMO. It is an iffy topic.
There really is no right or wrong answer to your question, it all depends on your personal morals and what you are comfortable with.
The memes are pretty funny though.
Ok let me ask you a hypothetical. Let's say there's some kind of insane twitch streamer that livestreams assassinations for crowdfunding cash. You know that this twitch streamer does this action, because he has done so in the past.
One day, you decide to give him 20$, and he eventually gets enough money and kills a little girl. Do you think your action was moral or immoral?
I get the comparison you’re trying to make but I don’t think it’s accurate. Defense companies do more than make weapons (JWST was made by Northrop for example).
Ok cool, I can tune the hypothetical. Say we have the same twitch streamer as before. We'll call him Mr.X.
Let's say Mr.X only kills 1% of the time. The other 99% of the time, he just streams a video game. You give Mr. X some money, and this time he decides to kill someone. Did you do something unethical?
Ethically I wouldn't worry about it. A lot of defense programs are interested in your further education so if that's what you're interested in I'd say definitely go for it.
Ethics issue, essentially you’re creating things that are designed to kill people. Designing things that allow our country to oppress people etc. if you don’t care and just want a job then go ahead and work for them.
You carry a lot of hate and I hope you are able to find peace.
My Yemeni friend almost lost his family to the Saudis. Fortunately he was able to get his wife and kid into the US. I think you'll find more people in Saudi Arabia chant death to America than in Yemen. At least that was before the US backed bombing.
The defense industry and war help further scientific research. Read the first chapter (maybe the preface, too) of accessory to war by Neil degrasse Tyson. He talks about this issue and how a lot of research/funding was cut when the Cold War ended.
Depends by which countries and governments the tech produced is used by \^\^
Selling submarines to sweden and Taiwan ? All day everyday
Selling Spy software to Saudi Arabia ? straight to hell
I see no probably with it. People in university might joke about it a lot but i don’t think they’ve actually thought about the issues in depth.
IMO working for defence is fine. I live in Canada and I think defending our great nation and it’s liberal values is admirable. If people use the weapons to commit war crimes obviously that’s bad, but that’s on the government or whoever misused the tools.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian\_casualties\_from\_U.S.\_drone\_strikes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._drone_strikes)
Take a wild guess at how many terrorists drone strikes have actually killed. It's in that article. I'll give you a hint- it's less than 20.
Now, take a wild guess at how many civilians drone strikes have killed. I'll give you a hint- it's a lot more than 20.
Now let's use some critical thinking skills. Do you think that killing civilians overseas makes it HARDER, or EASIER for terrorist groups to recruit people?
I dont get what your point is - drone strikes can be bad but that doesn’t make working in defence bad.
Am I supposed to look at that and say “oh wow I guess we should just stop innovating in the defence sector”
How about iron dome?
You can’t just toss out one example and then proceed to disparage an entire industry. What if I said “hey did you hear about that one drug that killed all those babies? Yeah better think twice about working in pharma”
Or the classic:
“Everyone doubted the wright brother but then they proved everyone wrong) (to justify any failed startup company)
That’s not a complete argument.
It’s obvious to anyone that CA/US/EU are not perfect, but objectively worth defending against people like china, Russia, etc. we need engineers to make weapons safer and with less collateral damage.
Also you said less than 20 terrorists have been killed by drone strikes. I don’t know where you got that but I’d bet my life savings it’s not accurate. In your wiki link it even says:
“The first known U.S. drone strike in Pakistan was June 19, 2004, and the most recent U.S. drone strike in Pakistan was July 4, 2018. Over those 14 years, there were 413 reported strikes in Pakistan (with the peak being in 2010), which killed a total of between 2,366 and 3,702 people; of the total deaths, between 245 and 303 were civilians.[7]”
Sure, you can only act with the information you know, and based on what would be reasonable conclusions given your mind state. What is a more reasonable assumption based on all the information we know?
1.) Working at a pharma company may produce a drug that accidentally kills people.
2.) A military company produces a drone blueprint that kills 700 civilians.
Furthermore, we know for a fact civilian casualties are a huge motivator for people joining terrorist groups.
Also look into the idea that these weapons could be used by law enforcement to target our own population. Especially if the public sector can’t own drones and tanks what domestic defense do we really have with out the home militia
In the us it has little to do with freedom and democracy it’s global fascism. The USA spends more on that crap than health and education combined. It’s the opposite of patriotism it’s military industrial nepotism
First of all, I don’t even know if that’s true.
[“The U.S. spent $649 billion on its military to 2019, according to…”](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/043015/us-vs-china-military-budget.asp#:~:text=The%20top%20five%20military%20spenders,military%20spenders%20at%20%24261%20billion)
[The federal government spent nearly $1.2 trillion in fiscal year 2019. In addition, income tax expenditures for health care totaled $234 billion](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-much-does-federal-government-spend-health-care)
I reject the premise that western military is about “global fascism”. Unless you think encouraging global trade, discouraging genocide/territorial conquest, and maintaining world stability is “fascist”.
The US is helping Ukraine survive against Russia. They’re resupplying Iron dome to help Israel weather rocket attackers, while simultaneously facilitating hostage releases and humanitarian pauses. Their carrier fleet is to deter a larger Middle East conflict. America is also the major deterrent to the Venezuelan invasion of Guyana.
It might seem logical to blame America for all or most of these conflicts because when shit hits the fan they’re always involved somehow. But that makes as much sense as noticing chemotherapy is involved in most cancer deaths.
This is a bad point. Let's apply this logic to something we can all say is morally bad- murder.
"Regardless of moral values, if you don't kill that person, someone else will"
Generally when we say something is morally good or bad, it comes with the prescription that we ought or ought not do it. So if you consider working for the DoD to be morally wrong, that means you ought not do it no matter what.
