grepsign | 7 years ago | on: How a Pentagon Contract Became an Identity Crisis for Google
grepsign's comments
grepsign | 7 years ago | on: How a Pentagon Contract Became an Identity Crisis for Google
You're not wrong on the first statement. I am doing what's convenient. But I am also doing what I can with what's laid out in front of me. Basically every single company in my field has ties and contracts with military, so what, am I suppose to just change careers? I enjoy what I do, and I think military projects are neat in the technical sense, but that doesn't mean I want a part in it.
I'm not an idealist. The world isn't black and white.
grepsign | 7 years ago | on: How a Pentagon Contract Became an Identity Crisis for Google
What's so hard to understand?
I'm an aerospace engineer and I specialize in rockets. I understand that the nature of my work will almost always 100% benefit the weapons industry because there's just no avoiding it. When I started my career ~10 years ago I worked on a defense project as I was a fresh graduate and had no choice, but nowadays I make it very clear to prospective companies that while I have no issues with my colleagues working on weapons, I myself will absolutely, under no circumstances, work on defense funded projects in any capacity. Most companies from my experience are willing to work with you on this especially because a lot of them are already set up for segregated access.
The fault in your thinking is that you seem to think it needs to be an "all or nothing" choice. It's not, and it doesn't need to be. I try to be green and recycle everything I can, but I don't lose sleep over throwing plastic away in the garbage because I do what I can. I'm 99% vegetarian because of my views on animal ethics and I honestly can't remember the last time I've bought meat for my personal consumption, but I have no qualms about going to a friend's backyard BBQ and eating the same grilled burgers that everyone else is enjoying because I do what I can. For this reason, I choose to not work directly on weapons, despite the fact that basically all rocket related technologies can be applied to weapons, because that is something that I can not change, so I do what I can, which in this case is refusing to work on defense funded projects.
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I think a more CS way to think about it is shipping out a MVP vs. shipping out a 100% perfect, 100% feature complete, 100% bug free, 100% documented, product.
I think everybody would be happy to start a project and ship out that 100% finished product, but you'll spend your entire life working on this and die without succeeding because it doesn't exist. So the choices are to 1) not bother, 2) do what you can (MVP), or 3) work until you die as a failure. OP would want me to choose 1 or 3, it seems.