Mastodawn

youcantreadthis 6d ago

Look.

The creative urge is also the destructive urge. Right?

And one cant really be held responsible for what other people choose to do with the things one makes. Alfred nobel was trying to make mining safer instead he ended up ushering in a new and terrible era in war. Fritz haber invented the haber process to feed germany, not build bombs! The people who built the early internet are all horrified by what it has become.

Thats just an unfair standard of judgement. Do you think we should never build new things? Content ourselves with fire, perhaps bags knives and wheeled carts if we want to edge things? Even anprims think lean-tos are worth building.

So this last month ive spent designing the restraint system and tactile feedback mechanism for our new r1488 rape missile comissioned by the idf is just cool engineering work. If i didnt do it somebody else would. Somebody else might get it wrong. You know our department lead didnt even consider sensitivity differences in circumcised vs uncircumcised penises for the pilot feedback mechanism? Nobody else considered that an AFAB person might wear the feedback suit. You need a woke kinky queer in here to prevent sub-optimal pleasure for the end user–to prevent hurting more people.

Plus, as an engineer, im special and deserve special treats a six figure salary affords. How dare you suggest i live like a normal person. How DARE you!

Scubus 6d ago

Have you considered renaming the rape missile

underisk 6d ago

“Sexual assault missile” is too many words. Woke has gone too far.

And you can’t abbreviate it because SAM is already taken by surface-to-air missiles.

tiramichu 6d ago

Pretty much how I feel about anyone in tech working for Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta.

You need the paycheck, fine. I’m not going to judge your circumstances.

But you sold your soul, and please don’t try to pretend otherwise.

applebusch 6d ago

I would say those are much worse to work for than a defense contractor

In what universe? As shitty as Amazon is, it’s still way better than being a war profiteer.

applebusch 6d ago

Amazon is absolutely a war profiteer. As far as I can tell the military industrial complex isn’t taking quite as direct an approach to dismantling our democracy and promoting fascism as the big tech companies. Just because they don’t literally make guns and bomb (which they might actually do for all I know) doesn’t make them any less evil.

Just because they don’t literally make guns and bomb doesn’t make them any less evil.

It actually does.

tacosanonymous 6d ago

I told a friend group that all that shit needs to be shut down and he cried on about how many jobs they create. He’s deeply Christian btw…

He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

But what about the jobs??

ashenone 6d ago

Dan, the company man, felt loyalty to the corp

After 16 years of service, and a family to support

He actually started to believe the weaponry and chemicals were for national defense

Cause Danny had a mortgage and a boss to answer to

The guilty don’t feel guilty, they learn not to

FudgyMcTubbs 5d ago

NOFX is always so surprising in their lyrical abilities. Just some pop punk band with the same beat in nearly every fucking song (except when they ska it up) and a melody/harmony that sounds like Broadway music. But damn are their lyrics smart – simple without being sophomoric (take note Jonathan Richman), and preachy without sacrificing humor and fun (looking at you Anti-Flag).

“The Idiots are Taking Over” is another good one. So relevant today but it was written during Dubya’s tenure.

pfr 4d ago

Suprise NOFX lyrics always make me smile.

moonshadow 6d ago

They know what they’re doing is wrong, and they’re fragile as hell about it

lobut 6d ago

I never defend the companies I’ve worked for … that’s what their PR departments are for. I don’t see why people feel the need for it. I’ve had friends join MS, Google and such and the way they defend them astound me. I’m just like, why …?

moonshadow 6d ago

You must be defending them at least internally if you’ve been able to justify working there. I live in a van and roam the country committing Robin Hood style crimes 😇

backalleycoyote 6d ago

Pfff. Van? I travel by foot, eat vegan but only out of dumpsters, and use a flint and steel to burn down the houses of people who test on animals (after I make sure any pets they live with have been safely evacuated). I also spread wildflower seeds native to whatever region I’m in to boost the pollinators. Suck it petroleum simp! 😘

moonshadow 6d ago

There’s always room for improvement

backalleycoyote 6d ago

I think this summer I’m going to forgo wearing the clothes I find scattered alongside the road and start making my own from roadkill. Waste nothing!