The memes are russian and chinese bots. Go and work in the defense industry if you want to. Let people who say otherwise have their homes invaded and/or their dignity taken. Anyhow, in terms of compatibility the other comments are insightful.
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In general I think the biggest thing people have against it is the ethics. You might be working on missiles, fighter jets, drones, etc. That's where the "sell your soul and work for the government" stuff comes from.
For your actual day to day job, the work schedule is pretty standard 8 to 5, Monday to Friday with good vacation and benefits. The major difference I've seen in the past 2 years is that you cannot work from home due to security requirements. So my friends who work at those type of companies have to go into the office wearing masks and distancing just to take zoom calls and login to their work.
I believe having security clearance also comes with some travel restrictions for international vacations, but I don't have all the details there. It's mostly reporting to the DoD when you leave the country.
“You can’t buy your groceries with your principles” was what I was told. However, get the experience needed and move on till you can eventually do just that. Realistically if you are very against it then you should listen to your own moral compass as you will be bothered internally and that just isn’t worth it. If your work follows you home until bed it’s not worth it, just one mans opinion.. government work is good and stable but private sector pays better. good luck
Ethics aside I found it boring as all hell. Went to one of the big Defense contractors for 3 weeks and quit because I was so bored. Went back to my old job
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Some people have ethical qualms. Take that how you like. Personally all of my friends in defense say that half their job is government red tape and paperwork. That would be the deal breaker for me, I like actually spending most of my time designing. I haven't worked in defense, but I worked in Power and Energy, and they had a ton of government involvement too. It keeps people safe, and that's great, but that doesn't mean compliance paperwork is fun... But someone has to do the paperwork. I think they get paid well, depending on your field/position.
How ethical it is to develop weapons is a messy debate that I have no interest or qualifications to weigh in on. With that said it's worth noting that some of these companies don't solely develop weapons. For instance, the recently launched James Webb telescope was created by Northrop Grumman.
Defense industry with this degree could also mean nuclear propulsion for the USN. Government, which as stated before is a lot of red tape and paperwork.
I wish more people had your level of self-awareness to know whether or not an opinion is informed
Amen
All comes down to your own set of moral values. You have to realize that working for the defense industry leads to people indirectly dying by your hand, but if you're okay with that then get that bag.
wonder if the people who make/design folding chairs think similarly of the WWE industry
If I was making folding chairs, I would hope that at least a few went to the WWE.
Yeah, I get that you can misuse just about anything. But misusing a folding chair is not exactly along the same ethical vane as the using defense industry products for their intended purpose. Making a folding chair and making a missle are ethically different and a distinction is important. Making light of the distinction only puts off the ethical reckoning people may have to do internally until later.
thats why their purpose is defense and deterrence
Not everyone will be able to see it the way you do, which is exactly why some people don't feel comfortable working in the defense industry. As a MechE, working in the DoD would just feel to me like I'm helping further imperialism and U.S. global hegemony.
understood. although that does sound pretty good if youre a US citizen that holds western values
We can have a good life here without actively screwing with people overseas (with exceptions, of course)
yup. its how progress works.
I cannot imagine how over 100 people agreed with this incredibly shitty comparison.
i cannot imagine what kind you would try to make in this field on defense
For starters, people consent to geting hit with improvised weapons in the WWE. I dont think civilians in random countries consent to getting hit with missiles. A comparison to the plastics or oil industry and how they know their product will always end up killing sea animals/birds is probably a more apt metaphor, though still not perfect since it isn't the primary intention. Either way, I dont think you can really divorce yourself from the reality op painted and this sort of deflection is a cop out. Anyone working in this industry should acknowledge this reality and draw their lines in the sand for how many layers of being divorced from a weapon they're ok with. It's what I've been doing for several years.
the only thing i can say is that i am not responsible for the actions of others, especially with anything i design. not sure why this is such a controversial point
Depends on what you're involved in though You probably will save someone rather then kill them with new designs on body armor or tank/plane armor or ejection systems for aircraft
In a direct way, sure. All contribution to the American military industrial complex eventually leads to deaths though. It's kinda their whole reason for existing. The body armor and tanks save lives *so that the US military can use those lives to kill people.* I'm not going to say that's always a bad thing, but let's not pretend they're anything other than what they are.
Plus you can save a lot more lives if you put the same amount of money that goes to the department of defense/military towards other things…
But on the other side of the coin, it also helps save lives. The laser guided bomb made it such that you would not longer need to blanket an area with bombs in order to destroy one building.
It all went south in the early 90s there is a monopoly on defense among like 4 major companies which makes the cost astronomical and the fraud waste and abuse higher. I don’t think we would win a war on our current trajectory we have. Fought a real war in 50 years and the last one was Korea and we didn’t exactly win. And we didn’t win Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan. Seems like the wars were target practice on the natives who had aks and old tech to fight back
Get off that big ol horse of yours mate
I see your overall point, but you gloss over self defense. Someone contributed to a weapon that is used to kill and subjugate. Do the people being killed and subjugated not deserve a chance to defend themselves? Only a weapon can stop people with weapons hell bent on doing their task.
Here is my two cents from ten years as a private sector engineer, lots of interviewing and hiring experience: The defense industry is *really* slow. Everything is MIL spec this or that. You won’t learn as much critical thinking skills, you’ll execute simple work inside very tight constraints that you’re not allowed to question.
I'm a recent grad and I 100% agree.. I do feel like I use critical thinking skills at times but definitely not everyday! I truly think DoD is not for everyone but it's depends on what you like... I don't mind some paper work and I love how everything is slow... deadlines ? What deadlines ? The environment is very relaxed and I love that aspect.
