I thought about that but you need to get the whole world to disarm at once. This is about getting there.
@futurebird I was protesting outside an Elbit Systems subsidiary today. The employees driving in and out were visibly contemptuous of the angry crowd. Since protests at this location are a weekly event, they surely must know that their components are used to massacre civilians.
They just don't care, and are dismissive of those who do. 🤷🏻♂️
@futurebird should also include developing methods to break the security of computer systems which are invariably used against the innocent without a warrant and make a mockery of the fourth amendment. this is a huge and burgeoning industry which conceals itself by describing its work as "defensive".
there is a huge debate in which the operative question is reframed into whether it should be allowed to "research" by attempting to develop methods to undermine security, exacerbated by the DMCA which says no, that's a felony (this law is obviously a terrible thing). "research" is one thing but there is an entire journal publication structure where people quite seriously just post ways to hack systems without a corresponding description of the defense against it. this is a heinous set of incentives.
i am heartened by the small few cryptographic publications which solve real problems with earlier solutions, but many cryptography papers will use information theory to deanonymize people and nobody is publishing about retaining anonymity except for some very limited papers on tor and i2p.
when someone works in "infosec", they tend to be one of my favorite people or potentially some of the worst and i would like this to become more widely understood as a weapons industry.
the only jobs i have been offered for a while were for places that clarified they would involve hacking tools for three-letter agencies. i would rather die than live with myself having contributed to harm like that.
Eh... I can think of at least one hypothetical, future executioner who I would feel okay about venerating. Canonizing, even.
@futurebird reminded of the fact that monsanto and lockheed martin have some of the best pay and conditions for disabled employees;
and that if a diabled or trans person gets found out about where they work they reliably get hounded off the internet while the non disabled cis people who work there are left completely alone.
Well that's typical. This is why I have mixed feeling about giving people who are in the military a hard time (not as great for trans folk but there are a lot of working class people who end up on that route)
What you are talking about is transphobia using "you work for the arms dealer" as the excuse.
I'm talking about something deeper and less about hounding people out of doing such jobs... rather it's a weight, that comes with such work.
That's why I mentioned undertakers.
I do think it's always best to NOT be a cop, solider, arms designer or manufacture if at all possible. With the army many of the "benefits" of the job "it can pay for your degree" don't really work out as planned.
Is an arm manufacture really a great place to work if you are trans? Is it a supportive environment? I'd expect it to suck more than most jobs.
Even if they do have benefits. There is always a cynical reason.
Undertaker? Taboo? 🤔
My uncle was an undertaker and there are a whole host of things that come with that job. In some ways it's very respected, but he also had to stay in on New Year's day since so many people thought having him come to your house on the first was "bad luck" ... my mom would let him come over and he told me about all of the other things that come with the job.
Though, now it's all nationalized funeral home franchises. Not like you'll know your undertaker. Kind of sad, really.
Because he worked with the dead there was a distance. Is that fair? Mean? IDK.
But it's odd to me that it's supposed to be perfectly normal to go to work and design and build and sell weapons of war. (I don't even mean guns, I'm talking about the big stuff) and it's "just another job"
I don't think that adds up.
I am sure that people in the funeral business also have their own wild parties (for people in the trade). Parties that we civilians do not know about and are not invited to ... 🤔
I think there's a complete difference between "things that we would rather not talk about" and "industries" like Weapons manufacturing & selling and the Fossil Fuel industry.
There's necessary things which have to be done and then there's the suspiciously voluntary nature of warfare (which usually had a financial, accumulative and perverted desire for the display of domination of land & people as a motive behind it, hardly ever for actual defence).
It's more like a white-collar person mugging people.
In warfare, there is "excitement" that people can recount their experiences of, while others fantasise and support new wars (or "attacks" as I call them). The wars make for great movies. And, so, people talk about the Thing that creates the Market for Weapons all the bleedin' time.
