[JohnFen]

> the obvious reason is that the military tends to involve killing sometimes

Your wording downplays it, but killing people is the entire reason militaries exist.

> People don't have similar disdain for working at advertising corps like Google and Facebook for the killings they do indirectly.

A whole lot of people do.

> My drone is for surveillance only—it has a self-detachment feature (SDA) that is activated when the drone is attacked, but other than that the drone is for surveillance only.

That makes it no less a weapon, though. Just sayin'.

As someone who has done work for the US military in the past, here's my take on the social implications of it. If you're working on an offensive (in the military sense) project, there are going to be a lot of people who find that ethically objectionable. Less so in times where the US is less belligerent, but we don't live in those times right now.

If you're working on basic research projects funded by the military (this is what I have done), there are far fewer people who would find that objectionable. If you're working on something purely defensive, that falls somewhere in the middle.

However, military work will always be polarizing to some degree.

[piratesAndSons]

My issue with my friend is: why is military work specially objectionable? I used the example of buying products that are produced by slaves. No doubt some died, yet he has no problem with that, saying it is different without actually explaining why.

Is the issue perception alone? Brand? What the industry advertises itself as? And the totality of their work doesn't matter?

[JohnFen]

I don't know anything about your friend so I can't speak to his perspective. For all I know, he's a pacifist.

A rather large difference between products that were made with slave labor and the military is that the overt, express purpose of the military is to kill people. Products made with slave labor are companies behaving badly, not companies fulfilling an express purpose.

> And the totality of their work doesn't matter?

If you find the purpose of the military objectionable, then no, that they also do some good isn't that important. Speaking generally, doing good deeds doesn't erase or forgive bad ones you have done.

It sounds to me like this is a case where you and your friend have fundamentally different moral codes with this sort of thing. It shouldn't affect your friendship. You could both just acknowledge that you have different opinions about this and let it go. Nobody agrees with anybody else about everything.