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Comment by mattlondon | Hacker News Reader

What is most interesting about this article is the comments here considering what we've recently seen RE Google. Where are the calls from HN commenters suggesting that the engineers refuse to work on this? Where are the commenters questioning the morals and ethics of the engineers working on this? Where are the comments on here calling for the engineers working on this to quit in protest, or be deemed a collaborator?

Or does that line of thought only apply when it is everyone's favourite bogeyman Google that is contracted to replace manual work with automated systems? If its not Google, then is it A-Okay to work on military systems?

Both this and the Google project are IT systems that save manual, error-prone, and time-consuming work to enable the US military to more efficiently kill people.

I know I'll get down-voted to hell on this, but please if you're going to try and take the moral high ground at least do so consistently.

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>Where are the calls from HN commenters suggesting that the engineers refuse to work on this?

shrug I find that the state monopoly on violence to be much more justified than some of the perfectly-legal ways people in the private sector choose to exploit their fellow humans for profit. -- At the very least, we treat the state's exercise of violence as a necessary evil to be minimized.

I found it darkly-humorus that nothing short of actual military contracting could wake up oh-so-progressive googlers to some "are we being evil" introspection.

I want software developers to collectively adopt an ethical standard and stick to it. I really, really do. But the only way I'm able to cope with what I've been witnessing for the last 15 years is to aim scorn at us all for being rationalizing frauds.

> I know I'll get down-voted to hell on this, but please if you're going to try and take the moral high ground at least do so consistently.

I feel that saving money on tanker planning is on a different ethical level from creating drones that can kill people upon facial recognition.

Disclosure: I work for Pivotal in R&D.

You should qualify which engineers you are refering to. From the article it's clear that the majority of the coding is "by a fast-moving cadre of Air Force engineers". They are Forces personnel, not civilians. Yes, Pivotal are involved, equally it seems if they are practicing XP, perhaps now only as Agile Coaches.

I also believe the applications this team are creating are substantively different in intent to those the Google employees were complaining about.

Hey, I work for Pivotal and I'm on an Kessel Run Air Force engagement. We teach things by doing them. That's why we're effective. So we are involved heavily in the making of software, we've always been. Our main schtick is that we try to make sure that we aren't necessary to the software development process when we roll off.

There are actually a couple of things that are the reason why a lot of people don't think it's too much of a problem (some people do and I work out of an office that does a lot of government work so we hear more of this than others do). The main reason is that there isn't pressure for a pivot to work on a project. If the project makes you feel uncomfortable request to be on something else. Leadership has been very thoughtful in addressing how people feel about working on military and government projects (especially with the new administration).

The other reason is that the applications are pretty different in intent, from what I understand, to what was complained by Google employees. It honestly feels like very standard enterprise issues. We're helping them cut through a lot of the same issues anyone would find at large enterprises.

You're talking about a company that's motto use to be "Don't be evil" and who has been referred to as the Chocolate Factory (a la Willy Wonka). Google isn't historically a military contractor or a systems contractor in general. All of their advertising, keynotes and press conferences center around connecting and helping people, not helping to develop weapons. Culturally they're a friendly company trying to make the world a better place. Presumably their employees didn't seek employment with Google under the impression they'd ever be developing technologies to aid the military in carrying out it's mission. So why is it so difficult for you to comprehend the backlash or cultural resistance to this?

This would be like Coca Cola announcing it's new chemical weapons division.

They are military personnel, writing code for military applications. They are under the obligation to refuse to execute orders that go against international conventions and have an obligation to respond to Congress/Senate inquiries. Their superiors, who might want to pressure them into doing things that are illegal or don't align with the US stance can be court-marshaled.

Good luck getting anywhere near that level of responsibility from Google execs or managers.

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