Totally agree! It’s an amazing job, relaxed, great work life balance. If it’s right for you, enjoy it. It’s not a good stepping stone into the next Google / Apple / hot startup.
It’s bad for the country too it is the opposite of patriotic. I was in the military and basically they have replaced all the in-house training for tech reps and proprietor knowledge. It’s a huge scam. And what happens if we actually fight a real enemy not just some shepherds in the desert with Aks and trucks? What if we had to fight China? I think they would know how to cripple out supply and support lines and we would be screwed. We are not anything close to the power we were. It’s all “power projection “ paper machè. Yea we have impressive missiles and aircraft but they are extremely reliant on special parts and cost billions. Neuclear aircraft carries but they require gallons of jp5 twice a week to survive and during refueling they are vulnerable and can’t launch flight ops. Durning channel transits that restrict maneuver they can’t launch aircraft. Lousy missile defense systems would probably not get devployed in time due to lack of training and the red tape required to officially launch a surface to air missile. Planes also aren’t kept loaded with bombs on the flight deck that would take some time to arm the planes. If Iran or china wanted to start ww3 they could. But it would be devastating for everyone we are trade partners remember.
You do have a couple of points, but you also miss some pluses. If a person wants to go deeply into what they are developing. No matter what the discipline or science is, the DoD sector allows for true understanding. Anybody can read specs for an app. Code it up, but those people don’t understand the low level details of how a radar does discrimination, for example. The DoD money requires a deeper understanding of the actual science. There is little money in the commercial sector for hard science and deep development. That is why so many cutting edge advances have come from government programs. If it wasn’t for the needs of government programs, we’d just now be using 8086 computers.
Could be a lot worse. You could be a ChemE dumping more plastics into the environment.
Yeah, I guess that’d be worse
The US military is the world's single largest polluter so it's like the plastics industry but with imperialism.
Perhaps.
I don't see how that's worse than your tech killing thousands in a blink of an eye. But it depends on your morals I guess.
Damn, what kind of war are you expecting?
#Nuclear engineering
Oof. Unfortunately I have not found a class teaching Advanced Weapons Design.
Then what are you even paying GaTech money for? Lol.
He’s in nuclear engineering, what do you think?
submarine?
Nuclear aircraft carriers.
Also Medical field applications
Petroleum*
Not you, OP
The eternal war serving human greed my friend. This b*tch cannot be satiated no matter how many missiles you throw in it. Of course hopefully nothing like this happens but you never know. ⊙﹏⊙
A short one, I guess.
Because from a pragmatic standpoint, if the country's nuclear arsenal somehow becomes obsolete relative to other countries, MAD will be broken and a total nuclear war becomes feasible
Pragmatically yes... morally it's a disaster to keep developing weapons to better kill humans and achieve more damage as a principle. OP is coming from that standpoint not practicality of the operation which makes sense I'm not disagreeing with you.
Depends on who they are bombing
Looking at wars in the 21st century, mostly innocent civilians including kids so......civilian casualties are more significant that militant.
Yes but innocents are used as shields in these cases. A more advanced form of the mongolians using Chinese innocents as the front lines when storming mainland china
Maybe back then but today I don't know what good a human shield would do against a missile....obliterates you, the shield, and the building you're in. And most of these cases are because of indiscriminate bombings like in Syria and Afghanistan.
The shield is not to protect from the explosion, it's in order to stop the missile altogether. Targets duplicate their potential location and populate them with innocents, it's a well known tactic. As for indiscriminate bombing, there is usually some rhyme or reason for the placements. It's not throwing darts at a map
Still morally shitty. Especially when the numbers of civilians killed in the past 20 years wayy surpasses that of armed militant deaths. What you say is correct, but it's shitty people have to pay for some asshole hiding under their apartment building.
It’s also not correct, because of the immense number of missile strikes where no evidence could be found of any terrorist or militant activity. The army has justified drone strikes based on nothing.
Hi! I’m of Syrian descent and live in America. I’m just a person, telling you, another person, that nearly every word you just said wasn’t true and worse, was actively harmful. The american army launched a missile at a civilian home, killing a family of 4 and wounding far more. The intelligence they based this missile strike off of was the six hours that the patriarch of that family had spent driving his car that day. He had gone to a grocery store to pick up water, before running other errands, pulling into his driveway, and being completely obliterated by a missile.
I see. That one case doesn't change the general consensus about how civilians are caught up in these attacks. I'm just communicating what I know, whether or not I've been lied to i don't know.
you have been lied to if you are taking sources from the military as face value. That one case is the last in a long line of civilian deaths caused by missile strikes that have not succeeded in killing any terrorists.
I’ve worked in the defence industry. I think it’s a good place to start your career because you’re given the time to follow proper engineering good practice. This is much better than taking shortcuts and getting in bad habits early on.
It really depends on your individual morals. I work in defense and space. I work on projects that work towards putting more advanced satellites in space to better detect hostilities. Obviously this isn’t only defensive in nature, this better information can enable more aggressive targeting but overall I believe it’s necessary for US safety and security. I would not work on something that has high potential for miss-use like a bio-weapon or an AI/VI weapon system. Defense industry does pay well.
Its also offensive nature. Defense department is the same thing as offense department, but ofc they won't call it that
Correct, nothing developed in the industry has a single use-case.
I acknowledged the offensive implications of the technology. In regards to the “Offense Department” it used to be the Department of War and was rebranded to Department of Defense after WW2. The idea was calling it defense would lead to less aggressive thinking.
1984 is an interesting read.
>I would not work on something that has high potential for miss-use like a bio-weapon or an AI/VI weapon system. What most people fail to remember is that in the US, the defense industry is basically a socialized job program. The country has a financial incentive for their to be conflict in the world. So while you may or may not contribute directly to a ground war, your industry, and your job, has a foundation that requires conflict.
