Comment by drcomputer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drcomputer | Hacker News Reader

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I've had job offers for programming drones. I was involved with computer security for a while, and I still have a strong interest in every computational and mathematical aspect of it. I have friends that work on those things. I like those friends. I write code. I write math. We all think. We all share abstract models, different ways of thinking. It's not just code that gets turned into code. It's thought, and everything else too. I hate feeling like my thoughts can be used to hurt people. I hate feeling like the act of choosing to exist can cause harm, but looking at it that way is like saying a tapestry is no longer a tapestry when one thread is pulled from it.

I still love math, and I still love computer science. I just don't want to use it the way the a lot of the world uses it, and I don't know how much thinking I have to do before I can create code that I am satisfied over being both intelligent and humane. It's absolutely ridiculous, sometimes. Sometimes I can just stare at a cursor blinking on an IDE and feel like I'm falling into a void of 'what ifs'. Other times it is like there is no difference between myself and the machine. And then I wonder whether I'm thinking enough, again, or am I letting calculation and logic get the best of me. Have I abstracted this problem too much, too far away from reality? Does anything I think matter at all? My life continues to improve, but suffering still exists, and I feel like it is almost taboo to talk about in this way. But what is the point of existing if you can't actually make real improvements?

Have I abstracted this problem too much, too far away from reality?

I'll say. You could throw it in and go work as a coal-miner, but then you'd have to worry about the coal you mined being used to smelt steel that goes on to be manufactured as bomb casings. And so on. Certainly you shouldn't work on anything that offends you conscience, but the mere fact that something can be repurposed for warfare doesn't create moral responsibility.

This isn't to say that worrying about war or your personal purpose is misplaced GH Hardy opined that ballistics was 'repulsive' both because of the moral purpose and the triviality of the mathematics involved, and there are more musings on the ethics of that sub-branch of math here: http://www.augustana.ualberta.ca/~hackw/mp480/exhibit/ballis...

But as long as you're knowingly working on some sort of combat system, it's folly to beat yourself up over the limitations of foreseeability and the vague possibility that something you craft might turn out to have military utility which you din't intend at the time you conceived it. Instead, look for ways to provide utility in other areas.

I know. I might as well blame myself for breathing out air that is used by a tree that is used to build a house that houses the person who pushes the red button of destruction. It's like tunnel vision, following one path of articulation that follows the model of a logically sound abstraction. Things may be connected, but, causality with regards to the relations between mind to mind is very difficult to understand.

But you are right. I look to provide utility in areas where the net effect seems most likely to be positive. When I can't evaluate that entirely I just assume neutral or no effect, it sort of just dissipates over time, like a wave collapse function, assuming entropy, or some manner of mental equality among peers.

Of course then your country could lose a war because it had insufficient technology, and you'd get to wonder if you contributed to that (you would have, though so would everyone else).

Or because you didn't work on guidance systems, you could wonder if that was the reason the near miss which causes a lot of civilian deaths happened.

Or you could note that the use of military power is not really constrained by technical limitations and never has been, but the effect most certainly is, and start voting and advocating politically which would be more effective at stopping wars in every way.

But then you would have some much more direct responsibility for how the various conflicts turned out.

That's always the problem, is how much and in what way can you dedicate yourself? And is it more a waste to spend idle time analyzing this than actually doing something? But is it the doing that creates the problems?

I don't have the energy for that. These situations are so complicated and they never seem to get resolved. As soon as peace comes someone sees that as opportunity to manipulate (or is the perception of that what causes it to happen?)

I'd rather just stare at math and code, seriously, even if it doesn't talk back like a person. At least it's not crazy.

I'd draw the line at actually making the code, or sharing real theory with someone else.

I don't think that it's fair to condemn oneself because his/her ideas could potentially end-up sparking an idea about killer drones in someone-elses mind. In the end we're all very much alike, and it doesn't take much to transfer a few missing links if you know and they don't.

In the end the same laws of nature rule in all our heads, and while it seems like each and every one of us are our own compartmentalized observers, it's not until you think a good long while about the principle of locality(and most of the other fundamental laws) that you understand that it's the other way around.

Thinking this way for me is peaceful. I can't believe in god or another entity but to follow this chain of thought always leads me to consider that I'm part of something greater and more important than one single life can ever hope to be. I guess these days I see humanity more as some sort of super organism . Just as I emerge from individual cells so does humanity emerge from all the humans inside of it. I just try to do my part inside the greater of humanity, and I leave it at that.

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