Funerarls & funerary rites are a downer. Almost no one looks forward to death or their own death. Rites and rituals change over time in all societies (look at those crazy Kemetians!).
Many societies have rituals that familiarise or celebrate the existence of Death and its closeness to us. 🎃
Modern practices have roles in the industrialised nature of living in large towns and cities, the need for determining the cause of death, cleanliness, adequate "disposal" of remains, necropopoli, urns on the shelf above a fireplace. Pedestrianising cemetries. The commercialisation of mortality and death.
There are quite a few people who look forward to causing injury and death. They talk about it all the time though it may be someone on television being jingoistic & nationalist or some guy down the pub talking about some bloke/"forinna" that they don't like the look of due to them hearing and repeating stories that excite them and that they build their personalities around.
Attitudes to Death come from our societies more often than from ourselves. In societies where Death is commonplace (like it was in the UK even right upto and past the Second World War) there is not (was not) the avoidance of talking about Death as we are now used to.
💀 Not me, though. 👻
(I missed your reply due to "normal" bedtime and being asleep for a long long time. I had/have a gooey flu.)
Did ya'll have the new year's day thing? Or is that a Blackfolks from Pittsburgh thing?
I mean I kind of get it. Dude dressed the part and always had on a dark somber suit and a dark somber air (but in reality he was very fun, and liked pranks... but he said "you need to be what people expect in my line of work")
I have a cousin who is a mortician. It's something of a family business, though he moved and is working for a different place now. I think less nationalized, but I could be wrong. It was nice having him take care of my dad's funeral, as messy as my dad was when alive.
Maybe because of it being kind of in the family, I never thought it too weird.
Absolutely with you about the death dealers, but I think I’d argue that if we made undertakers a respected profession, there to help us look at the death of our loved ones in the face, as an important part of our humanity, it’d make it harder for us (as a society) to do the random gross murders of others.
I was more using it as an example of how such things have existed. War is such a huge part of the economy that there isn't any incentive to try to not have as many wars.
@futurebird I agree, especially about the warmongering incentives.
I do think a fundamental problem is how we distance ourselves from death, whether it’s in how we allow people to be killed, or in how we choose what to eat, but ostracising the warmongers and profiteers would be a very good thing.
Like I’m sorry undertaker is a honorable profession. I hope the mortal soul is gone after we die, but I want my loved ones remains treated with dignity, and even if not I don’t want human remains dumped in waterways.
I bring up undertaker because there are still some taboos about that profession. Because they work with the dead.
... seems like manufacturing the dead ought to be a bigger deal.
Without a doubt, manufacturing death, sorry, and destruction should be the lowest of professions.
I've been looking at how much of this stuff makes up the US economy and it's kind of one of our biggest exports. It's not just that the US is well armed and spends a lot on war, it's a whole industry and so you have an economic incentive to have wars even if no one understands what they are about anymore. The only people who are benefiting from whatever they are doing in Iran are the people replacing all the missiles we used up.
Those missiles are technological wonders, we could make something else though.
How do you get there?
This is why they keep dismantling social safety nets. Makes it far harder to quit jobs you don't agree with.
I was at a computer conference once, and met a guy from Lockheed Martin.
He said "we build computers too, but they fly over people and drop bombs on them". He said it with pride and expected people to think he was cool.
He certainly didn't expect my reaction.
I mean... I'd rather know so I could become scarce I guess.
I used to be less disturbed by this kind of thing but not anymore.
Calling someone with a gun tends to escalate the situation. I wouldn't do it.
That will only work if EVERY country does this thing. Otherwise you're stuck with an undermotivated weapons manufacturing industry while others aren't.
Maybe if enough countries did it together, it would depress the global market for sure. But then you end up unprepared for the next war while your opponents aren't.
Kind of what happened with the 'Peace dividend' that the western countries enjoyed until russia blew away that sense of peace.
i knew a few physics majors who went to work on DOD contracts for Northrup Grumman and Lockheed, and i was just so fckn disappointed in them
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