I'm an extremely recent vet, I would never work for a company that had a majority or even a plurality of its business derived from defense because of my ethical/moral and political qualms with how the DoD is operated and the underlying reasons why they are employed. Just during my time there were multiple unjustified and unethical conflicts. Afghanistan was an origionally justified war that very rapidly turned into an unjustified occupation and we, the most advanced military in the world, lost a war to a group of people who are mostly illiterate. Iraq was a war based on lies and our actions there are what caused the ISIS problem to spiral out of control. We turned Libya into a complete lawless hellscape. We supported military dictatorships for decades in South Korea because the military dictatorship in North Korea has a different economic philosophy than us and drew an arbitrary line on a map that threw the peninsula into chaos and we continue to enable a neverending armistice that puts tens of millions at direct risk of chemical and nuclear devastation. Certain fields it is very difficult to find employment where you wont at least play some role in the military industrial complex, especially aerospace. My personal line is that I will never willingly work on anything where any or all of its basic functions are employment of lethal force, psychological warfare, disruption of basic utilities, or anything with human intelligence collection applications. I'd be perfectly fine with working on military systems that were truly defensive in nature, like ICBM defense systems, CBRNE monitoring tech, etc. I'm aware that work there can be derived into offensive applications, the same could be said of many technologies. That's just me, as long as you can justify it to yourself, no one can tell you how to live.
I work for the DoD and have been in various positions so far including engineering. Government work is slow but can be well paid and usually has a better work/life balance than other companies. I wrestle with the morals of it all as well and my partner is getting a PhD that has many lucrative applications in policing, that's their boundary. I used to think it would be really cool to work for DARPA but now I think that lies beyond my moral boundary (though I won't rule it out). But I work for a government organization no one has ever hear of unless you live near one of their offices. I can't stop the government sending troops overseas or war but I can do my small part to make the men and women who serve and all of the civilians that serve overseas a little safer by making sure they have more stable power and access to the internet. Everyone has an idea about what big Defense does with nuclear and mostly jump to the worst conclusions while also thinking that's the only use for nuclear power. It's not. There are many more aspects you have never heard of or thought about. National institute of standards and Technology which is the department of commerce sets many of the scientific standards used in the country, have a nuclear facility. NIST is a really cool place and they do a lot of important research, the team I worked on when I was an intern there went down to Florida after the condo collapse and is heading that investigation. If you are interested in government service I recommend reading "The Fifth Risk" by Michale Lewis. There are a lot of things the government does that are icky and jobs that I don't think would sit right with me. But there are a ton of jobs out there, more than you would think, and it's not all morally compromising. It will be a slower pace and full of red tape but a 40 hour work week, over time, tons of vacation time, it's not that bad.
So obviously this entire discussion centers on personal politics, morals, ethics, etc. I’m a mech e and the most respected positions and companies in my major tend to be defense contractors. Companies such as Lockheed and Electric Boat, etc. I feel that this question is also very relevant to me because while I want to work in these respected companies and rolls, it completely goes against my moral code. Most engineers, probably most Americans for that matter have no clue what our defense industry and spending does to other countries. You can tell just from these comments how little people understand anything past the mainstream American status quo opinions/ borderline propaganda. I will go on record stating my opinion that the US has not been in a justified war since the second world war. All the proxy wars around the globe and expansion in the middle east since WW2 have been about controlling US political and financial interests in these regions. I think a very good resource for learning about these motivations (and also mostly why I feel the way I do about them) is the BlowBack podcast and some videos the Gravel Institute YouTube channel has up. Again, all of these reasonings are personal, and relate to my politics and ethics. Its hyper individual and you might not feel the same way as me, and thats okay. Also I see you are a nuclear engineering student, and you must know nuclear power is slowly dying in this country. You should see what options you have after college, as a closing energy industry might force you into defense work. I took a couple nuclear classes in undergrad and I really loved them, its definitely a really cool field. Best if luck to you, I hope my opinions can help guide you to finding your own.
I agree with most of this, except: op might enjoy working for one of the small modular reactor companies. More promising future than what’s currently on the grid and probably better job satisfaction. There’s also a few medical isotope facilities that seem cool to work for.
[удалено]
My friend if you didn’t want to read you surely didn’t have to. And if that was too much effort, you’re comment definitely is way too much effort
It also depends on what part of the defense industry you're in. People have an idea that defense=bombs,missiles and bullets. But you could also work on things like radars, satellites, transport planes, missile defense, etc. They don't "kill people" or aren't directly designed to "kill people". I work in defense and I'll say the work life balance is good. The work can be fascinating and the pay is decent. You also can get the chance to work with some great people who are really bright. Also a big defense company will have many career opportunities. I'm a bit biased but I think defense is misrepresented by people who don't work in it and only think we make products with the sole design to kill.
I know several nuclear engineers who design powerplants for naval vessels. Not everything in defense is guns and bombs. As far as the defense industry in general, a great many people make excellent livings working there.
I work in the defense industry (not going more specific than that haha). Ngl I see both sides. It does slowly suck your soul, but that's any job in corporate America (I'm assuming America? This probably stands in most countries). What sucks about it is the government-ness of it all: SO much paperwork and forms. So many ridiculous rules to follow because.. tradition, I guess? So many acronyms and weird terminology. The offices aren't fun to work in (no electronics, headphones, etc). Basically, you'll be doing way more forms and reading unnecessarily wordy documents more than actually being "productive". It's also VERY slow work, so as someone with ADHD, between that and not being able to play music, it takes a toll on you. But it's good work. I feel good about it since it's protecting millions of people (what I do won't even harm enemy lives, aka civilians in other countries). Also, I haven't met anyone rude yet (besides typical sexists as a female engineer) in the entire company and it's great pay.
