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Comment by papeda | Hacker News Reader

It bugs me that so much more public and media ire is directed toward tech companies than defense contractors when the latter industry is of comparable size, way more opaque, and dominated by very very old companies [1] with excellent lobbying.

I understand that people have far less personal interaction with defense contractors. But hey, it’s your tax dollars.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defense_contractors

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Snowden discusses the issues with defense contractors and how they came to be in his book. It's pretty interesting. I'm not saying you can be sure about some guy saying something in a book, but it's pretty convincing and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of it is true.

President Eisenhower raised the issue, and after 50 years we've surrendered. Big tech is a right we haven't fully lost yet.

Also, money is just money.

The only reason Eisenhower was allowed to say the little he did say was that he had already surrendered. He stood by while Korean War funding metastasized into "the military-industrial complex". If anyone could have stopped it, it was a reelected President and five-star general war hero. Ike DGAF. BTW he was also the moron who let CIA off the leash, to the world's continuing sorrow. Just this week another chicken has come home to roost.

I don't think animosity is a zero sum game. Tech companies being hated doesn't mean there is less hate to be allocated to defense contractors, nor would defense contractors receiving more hate take the heat off the tech industry.

There's a finite number of journalists and a finite amount of energy that can be spent on writing exposés and critical editorials.

Yes, but are they really even trying?

Yes, absolutely. They are trying to do what’s best for journalists as a class.

The journalists who specialize in covering the tech industry would not necessarily be in their element when covering the defense industry, and vice versa. What you've got here is basically the "why are you working for an internet advertiser when you could be working on a cure of cancer" argument.

Tech companies make products that every consumer interacts with. Defense contractors make products that every consumer pays for but rarely interact with, especially since the draft was eliminated and military service in the US became all volunteer. While I agree with that change, the lack of “in-your-face”-ness of the defense industry means our endless wars and endless payments to the war factories go unexamined.

Plus the hero-worship of soldiers, even those that spend a career washing dishes in Texas, has made any criticism politically untenable.

"But hey, it's your tax dollars."

Tech companies pay taxes, too.

Occasionally

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