Schmoo 6d ago

I live in a van and roam the country committing Robin Hood style crimes 😇

The real American dream

lobut 2d ago

Yeah but only enough to draw a salary. I don’t see the need to defend overpricing, privacy violations, or every be product or bug or law breaking like my friends.

I worked for investment banks and when they get caught for doing bad things, I usually say “good, we shouldn’t be doing that”.

Sounds like you’re living the real dream though 💪

ickplant 6d ago

My step son’s first job out of grad school for computer science was Raytheon. Paid well, got him his clearance (which basically guarantees employment as long as you have a pulse). I could tell it bothered him (as in, what they do), but he was very much trying to be a grown-up and pay his student loans and rent and all that. He’s 22, and very independent.

As soon as he got his clearance, he got another job doing things that aren’t directly related to killing people. Got a nice raise, too. He said the feeling of not working for Raytheon is better than the $10k sign-on bonus they gave him that he now has to pay back. “Worth it.”

MinnesotaGoddam 6d ago

one of my brothers was at lockheed. helped design and build the f35. one of the variants, at least. morale is so goddamned low there are regular suicides. he left before his mental health got too bad and spent some time homeless (he was too proud to move in with us or come out and go through the homelessness program i ran. we sent him as much money as we could afford and i gave him the names of the reliable programs out where he is. if folk here know aerospace, please don’t say where they do f35 work here he deserves privacy). fair trade to keep him alive. he’s at another (nonmilitary) aerospace as a commercial wrench for private flight and i haven’t seen him this happy, like, since high school.

i can second that paying back that 10k was/is worth it, from my bro’s experience.

What happened to worker solidarity?

People gotta eat. But some jobs do call you to at minimum throw some sand in the gears. If you’re not doing that then yeah fuck you.

lumpenproletariat 6d ago

Do you have solidarity with cops?

To some extent yeah. That doesn’t mean I support what they’re doing but they still workers.

Donkter 6d ago

And often they’re pitted against workers on the side of the ruling class.

Doing a bullshit job to feed your family is defensible, doing an evil job is just stupid.

Just keep in mind your argument can be/ is used to defend brown shirt and military personnel commiting war crimes. We know memetically at this point that “just following orders” is not a valid defense. We need more people to actively choose not to become cops and not to become defense contractors.

See, I think all jobs are evil. Just because you’re not the one holding the gun doesn’t make you less culpable. You’re still serving the interests of capital and the state when you work, pay taxes, etc.

It’s certainly true that evil work supports hierarchy and should be opposed. But contextually how do we oppose it? If we could achieve 100% solidarity and get everyone to refuse to support these systems, they would end instantly. But let’s be real. If conscientious people isolate themselves from powerful positions in society, does that actually interfere with their fulfillment in any meaningful way? Or does it just fill those positions with people who are more ideologically invested in them and more likely to use that power against us?

First you have to win people over. And I think there is hope that even the fascist foot soldiers can be won over with the right messaging.

A lot of this comes down to a society that idealizes individualism to an extreme degree. We are focused on how we as individuals can evade moral culpability for our participation in an evil system, and that requires scapegoating someone we perceive as worse than us. But even if we convince police or soldiers or whoever to quit, that won’t protect people from harm. Instead we need to focus on building new organizational power that can get as many people as possible to oppose that harm in a concerted way. And in fact at the right moment I think we will want police, soldiers, arms manufacturers, etc. to participate, because those people have power and we need that power to win.

I’d rather have solidarity with the people the bombs get dropped on than with the people building the bombs. Include war profiteers in your “solidarity” and shifts it away from class lines and into nationalism.

Solidarity with victims is important. But my personal view is that fighting the state requires a broad coalition that includes people within the state’s social infrastructure.

War profiteers aren’t generally interested in fighting the state. But even to your point, obviously if you want to convince such people to fight the state, you should be criticizing their role as war profiteers. If you don’t call out what they’re doing for the evil that it is, then why would you expect them to “throw sand in the gears?”

