We already have nation states and wannabe nation states that take shots at us when they feel like the opportunity is there, despite us being the dominant military around the world. As does France, who has been a leading military power for longer than we have.
That's what having a funded and functional defense is all about -- making other entities not think that the opportunity is there.
I think the planet has relatively finite resources and that I'm god damned lucky to have been born into a nation with the ability to secure resources for itself. I enjoy my quality of life a great deal and would like to maintain it. At a minimum. Before helping others.
If you're the type of person who thinks we should just give up this position by not adequately defending it through military and technology investment, I would prefer that you just expatriate yourself now rather than let some other ascendant nation dictate our future and our quality of life.
If you're the kind of person who feels strongly for the plight of, for example, the Palestinians, you should recognize that the only way to deter those kinds of outcomes is to establish the means to establish and maintain sovereignty. That requires a combination of force and manpower.
> If you're the type of person who thinks we should just give up this position by not adequately defending it through military and technology investment, I would prefer that you just expatriate yourself now rather than let some other ascendant nation dictate our future and our quality of life.
But I thought you said if we want to fix something we should do so from within the system? I'm interested in ending American imperialism, by your logic isn't the best place to do so from within the USA?
> We already have nation states and wannabe nation states that take shots at us when they feel like the opportunity is there
From which nation state do you feel an existential threat? I haven't heard "they defend our freedoms" in a very, very long time, and I thought we all knew it was ironic.
> I think the planet has relatively finite resources
I'm curious about this viewpoint, because it seems to necessarily imply that the human race will simply die out when those resources (and those of the surrounding solar system) are exhausted. Is sustainability just, not a concept in this worldview?
> That's what having a funded and functional defense is all about -- making other entities not think that the opportunity is there.
It seems in the case of the USA, the "functional defense" is more often used to destabilize other nations, and arm terrorists that then turn around and attack the USA. It's really interesting you brought up Palestinian liberation as an example, because really one of the only reasons Israel is able to maintain its apartheid state and repression of the Palestinians is because of USA aid. In your understanding, both the Israelis and the Palestinians should arm up and up and up until they're both pointing nukes at eachother, correct? That's the only pathway to peace?
But very few other countries are doing it to the countries to whom the USA is doing it, thus I disagree with your contention. It seems to me that if the countries that are doing these awful things stop doing these awful things, the awful things will in fact stop happening, at least for a time.
As for to whom the awful things are happening, that's practically moot: humans are humans. I don't really understand why I should accept bad things happening to humans just because I was born on one side of an invisible line and they were born on another. Seems extremely fallacious and irrational, if not sociopathic.
> If your starting point of logic though is "America Bad" then your moralizing isn't about working at Google or not.
The discussion is about the evils perpetrated by the American military industrial complex, and why people may not want to work for companies that participate in this complex. Google being one of these companies. I similarly won't work for Ratheon or Halliburton, for obvious examples. So yes, it's not about working at just Google.
Though for what it's worth, I actually agree with you that the more ethical course of action would be to stay at Google, try to get into a military-adjacent project, and then sabotage it, probably via quiet quitting or holding lots of unnecessary meetings and wasting other people's time. This is directly out of the CIA's playbook, in fact. PDF: https://www.cia.gov/static/5c875f3ec660e092cf893f60b4a288df/...
That's what having a funded and functional defense is all about -- making other entities not think that the opportunity is there.
I think the planet has relatively finite resources and that I'm god damned lucky to have been born into a nation with the ability to secure resources for itself. I enjoy my quality of life a great deal and would like to maintain it. At a minimum. Before helping others.
If you're the type of person who thinks we should just give up this position by not adequately defending it through military and technology investment, I would prefer that you just expatriate yourself now rather than let some other ascendant nation dictate our future and our quality of life.
If you're the kind of person who feels strongly for the plight of, for example, the Palestinians, you should recognize that the only way to deter those kinds of outcomes is to establish the means to establish and maintain sovereignty. That requires a combination of force and manpower.