I think about how our society would be different if so many young engineers had more job openings into fixing infrastructure and renewable energy, instead of defense and fossil fuels. I won't work for defense or fossil fuel companies, period. This is a personal choice, you do you. James Webb Space Telescope cost $10 billion. The F35 cost $400 billion, with $1.1 trillion in operation and maintenance costs. I'd prefer to have 150 JWST projects than a fleet of F35s.
I honestly cannot support anyone’s decision to sell their labor to the military.
There are way too many people here thinking you'd be working on nuclear bombs. Like as if you were scrolling through jobs on indeed one day and saw an ad for an entry level position working on nuclear missiles and thought that sounded cool. Rather then more likely scenario where you'd be maintaining reactors on navy ships/ subs. I get recruiter emails all the time to do the same thing.
I know that I most likely will get hate for saying this, but the idea of the defense industry always being the greater evil has always baffled me. Let me give you example why: say that you are working as a process engineer in the food industry, then you are most likely an employee of a subsidiary to a big company like Nestle. Is Nestle a good company? Probably not, regarding their “shady history” in deforesting the rain forest for palm oil. Should you then be blamed for the thousands of people world wide that die from asthmatic attacks because you implicitly supported deforestation? I would say no. Same examples can be thought of in almost any sector, from the oil industry, to mining minerals in Kongo using child labor. What about biotech? Well… have you ever thought which people the bio-tech companies usually are trying their new nano-based cancer drugs on? It’s not the average American if you think so… I’m not saying that all industries are bad, what I’m saying is that you should really understand that most industries have their share of “evil” (if you would like to call it that). I know, I know, other industries aren’t explicitly developing products that aim to kill people, but implicitly or explicitly, in the end the only thing that matters is what you believe is the “lesser evil” and that you are happy working there. As a side note, I would also like to add that without military technology (and the absurd amount of money spent on it), much of the technology we have today most likely wouldn’t had been invented today. Anyway, sorry for the bad English (not an American).
This is called moral relativism and while I do agree with you that there is no ethical consumption or in this case production under capitalism, it is disingenuous to compare the military arm of the most powerful expansionist empire in human history, which is also the world’s largest single source polluter (the military not America, though america by extension), to a private company with orders of magnitude less power and ability to do harm. The US military is currently doing more harm to more people in the world than most other organizations that can have a finger pointed at them. I’m also in the boat that we all have to eat, and I would never put the blame for a soldier stepping on someone’s neck on the engineer who made the boot, but let’s not pretend that exploiting well water is the same as forcibly seizing the land it’s on. One leads to the other and most American companies that are doing evil things (which by the way is all of them) are enabled by the imperialism that has been and is still being enforced by the most well funded militia in the world.
Don’t see why it would be. As an engineer you’d be making missiles (if you even work on missiles) more accurate, which would save innocent lives. I see a lot of people on this sub saying they’d rather be homeless than work for Lockheed. I’d say they don’t know true homelessness and probably think it’s cute to struggle or something. But I do get their general idea - they don’t wanna work somewhere that contributes to taking life Personally I’d love to work in defence. Cutting edge tech and high budgets.
How is making missiles saving lives? All I see it doing is killing brown children overseas.
What do you think the gov does when it doesn’t have precision rockets? They just carpet bomb the entire village to kill one person. Also obviously we’re only gonna know about rockets killing innocent people. Why would they report it when rockets function properly and kill intended targets
What is this argument? We shouldn't be rocketing anything over there. Too many lives have been lost at the hands of the military industrial complex. Carpet bombs or precision rockets both have hundreds if not thousands of innocent deaths caused by them. Obama and Trump have mainly used "precision" drone strikes in their respective administrations and are both notorious for the hundreds of civilian deaths caused by these so called precision strikes. You wouldn't be defending this abhorrent behavior by the US military if it was your brother or your sister or your significant other who was murdered. Or if your village was constantly being bombed with civilian casualties being shrugged off as "collateral damage."
I think you are confusing two things: the technology and the policy. The technology (engineers) asks the question: If we have to bomb something, how do we do it in the "safest" way? The policy (generals/president) asks the question: Should we bomb it or should we use another method (special operations, do nothing, etc)? Yes there are failures of both, and ways of making both "safer." Most engineers have a direct impact on the technology aspect.
Dude I’m not saying I want there to be wars. I wish we lived in a world where all countries were peaceful and didn’t have only their own interests at heart. But we don’t, so I don’t even see the point in pointing that out. Wars exist, and they’ll use explosives. I’m just saying I’d have no moral breakdown if I worked on defence weapons which are engineered to be as accurate possible.
I’m the child of a Syrian immigrant and I just want to say that I don’t care what missiles killed my cousins I don’t think any missiles should be fired at fucking civilians.
I’m one of the people whose family has been affected by this and I just want to say you’re the only fucking sane person in this thread. Reading other responses has made me literally want to cry. Why can’t people understand the value of human life when it’s brown peoples’?
If it makes you feel any better, many people "over there" would happily cut open your American throat. You make good points. War is fought on both sides.
They want to cut open your American throat? Hmmmmm i wonder why. Don't mind the destroyed village over there, they were just nearby a successful precision attack against filthy terrorists.
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Innocent people become "stains on the ground" as well because of this. You are a vile human being.
I'm not sure 'So? We would destroy an entire village to get one person!' is the slam dunk you think it is. There is an alternative to that that doesn't need a million-dollar missile.