Well, the reality is that most people in all professions have little to no interest in fighting the state. But the flip side is that there are some people from all walks of life that will be receptive, so assuming such people can’t be reached is locking important people out of the movement.

Criticism is important but I think it requires a different approach. If you tell people they’re evil they will not listen to you. Almost everyone’s worldview has “I’m a good person” at its foundation, and information that contradicts their foundational viewpoints will be rejected. So I think criticism should be focused on systems and organizations rather than this meme which focuses on individual responsibility.

I’m not “locking anyone out of the movement” by calling them evil war profiteers. If they want to join the movement, they can simply stop being evil war profiteers. I am simply telling the truth.

On the other hand, by welcoming and babying such people, you are alienating their victims. It makes it abundantly clear where your priorities lie. Why would a victim of these war profiteers want to be a part of a movement that whitewashes those who perpetrate or enable the violence they’ve suffered?

What is your vision for what “being part of the movement” would even look like for these people? Unless they’re taking direct action to sabotage and support their industry (in which case they will likely be caught and fired), they are undoubtedly doing far more harm there than they could possibly offset by voting or attending some protest.

I’m not saying it isn’t true. But I just think practically speaking, requiring all leftists to be morally pure nonprofit employees or whatever it is you think would be a more ethical way to survive under capitalism excludes a lot of people. Sure, they could theoretically still participate but if you treat them like shit they’re not going to.

These are huge companies that often have little ideas of what their employees are doing. There are absolutely ways they could be sabotaging their activities without getting fired.

Even if that were true, you’re simultaneously claiming that these people are willing to sabotage their company, and that they’d be alienated by saying that the work their company does is evil. That doesn’t make any sense.

I’m just saying it’s not tactically useful to point out their personal culpability. There are ways to criticize the company without focusing on the employees and I think they will find that more palatable.

It is tactically useful to point out their personal culpability, though. Very much so. Guilt is an incredibly powerful weapon. You just don’t want to wield it because you care more about protecting their feelings than you do about getting them to change.

Look at how much influence the Catholic Church has been able to wield in history by using guilt, and theirs wasn’t even based on the truth. What do you mean it’s “not tactically useful?”

Leftists aren’t the Catholic Church. Their attempts at shaming people were effective because they already had power over people. Something we lack. We need to gain power first, and that means persuading people who don’t currently support or agree with us.

By not tactically useful I mean it’s counter to what I see as a useful strategy to achieve leftist ends–in other words, liberation from state and capitalist oppression.

But if you feel otherwise maybe you can articulate whose behavior you think will be influenced by this kind of messaging and what you expect them to do differently after seeing it?

First off, you again frame this entirely around “expanding the coalition” to include the perpetrators while ignoring how it excuses (practically speaking) their victims. This is pure chauvanism, it’s failing to recognize both the inherent humanity of the victims of imperialism, and their ability to contribute to a cause. I’d rather come across as a “preachy weirdo” to war profiteers than as an imperialist to the victims. When you describe this as “anyone who doesn’t share [your] exact lifestyle and worldview” you are minimizing what’s going on and trying to make it a subjective issue when it’s not. That makes it clear that you don’t actually share any kind of moral outrage at them, that you don’t share my goals at all, and you’re just trying to pretend that it’s an issue of “tactics” because you don’t want to openly voice what you actually think.

Second, this babying, whitewashing shit doesn’t really work to achieve anything. At best, you might get them to vote for a more polite warmongerer, while continuing to do real, tangible harm on a daily basis - but most likely it won’t even do that. The way to change people’s minds is not through that kind of nonsense, it is by confronting them and bringing the conflict directly into the open. This is exactly what MLK said:

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.

Your passive, whitewashing, can’t we all just get along approach is counterproductive and flies in the face of creating the necessary tension required to change people’s behavior. Which again, I don’t think you mind, because you’re not actually opposed to what they’re doing.

