[Bender]

My friend still insisted what I'm doing is bad and equated my work to some sort of mercenary, as an analog

I do not have an answer to your original question but I would add that there are many in tech that are working on intelligence related tools that will be used in war and do not even realize it. There are hundreds of appliances in data-centers created by tech arms of the intelligence community and have offensive capabilities and this is even before we talk about some of the current hype-tech. I am not going to name them as I signed many NDA's in the past related to them but many here on HN have worked with the tech and probably did not even realize it's dual/multi-use purpose is war time related. Just because something isn't a missile does not mean it won't be used to erase a group of people even if indirectly. Some of the worst tech offenders all the way from WWII to current military engagements are not obvious weapons in the traditional sense. This is not restricted to tech either. Some in biology fields are working on dual-use medicines that are also precision weapons that can select on specific sets of genetic traits.

I guess what I am saying is that people may want to take a long hard look at all the tech they use or contribute to before making a judgement. The internet itself was designed for war-time communication and is being partially deprecated by Starlink as just one example. Most interstate highways in the US were funded for the purpose of moving military troops and equipment as another example. Mainframes and punch cards optimized the erasure of a plethora of civilians. War bucks and war needs the biggest catalysts for the funding of innovation.