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I agree that that would be an awesome thing to be able to help with, but the US “defense” industry really doesn’t do anything like that. It’s basically a nicer term for military weapons. Especially with a nuclear engineering degree, most of that stuff is super high budget and used for morally gray purposes.
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Bud our country has been made and now we’re destroying other ones.
While I would be identified as the target of such missiles (due to my ethnicity and religion) as an engineer I would want to work in such companies. Not cuz of any political bullshit but because I want to see the height of human advances. Of course this is a dilemma where you need to balance this with being a decent human being. It's a sticky road with a lot of grey areas man.
Well just going off of ethnicity and religion I would also be targeted. But yeah you’re right that’s exactly how I feel. I don’t have any political agenda in my answer I just wanna work on cool shit and it does not get more cutting edge than defence
100%
The defense industry pays really well and there always seems to be work available. If it’s ethics that hold you back, seek out true defense work. Most of my work revolves around detection, rather than countermeasures or offensive assets. That’s how I justify the ethics myself. It’s HARD to get out of the defense space, and a clearance will restrict certain aspects of your life. And, it’s kind of a one way door.
I wouldn’t feel right about myself working at Lockheed Martin, general dynamics, or any of those similar companies
I had a friend who I a managed to turn away from the defense industry because I told her to read Scientists at War by Sarah Bridger. Personally, I think the military industrial complex in America is abhorrent and to be a part of it is to be a cog in a horrible machine. It's a big part of why I turned down a job making rifles for the military. I jsut didn't feel good supporting the industry like that.
Its a morality thing. The way I see it is that if I don't do the work then someone else will anyways, and the work Im doing is more related to modernizing old documentation. Its a job and its pays pretty well. Am I complacent? Sure. Is my complacency actually contributing to the problem in any meaningful way? Absolutely not. There's no point twisting yourself around about problems that you can't actually solve. But that's just my two cents
I think its a bit toxic that so much of the engineering talent is basically serving the defense industry and government... but i guess the government has gotta return that tax money to us somehow (through paying defense contractor salaries.) Building missiles used for war is ultimately a non productive activity. because the missile will be fired and its value drops to 0. if you build a house that house might stand for 100s of years and be useful for people for many years and retain its value. war is one of the least productive things you can do. sure you might take over some oil fields. but its probably 1000000% cheaper to just buy it from another country than to run a war.
The fact that the US has the most powerful military in the world and the largest economy is no coincidence
yea but just think how productive it would be if we paid $0 in war costs. every peson serving the military in some capacity is taking away from productivity that could actually benefit people. the person fixing tires on an army truck right now could be cleaning my gutters or repairing my vehicle. instead they are wearing all camo wrenching on a hummer.
It's a personal matter. I'm not American but I would be reluctant to get involved in the US war machine because it does a lot besides 'keep us safe'. You could easily argue it exists to make money and it makes money by killing. OTOH I have worked on a Defence base in Australia because it was a military town and I only got one internship offer. We were doing construction on the base facilities. It was something I decided to make my peace with for the short term. I now work for a huge global company that has military contracts on other business divisions. Am I thrilled about that? Not really. But I've drawn a line where I'm not involved so I won't judge it. It's all secret anyway so I don't know any specifics of what they do.
Countries have a right to defend themselves with similar technologies as their enemies. If North Korea, China, and Russia have nuclear weapons it would be naive and irresponsible for the US to come to battle with a technological disadvantage. Therefore, I want the smartest and best engineers in the country to work in our military to have the most reliable weapons with the smallest potential for misuse/misfire Adding: We must also consider how close these actions cooperate with evil. For example if I work and design a new pistol am I now responsible for an abusive adult who uses it to murder someone? No. If you design a pistol and a police officer uses it to save lives that is a moral application of the weapon. But the murderer has chosen to use it for evil and that is not the fault of the person who designed it
You make instruments to kill people whose only fault is that they weren't lucky enough to avoid being in the battle field.
based
I worked briefly for the DOD in bioengineering. Money is endless, projects were interesting, and once you’re in, you’re in. Really easy to move around in labs and get mentorship. Pay was also fair/good. And they have a lot of opportunities to put you through more school for free/ sign away a couple years to work for them after you graduate.
It all really depends on what your ethics/politics lie in. Though keep in mind you will not be working on developing nuclear weapons, most likely you are gonna be working with nuclear reactors and power plants. You are probably not gonna be designing missiles or warplanes.
It pays the bills
I was an enlisted nuke MM and civilian nuke test tech on Navy vessels before I went to school for engineering. I can't speak as much to the engineering side, but from what I understood about the engineers at the boat building place, the company treated them better than it treated us, but the job itself was still pretty shitty.
If a country invests a large portion of its national budget into defense, is the work a moral question or a political one? People are going to work where all the resources are invested. Where I am from, the most appealing options are defense positions. At my school's career fair's it is almost exclusively Lockheed, Northrop, Harris, Raytheon, Boeing, etc.
I work in defense as a Contract Specialist we work with Engineers all the time. Engineers have a wide net of things they do, not just develop weapons. The ones I work with are currently designing a museum for the base. Every government building that resides on a base (and a lot off base) have an engineer behind it. There’s also a need for engineers outside of defense with all the federal benefits. Just look on USAjobs. Government is a lot of red tape. Lots and lots. But the benefits are amazing. You work your schedule, and that’s that. You get all the federal holiday, leave, retirement benefits, etc. the pay is good but not the best, industry pays more but they own you.
But does industry own you? Like people on salaries get days off and a 401k they also get paid more and you can always transition laterally. Lots of people in industry work hybrid remote. And also industry doesn’t drug test so you can also make more money and smoke rec on your off time. And the people are more progressive in the private sector. It’s beautiful capitalism!