HasturInYellow 6d ago

The Nazis were just following orders to feed their family too.

There are plenty of ways to feed your family with more moral integrity than joining the oppressors. For instance, robbing a rich family, stealing copper wire from oil refineries, or gasp growing a garden with your community.

You can always use rich people as fertilizer if you want to be a little more morally acceptable.

explodicle 6d ago

That’s a few very moral ways to fail at feeding your family. Thieves from the ruling class often wind up in prison, and family farms were driven out of business.

Einskjaldi 5d ago

The majority of us weapons were built to fight communism or China. You don’t need a trillion dollar stealth fighter program to bomb poor people.

8oow3291d 6d ago

Are the people making weapons to defend Ukraine evil? Surely not, right?

KT-TOT 6d ago

Lol. Lmao even. Snorting on jah.

mfed1122 6d ago

I totally feel the sentiment of this post but it raises an interesting question. Pretty much every job, especially nowadays, is linked up in some causal chain with helping a horrible company and/or horrible people do horrible things. At what point does it become acceptable? Is it about having more elaborate steps in between? What constitutes being further removed from doing harm?

I dropped the bomb I built the bomb I designed the bomb I funded the bomb I bought products from the company that funded the bomb I gave a discount to a friend who buys products from the company that built the bomb Etc.

Where do we start to consider employment ethical vs unethical? And to what extent? It seems like nothing will ever be 100% pure, but when do I get to stop feeling horrible about myself?

Not an abstract question, am job hunting

TonyOstrich 6d ago

I have been thinking about something very similar for the last year or two now. Almost every white collar job I can think of has large portions of its workforce twisted into contributing to some fucked up aspect of the capitalist machine. The one that I think is really pernicious is the medical industry. I actually think it’s worse than defense in a way.

With defense there is kind of an upper limit to how much a company can probably charge for their product because how much more dead can the device make someone? On the medical side of things though, their products save or prolong people’s lives and the people in charge know that. They know that even if the improvement is only marginal, as long as there is one (and sometimes even if there isn’t one), they can probably extract as much money from people as they have.

mfed1122 6d ago

That is an interesting asymmetry. With death devices, the unlimited ceiling is more about the amount of deaths per cost, and other more subtle things like preservation of surroundings, etc. But, resisting the urge to go further down that rabbit hole for the time being…

Yeah, I really have no idea how to approach or measure this. Like, obviously to me, if someone is directly developing weaponry that they know will be employed against Iran, they’re pretty much a jerk. But is the barista at Starbucks at jerk? Starbucks is a pretty bad employer and if only everyone would just not work for them for a little bit, they’d go right out of business. Both employees in both scenarios can have a dislike for the deeds of their company, but the weapon developer is clearly more accountable.

I think it just depends on a ton of specific situations. Like in this exact example, I can say that the weapon developer is a position that’s much harder to replace, so the argument of “they just find someone else to do it” truly isn’t as probably true as it is for a Starbucks barista. The weapon engineer also understands that their weapon is much more intrinsically harmful - that is, while it’s true that Starbucks is a messed up company, a coffee company doesn’t necessarily need to be messed up. But an arms company, well, I mean, you need those too sometimes (WW2 obvs), but it’s a lot closer to doing harm in general.

I think it’s kind of one of those things like judging your friends about having subscriptions to shitty services… You just kind of have to accept that everyone does what they can. Like maybe Alice cancels her Amazon subscription, but keeps her Spotify subscription, and Bob cancels his Spotify subscription, but keeps his Amazon subscription… They both understand that really they both should cancel both of their subscriptions, but they’re not going to hate on each other for not cancelling what they did, because they’re trying to be pragmatic and understand that if we did ALL the right things in this world, we’d have almost no recognizeable life left.

