Comment on Shout out to my engineering homies.
Objection@lemmy.ml 2 hours agoThat’s complete nonsense.
You’re saying, “a just society would need engineers to build weapons, to be used for defense, therefore, it is right for engineers to build weapons in an unjust society where they will be used for offense.” That does not follow at all. That’s like seeing a car stalled out in the middle of an intersection and saying, “A functional intersection would need me to go when the light is green, therefore, I should keep driving forward. The problem is the car in the intersection, someone needs to fix that, and I don’t need to change my behavior even if it’s going to lead to people dying, because I’m acting in a way that would be appropriate in a functioning intersection.”
That’s not how morality, reason, or anything else works. You have to look at the world as it actually exists and look at the predictable consequences of your actions in the actually existing world.
Again, I will return to the unanswered point from before, about how far you’re willing to extend this line of logic, whether you think it was morally neutral to manfacture Panzers and Zyklon B for the Nazis.
Your position is completely indefensible and untenable. You called me childish, when you’re refusing to acknowledge and adapt to the real world.
ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 2 hours ago
Oh, I see what’s going on here.
I live in Europe so I’m looking at this from European perspective. While I think I don’t live in a completely just society I think it’s pretty good, it can be improved and I would like for it to survive. So I think Europe should have weapons and we should have best engineers possible working on them. While their weapons are sometimes used for immoral things I don’t blame the engineers for it.
You’re looking at this from American perspective. You think your society is evil and it should be destroyed. You don’t think it should be able to defend itself at all and all engineers helping to preserve it are morally corrupt.
You’re looking at this from a perspective or a Nazi engineer in 1938 while I’m looking at it from a perspective or a Polish engineer in 1938.
So you’re taking the most extreme case and applying it to all arms companies while I treat as… well… extreme case.
I have a friend in Poland that works for a company providing components for weapon manufacturers. Some components they make were found in Gaza. Do I think he’s immoral and should quit? No, I think those components are necessary to protect Poland from Russia and I don’t think Poland should be destroyed. He can’t decide were those components will end up. Would I say the same about Israeli engineer? No.
Objection@lemmy.ml 1 hour ago
Yes, that is more or less correct. My problem is primarily with US weapons manufacturing and military spending. If it could not be shut down entirely, then, all else being equal, it would be preferable for it to be offshored to Europe, or anywhere else, to keep as much as possible out of the hands of the increasingly fascist and beligerant US.
In most cases, the main enemy of a poor person of a given country is a rich person of the same country. I believe in following my class interest, not some “national interest” that’s typically completely divorced from my own, if not actively detrimental to it. I have no interest in upholding or protecting that “national interest,” that “national interest” is really bourgeois interest and the bourgeoisie are more than capable of looking after it themselves.
There are some exceptions, however. Franz Fanon, for example, argued that in developing countries, the gap between the domestic rich and poor is outweighed by the international gap, such that a class truce may be acceptable to resist foreign colonizers. Likewise, the CCP was willing to form a temporary alliance with the KMT in order to repel the fascist Japanese. The USSR opposed strikes in the US during WWII because those strikes would have impaired the war effort against the Nazis.
These exceptions to the general rule of class war only apply when there is a significant, genuine threat to the average person, when the foreign threat is intent on outright extermination. If it’s merely trading one set of capitalists for another, then it is not my fight and none of my concern.
Typically, anything that benefits the bourgeoisie, that benefits the so-called “national interest,” is bad for me, even if it doesn’t harm me directly. Because the more money and resources the bourgeoisie possess, the more power they will be able to wield against me, lowering my wages, making me work longer hours, taking away my healthcare and security. All of these things they are more capable of when they have money, weapons, and resources acquired through imperialist conquest.