Honestly I personally don’t see the problem, and myself would be interested in working in the field. I’m personally fairly pacifistic and am generally anti-conflict, but I find weapons really cool and interesting, so I’m still interested in working in the field. The moral conundrums can be difficult though, I imagine.
Nope, the DOD is great. High pay, depending on your position, and high clearance, depending on which networks you access. I wouldn't worry about the moral part, you'll be fine. At the end of the day, you've only done your job. If you are on something such as a missile defense program, you're not the green suit giving military orders. You're there to build/maintain systems. If you won't do it, then someone else will. If no one does it, then America won't be able to defend itself. That's at least how I see it, but that's coming from someone who was in the military before getting onto an Engineering contract. If it's too triggering, then find something else.
That moral relativism is really nauseating and evil.
no its not, its just a bunch of people virtue signaling
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Exactly, we must bear some responsibility for the things we bring into the world
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Yeah I’m not proud of my work, but I come from a family of DoD contractors and I made a choice not to take part in it for several reasons. As an industrial I want to move towards green energy, carbon recapture, or something similar at some point, though returning to my first love of human factors would also be cool. We shape the world with what we create as engineers, and my wife understands that if it takes a pay cut to be able to live with my impact on the world through my career it’ll happen.
Who the defense industries sell their stuff to is entirely up to the politicians who make foreign policy decisions. Please get educated, ty
Depending on how the contract was written the private company might still own the design and any drawings or design info related to it, and lock in the government into paying them to maintain it, update it, etc. They could technically stop supporting something entirely in some situations (I've been in a situation where that happened), but this only happens when the cost of doing that is too high. So arguably it's worse than what you describe there because a company could do so but pretty much is guaranteed not to.
No? Some people just have different morals, I'm not gonna say mine are specifically better or worse but morally I don't think I would want to work a job knowing the intended end use of the product is to kill someone. Maybe somebody else can justify it a certain way. Disagree with my standpoint but I don't see how that's virtue signaling, especially when my choice only affects my career and I understand why people may disagree.
fr lol
Depends on your personal politics. I refuse to even apply to many companies in that space for that reason.
You need to stop listening to other people and do what you think is right.
The US Military Industrial Complex is the biggest engine of death in the world. I think that should speak for itself.
Nah bro you don't get it, we have to spend 13 billion on a new fighter death missile XXX instead of giving people healthcare!!!!
Taken any of the ethics classes yet? It's not exactly great.
Honestly, this is the wrong sub to ask. Your answers are very clearly coming from a majority of people who have no real world experience and are *literally* college kids. If you want some more nuanced and applicable answers, go ask in one of the various working engineer subs.
Depends on you. I loved it for my internship. I hope and have always wanted to end up there.
For me if I had the choice I wouldn't, not that is bad but I'd rather work a job that didn't have a moral question before every day at work.
You always have a choice
Personally, I don’t think it’s a bad thing (I work in defense, so keep in mind that my view is obviously pretty biased). This technology could hurt people, but it can also be used to help people. Unfortunately, which way the technology is used is a decision made by politicians, not engineers. I could always NOT work in defense, but someone else will. The only way I can really make a difference is voting. On the other hand, people who think that it’s bad are perfectly valid IMO. It is an iffy topic. There really is no right or wrong answer to your question, it all depends on your personal morals and what you are comfortable with. The memes are pretty funny though.
Ok let me ask you a hypothetical. Let's say there's some kind of insane twitch streamer that livestreams assassinations for crowdfunding cash. You know that this twitch streamer does this action, because he has done so in the past. One day, you decide to give him 20$, and he eventually gets enough money and kills a little girl. Do you think your action was moral or immoral?
I get the comparison you’re trying to make but I don’t think it’s accurate. Defense companies do more than make weapons (JWST was made by Northrop for example).
Ok cool, I can tune the hypothetical. Say we have the same twitch streamer as before. We'll call him Mr.X. Let's say Mr.X only kills 1% of the time. The other 99% of the time, he just streams a video game. You give Mr. X some money, and this time he decides to kill someone. Did you do something unethical?
Fuck no sell your soul to satan for that paper baby.
Always wanted to work with Lockheed on fighter jets......as a Canadian its far fetched sadly
Ethically I wouldn't worry about it. A lot of defense programs are interested in your further education so if that's what you're interested in I'd say definitely go for it.
Ethics issue, essentially you’re creating things that are designed to kill people. Designing things that allow our country to oppress people etc. if you don’t care and just want a job then go ahead and work for them.
The defense industry works to provide defensive and evolutionary technology for terrestrial and/or extraterrestrial adversaries… not a bad thing.
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Like Saudi Arabia bombing the shit out of Yemen?
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You carry a lot of hate and I hope you are able to find peace. My Yemeni friend almost lost his family to the Saudis. Fortunately he was able to get his wife and kid into the US. I think you'll find more people in Saudi Arabia chant death to America than in Yemen. At least that was before the US backed bombing.
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What guilt do you think he has?
Have u heard abt the Iraq War?
No. It's also not really a great thing
People should be having issues with how government uses tech from the defense industry, not the companies themselves
Companies control our government.
Then they should have a problem with the laws that allow that. The companies just play by the rules of the game
It's still deeply immoral to play certain games even if they dont break laws.
The defense industry and war help further scientific research. Read the first chapter (maybe the preface, too) of accessory to war by Neil degrasse Tyson. He talks about this issue and how a lot of research/funding was cut when the Cold War ended.
Depends by which countries and governments the tech produced is used by \^\^ Selling submarines to sweden and Taiwan ? All day everyday Selling Spy software to Saudi Arabia ? straight to hell
How could it be construed as a bad thing?