So from this mentality of everyone doing what they can… I maybe judge it based on the totality of how someone is living? Like, if someone is working for a really shitty, unethical company, doing really scary work, like developing weapons, then I’m going to expect that they’re balancing that out by fully boycotting Amazon, whereas the Starbucks barista friend, I might give them a pass to still order things on there from time to time, just as a rough example. If I see someone just isn’t making any sacrifices at all: Making bank at Lockheed, not donating to charity, not boycotting any companies, not supporting open source software, etc etc etc. Just NO actual activism outside of performative shit like social media posts and things that cost them no comfort, then no matter how much they dislike and disagree with their employer, I’m still going to consider them a supporter of it and frown on them accordingly.

TonyOstrich 6d ago

There is a reason I specifically said white collar jobs/workers. I have a hard time thinking of a barista as contributing to the shitty things that Starbucks is responsible for, though I admit that is likely more of a me thing. Whereas a person working as a programmer for Starbucks or in Finance or HR, their work seems like it is much more directly complicit in supporting the shitty things Starbucks does like its active campaign against workers rights and unions.

Your line of thinking though is more or less inline with mine in the grand scheme of things and the importance of being intellectually honest and using whatever influence one may accrue (whether that’s money, decision making abilities, leading by example, etc.) to try and balance the scales positively. As long as there is any suffering in the world that we as individuals aren’t using all of our free time and resources to address then we are all hypocrites to at least some degree, and that’s ok, on an individual level. It’s not ok in the broader sense as it is often a result of capitalism and greed, but it’s ok to simultaneously recognize that we are all flawed and that we could all be doing better (admittedly some more than others).

MinnesotaGoddam 6d ago

Almost every white collar job I can think of has large portions of its workforce twisted into contributing to some fucked up aspect of the capitalist machine.

i do not know what the larger percentages are in general, but 8% of my old financial sector job’s former clients^1^ are convicted sex criminals. and the worst ones we had, my boss gave to me. that’s a really fun one to look back on.

^1^doctors, lawyers, engineers, programmers, etc. professionals. the practice targeted white collar, not blue collar

we dealt with fewer sex criminals at the homelessness program. both as percentages and discrete counts. and the financial practice was not that big i need to have words with my boss if we run into each other again because how the fuck.

ChickenLadyLovesLife 6d ago

I drive a school bus, which means … I help kids get the education they need to design and build the bomb.

Fuck.

MinnesotaGoddam 6d ago

i bought food from the company that pays people who buy stuff from people who pay people who pay people who work for the folk who shot the gun and dropped the bomb

oh no kill me i’m a nazi now

no ethical consumption in capitalism. you have to draw a line, but like, it’s often the food company holding the gun too. i’m not going to starve to prove a point.

duncan_bayne 6d ago

Simultaneously on the Fediverse:

you are a bad human for working for an arms manufacturer
support Ukraine against Russian aggression by sending them arms

Pick a lane already!

explodicle 6d ago

I love pirating people’s work but draw the line at using a computer to combine pirated works.

Lemminary 6d ago

I don’t if it’s my personal consumption. I draw the line at trying to pass it off as mine and/or selling it.

AngryCommieKender 5d ago

Those aren’t mutually exclusive. Ukraine is mostly using drones that aren’t built by the MIC, which is why Trump just refused their help in protecting The US Military against Shahed drones. If he doesn’t pour money into MIC contracts that daddy Putler approved, then he won’t make the deal. The entire point is to isolate and cripple the US enough that we don’t use our insane stockpile of guns when he declares dictatorship.

PugJesus 5d ago

Ukraine is mostly using drones that aren’t built by the MIC, which is why Trump just refused their help in protecting The US Military against Shahed drones.

Fucking what.

AngryCommieKender 5d ago

Not built by the US MIC. They’re mostly self produced from what I understand

PugJesus 5d ago

Ukraine uses a ton of non-natively produced drones.

Ukraine uses American drones and has never been hesitant about requesting more American MIC equipment.

Trump’s refusal to accept Ukrainian help has nothing to do with any greater master plan, anymore than shitting his diaper over the Strait of Hormuz being closed despite that being the #1 concern in the case of war with Iran was part of a greater master plan.

Ukraine’s drone industry is absolutely a part of the MIC.

Related to 4, Americans are not the only country involved in the MIC.