[FactualActuals]

Not all military spending is designed for offense. I currently work in the defense industry and the projects I've been on have either been intelligence gathering, passive defense systems, or currently some work on satellites.

Advances in these systems do lead to other technologies that are used in other industries. I understand your concern considering that the cost of a Tomahawk missile is $1.87 million dollars. I personally don't see myself working on technologies used for offensive purposes but I find a sense of fulfillment by trying to keep soldiers and sailors safe.

[cwkoss]

Have you considered that your perspective is "keeping soldiers and sailors safe" because it is crucial to your self esteem to believe your work is a net good for society, and if you didn't believe that you'd be unable to continue this work?

[imtringued]

Causalities are going down. Indiscriminate killing is going out of "fashion" but there is always going to be collateral damage.

What surprises me on the other hand are those armchair drone experts that talk about swarms and extremely high levels of capability at absurdly low cost. Like, just run the "numbers" a can B-52 carry 100000 drones for the cost of one F-35.

The obvious problem is the lack of a mission that requires sending this many weapons. People just randomly got this idea we are going to carpet bomb everything but this time with drones.

[FactualActuals]

I explicitly chose to not work on offensive technologies like missiles or drones because I didn't want to be associated with potential misuse. I don't think a lot of people on HN have a good perspective of the DOD to understand why certain mission critical technologies are necessary for the defense of our soldiers and our own people. At the same time though, there is a lot of bloat and I would argue from what I've seen that it mostly stems from contractors more than actual government employees.

[mensetmanusman]

This is true for all work.

[cwkoss]

Most work isn't directly involved in the kill chain. That's a ridiculous dismissal.

[mensetmanusman]

I mean the mindset as “crucial to your self esteem to believe your work is a net good for society”

Because ‘net good’ is debatable, your beliefs will clash with others who think it is not a ‘net good’ regardless of the work.

E.g. people involved with sugar production have probably caused more integrated harm than those making missiles. This is especially true as obesity passes 50% of the population.