[sametmax]

That's the thing isn't it ? They can't do anything alone.

It always amazes me that those big entities exist, because they require such a huge highly educated and skilled human power. What are all those genius at the NSA thinking ? I can't imagine somebody smart enough to work here is not smart enough to understand the consequences of working there. So why are they not quitting ?

Social pressure and money are part of the equation, certainly. I remember when I turned down a Google interview, my close circle though it was weird that I did that, even more for ethical reason.

Having the best toys, budgets and projects certainly helps as well.

But still, I wonder.

[relics443]

Have you considered that there are people out there with values that differ from yours? It's not wildly impossible, regardless of what the screaming minority would have you believe.

Maybe they don't have a problem with working on such projects, because they agree with their end goal?

[sametmax]

Ocam's razor, so yes.

I learned very young there are differences, like I literally (NOT figurative at all) couldn't see the motivation behind destroying school equipment, drawing on walls, etc. While for some, it's fun.

But even after all those years, it's just so hard to wrap my head around that.

[vokep]

They probably understand others have different values. The confusion is, some values seem so self evident that its bewildering anyone with a certain level of intelligence wouldn't realize the same values.

I think the answer might be that they do have the same values, but they have a different model of the world overall, which calls for different ways of achieving those values.

To take this to an extreme, imagine a person fighting for their life against actual criminals threatening vs a person fighting for their life against a random person they think is a shape-shifting alien impostor. Both are internally justified by the same values, one is externally justified by a more correct perception of reality.

[p1esk]

How can you tell that your perception of reality is more "correct" than mine?

[sametmax]

Ah, those are the words I have been missing. Thank you.

[refurb]

I'm glad someone made this comment. It blows me away when people think their set of values is the only "right" way to think and anyone else who has a different set of values is obviously damaged or doing it unwillingly.

[pandaman]

There is nothing extraordinary or even unusual in this. It's basic tribalism: my tribe is made from virtuous people who are also smart and beautiful, the enemy tribe, on the other hand, consists of deformed degenerates with the room temperature IQ.

[sametmax]

No you see you imply that I've given a value to the people here. Which is not at all what I said.

I exactly said I can't understand the line of thinking that leads to the decision. That's pretty much all.

[pandaman]

Did not you imply that smart people cannot possibly be in the other tribe so there has to be some reason why your tribe members are not quitting the enemy tribe cause?

[sametmax]

I never used anything close to "cannot possibly". I said I could not understand. I used the words "why" and "I wonder". It's very clear. It's not ambiguous. But you seem very attached to your tribe theory, so you want my past comment to fit your present view.

And it's a very conflicting view of the word too. Do you see us as enemies as well ?

In which case, you win this argument. I don't want my tribe to fight yours.

[sametmax]

Well, let's say suddenly you learn a community of elite thinkers eat babies and think it's good way to control population.

You'd be baffled, wouldn't you ?

It's not a matter of morality, of good or bad, or right or wrong.

I understand the difference exists. It just feels so alien to me I can't get to form the mental model that helps me understand what thinking lead to this behavior.

Also, read the other comments, we answered your points already.

[refurb]

you learn a community of elite thinkers eat babies

Maybe I'm not reading this correctly, but you're saying that if anyone holds an opinion different than yours your reaction is the same as if they thought "eating babies" was OK?

Things aren't that black and white. People can hold opinions different than your and you can withhold judgement.

[sametmax]

They just have a different opinion on eating babies. People can hold opinions different than your and you can withhold judgement.

See again, you add morality in the equation, talking about black and white. But morality is arbitrary. You can draw the line anywhere, one inch to left or the right, and so on, indefinitely.

So that's not what I said.

What I said was "I can't understand".

Not "it should not be" or "it's impossible" or "they are bad people".

Apparently, you have difficulty to understand that somebody can't understand.

[Sharlin]

It's literally the same thing that allowed concentration camps to happen. Or, in the words of the late Sir Terence:

“There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.”

— Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

[cmrdporcupine]

Arguably the majority supports the ideological foundations, aims, and methods of the institutions you are speaking of. In particular the military and intelligence institutions. If they didn't, they would have been removed by vote or force some time ago.

Frankly the broad majority of people in the US benefit materially in some way from their existence in ways that they might not even be fully aware of.

I am not arguing this is a good thing, but I think it's a reality. Military power abroad means wealth accumulation at home.

[p1esk]

Interesting. I have absolutely zero ethical concerns with Google building a drone which can more accurately target someone. I'm also perfectly fine with US government using those drones to kill bad guys.

Now if they use it to kill good guys, then it's a problem that needs to be solved.

[sametmax]

Yeah but your good guys and their good guys will not be the same for ever.

[p1esk]

If that ever happens, I will protest them killing good guys, rather than protest them having advanced weapons.

[soVeryTired]

How does one determine who's a good guy and who's a bad guy?

I would have thought most people are somewhere in between.

[p1esk]

So far, the people they kill are very much in line with my definition of "bad guys" (e.g. bin Laden).

[mmjaa]

Are you paying attention to how many "good guys" are being killed by 'your side' daily? Because thats more important than your other stat.

[soVeryTired]

I don't think you're really engaging with my point.

[p1esk]

Yes, most people are somewhere in between. What's your point?

[dorgo]

Is Snowden a good guy?

My government did enough stupid things for me to not want them to have sophisticated military toys.

[p1esk]

Is Snowden a good guy?

Debatable, but regardless - do you think the reason US government have not killed Snowden is the lack of "sophisticated military toys"?

Also, my government did enough stupid things (like killing innocent people in war zones by mistake) for me to want them to have more intelligent weapons.

[jerf]

It isn't hard to imagine a scenario in which the majority, or even the strong majority, of each nation disapproves of its own military or intelligence techniques, but nevertheless nothing can change because any nation that unilaterally drops some questionable technique (and don't just think "torture" here, but "excessive surveillance of the home population" and such) pays penalties vs. the other nations and experiences no benefit, making it very difficult for even one nation to climb the resulting gradient, let alone the entire world.

It's a hard problem, and most glib solutions are, well, just that, glib. Centralized agreements become increasingly difficult as the number of entities increase, for instance, even before we account for scenarios like this where the reward for defection increases proportionally to the number of other participants in the disarmament.

This is also ignoring those cases where there isn't even disagreement; in the real world, for instance, while you can quibble about the exact lines it seems to be the case that the Chinese accept and approve of levels of "invasive government" (to use a Western spin on the idea; I don't know what they would call it exactly) that Magna Carta-descended countries would consider abhorrent, making coordination even harder. (Meanwhile, they consider our lack of coordination or whathaveyou, if not "abhorrent", at the very least "sub-optimal", and possible dangerously socially negligent. As I'm using English here and, like I said, I don't know what they'd call it exactly, I can't help a bit of a Western spin here, but I acknowledge the flip side.)

[sametmax]

> Frankly the broad majority of people in the US benefit materially in some way from their existence in ways that they might not even be fully aware of.

No argument here, having a strong bully in the room is good for you when he is on your side.

[rixrax]

What about all the open source? I'l hazard that that quite a few instruments of war and mayhem run on FOSS. Is there a moral dilemma there? Should FOSS licenses make provisions for the type of use packages can be used for (I believe they should)?

[iblo66]

>So why are they not quitting ?

Because not everybody thinks the way you do. That's why we have elections.