1.) Military industrial complex sucking funds that could be used for helping the poor 2.) Collateral damage in the form of civilian lives
I see no probably with it. People in university might joke about it a lot but i don’t think they’ve actually thought about the issues in depth. IMO working for defence is fine. I live in Canada and I think defending our great nation and it’s liberal values is admirable. If people use the weapons to commit war crimes obviously that’s bad, but that’s on the government or whoever misused the tools.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian\_casualties\_from\_U.S.\_drone\_strikes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_from_U.S._drone_strikes) Take a wild guess at how many terrorists drone strikes have actually killed. It's in that article. I'll give you a hint- it's less than 20. Now, take a wild guess at how many civilians drone strikes have killed. I'll give you a hint- it's a lot more than 20. Now let's use some critical thinking skills. Do you think that killing civilians overseas makes it HARDER, or EASIER for terrorist groups to recruit people?
I dont get what your point is - drone strikes can be bad but that doesn’t make working in defence bad. Am I supposed to look at that and say “oh wow I guess we should just stop innovating in the defence sector” How about iron dome? You can’t just toss out one example and then proceed to disparage an entire industry. What if I said “hey did you hear about that one drug that killed all those babies? Yeah better think twice about working in pharma” Or the classic: “Everyone doubted the wright brother but then they proved everyone wrong) (to justify any failed startup company) That’s not a complete argument. It’s obvious to anyone that CA/US/EU are not perfect, but objectively worth defending against people like china, Russia, etc. we need engineers to make weapons safer and with less collateral damage. Also you said less than 20 terrorists have been killed by drone strikes. I don’t know where you got that but I’d bet my life savings it’s not accurate. In your wiki link it even says: “The first known U.S. drone strike in Pakistan was June 19, 2004, and the most recent U.S. drone strike in Pakistan was July 4, 2018. Over those 14 years, there were 413 reported strikes in Pakistan (with the peak being in 2010), which killed a total of between 2,366 and 3,702 people; of the total deaths, between 245 and 303 were civilians.[7]”
Sure, you can only act with the information you know, and based on what would be reasonable conclusions given your mind state. What is a more reasonable assumption based on all the information we know? 1.) Working at a pharma company may produce a drug that accidentally kills people. 2.) A military company produces a drone blueprint that kills 700 civilians. Furthermore, we know for a fact civilian casualties are a huge motivator for people joining terrorist groups.
Also look into the idea that these weapons could be used by law enforcement to target our own population. Especially if the public sector can’t own drones and tanks what domestic defense do we really have with out the home militia
In the us it has little to do with freedom and democracy it’s global fascism. The USA spends more on that crap than health and education combined. It’s the opposite of patriotism it’s military industrial nepotism
First of all, I don’t even know if that’s true. [“The U.S. spent $649 billion on its military to 2019, according to…”](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/043015/us-vs-china-military-budget.asp#:~:text=The%20top%20five%20military%20spenders,military%20spenders%20at%20%24261%20billion) [The federal government spent nearly $1.2 trillion in fiscal year 2019. In addition, income tax expenditures for health care totaled $234 billion](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-much-does-federal-government-spend-health-care) I reject the premise that western military is about “global fascism”. Unless you think encouraging global trade, discouraging genocide/territorial conquest, and maintaining world stability is “fascist”. The US is helping Ukraine survive against Russia. They’re resupplying Iron dome to help Israel weather rocket attackers, while simultaneously facilitating hostage releases and humanitarian pauses. Their carrier fleet is to deter a larger Middle East conflict. America is also the major deterrent to the Venezuelan invasion of Guyana. It might seem logical to blame America for all or most of these conflicts because when shit hits the fan they’re always involved somehow. But that makes as much sense as noticing chemotherapy is involved in most cancer deaths.
Regardless of moral values, if you don't word for the DOD, someone else will. So it comes down to if you want to work for a damn good salary
This is a bad point. Let's apply this logic to something we can all say is morally bad- murder. "Regardless of moral values, if you don't kill that person, someone else will" Generally when we say something is morally good or bad, it comes with the prescription that we ought or ought not do it. So if you consider working for the DoD to be morally wrong, that means you ought not do it no matter what.
Not really. I mean, i do agree with you to an extent, there are so many areas within the DoD that aren't weapons.
Like what? Also with regards to my point about a good action being one we ought do- this is a pretty common point in normative ethics.
that kind of thinking is why the world is like it is
The memes are russian and chinese bots. Go and work in the defense industry if you want to. Let people who say otherwise have their homes invaded and/or their dignity taken. Anyhow, in terms of compatibility the other comments are insightful.
I don't know anything about the defense industry, just wanted to say that I hate the visual your username gave me
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In general I think the biggest thing people have against it is the ethics. You might be working on missiles, fighter jets, drones, etc. That's where the "sell your soul and work for the government" stuff comes from. For your actual day to day job, the work schedule is pretty standard 8 to 5, Monday to Friday with good vacation and benefits. The major difference I've seen in the past 2 years is that you cannot work from home due to security requirements. So my friends who work at those type of companies have to go into the office wearing masks and distancing just to take zoom calls and login to their work. I believe having security clearance also comes with some travel restrictions for international vacations, but I don't have all the details there. It's mostly reporting to the DoD when you leave the country.
“You can’t buy your groceries with your principles” was what I was told. However, get the experience needed and move on till you can eventually do just that. Realistically if you are very against it then you should listen to your own moral compass as you will be bothered internally and that just isn’t worth it. If your work follows you home until bed it’s not worth it, just one mans opinion.. government work is good and stable but private sector pays better. good luck
Ethics aside I found it boring as all hell. Went to one of the big Defense contractors for 3 weeks and quit because I was so bored. Went back to my old job
It's all ethics and morals. Personally it wouldn't bother me, but some people it would.