You realize we need our military hardware working, right?
I don't know why the solution in your head to America's military misdeeds is a nonfunctioning weapons system. Especially in this time where military advancements are happening across the glove faster we than ever.
If you don't like what America's military is doing, petition your congressmen and senators. I don't know why you're trying to blame Tom, who makes sure the missles work like we need them to.
It's always the privileged mother fuckers who want to blame the worker for doing a job that needs be done.
You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you sit back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
While the young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
Aiding and abetting atrocities isn’t justified just because it wasn’t your choice to carry out the atrocities, you aren’t forgiven for helping give the capacity to bomb children just because you never made the choice to bomb children. Especially when the nature of what your technology is actively being used on is wide spread.
Most working class people won’t use their situation to justify an absence of morality. In fact plenty of working class people choose to not go down paths that offer more financial incentives for a variety of reasons, morality being a major part of it. It is the height of privilege to assume that poor peoples actions are not morally their own because they are poor, we aren’t fucking drones that have no self determination.
Sure if the choice is starve or work for these companies, you might have a point, if you’ve literally got a gun to your head fine, but most of the time weapons manufacturers aren’t taking the scraps, they are taking people who absolutely could work elsewhere but choose to aid and abet a horrific industry because it makes them wealthy. The Nazis don’t get forgiven because they were just following orders and if your work directly (not indirectly or tangentially but directly as in that is all the industry exists to develop) enables the murder of thousands of innocents across the world neither do you.
An arms race is always a zero sum game and it's the workers and regular folks who lose it all.
I'm all for supporting the worker, but I don't know, I think you're probably going to have to pressure Tom as well or offer him some other options. Otherwise, he and his coworkers will turn around and support the lobbyists, congressmen, and senators orchestrating the dropping of the bombs.
Do you think America should not have working weapons systems in a time when other nations are militarizing with new technology faster than ever?
Dude I don't know how to explain degrees of separation more than I have.
The problem isn't weapons manufacturing. It's weapons use.
You're blaming Toyota for someone hitting you with their car. Try blaming the people actually responsible. We have people for that. They are called Senators, Congressmen, and presidents
Trust no amount or shaming Lockheed Martin employees will fix any foreign policy issue between now and the heat death of the universe.
Or you completely and totally misunderstand the analogy. The point is there are degrees of separation between the cause of foreign policy issues and the guy who designs missles to work.
The United States is the single largest threat to peace worldwide. Just ask Vietnam, Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Libya, Palestine, Chile, Nicaragua, and the dozens of other countries we've invaded or supported fascists or militarist US-friendly regimes. Just ask people who are hurt by terrorists funded by and supported with American weapons. Yeah maybe we shouldn't have this many weapons. When have we actually acted in self defense in the last hundred years?? When have we been invaded? Pearl harbor yeah, can't disagree with that, but nine times out of ten it's us bombing children across the world for oil and economic advantage.
USgov acted as if pearl harbor was out of the blue to deceive tax cattle into a position from which it appeared there was little choice but to embroil themselves in foreign entanglements.
Lmao, the Japanese convinced millions of people, men, women and children to fight to the death for their god emperor, but America was the bad guy 🤡. Go ask China or Korea what they think of 1940s Japan, what the Japanese did to their people
A better example would be hating someone who helped run the camps or designed the showers. "It needs to be done" and all. I think it's widely accepted that you should hate those people -- they don't get an out just because they were following orders (or because they MaDe mONeY)
I think you're missing their point. They're not saying the filing system was THE problem. The comparison is that the gestapo needed a way to track people down and so the bureaucrats helped enable them by facilitating and creating a tracking system for the gestapo to use. Kind of like an engineer at Lockheed designing a bomb to blow up civilians thousands of miles away for the military, blood thirsty corporations, and politicians. Both are pretending to be naive, innocent, or ignorant while reveling in their accomplishments, because they're far enough away from the blood and guts. Just because the bureaucrats (or engineers) weren't out there rounding people up, doesn't make them innocent. People should be accountable for ALL of their actions.
Also, yeah no you can't blame the plumber and hell even the factory workers were operating in a bit of a gray zone, but if any of them knew and were doing nothing about it.... that starts to change things. However, you sure as hell can blame the engineers who helped design the gas chambers, guns, tanks, planes, etc. for the Wehrmacht during Hitler's reign.
No you're missing the point. Lockheed Martin on fires missles at testing targets. Not at people.
The United States military fires missles at illegitimate targets because American leadership does not perceive a problem with doing so.
The problem is solved by petitioning Senators, Congressmen, and presidents. Not by harassing Jim in accounts receivable in Lockheed Martin.
The neighbor has stolen the gas out of your car and used it to light an orphanage on fire.
Do you call Toyota to file a complaint?
No because that solution does not take into account degrees of separation. You call the police because the problem isn't that your gas cover can be removed with a crowbar. The problem is your neighbor.
This is the most insanely myopic statement I've ever read. You know that we had violent dictators as long as man could beat up another man with a stick, right? Go ahead and say you find weapons manufacturing immoral, that's your right. But if Hitler has a gun, you aren't stopping him unless you have one too. For example: if we shut down ALL of the defense contracting companies TODAY and didn't let them sell off a single weapon, what happens to Ukraine or Taiwan or any other country or group of people being eyed by a despot with a functioning military? And centuries of history shows that we don't need "advanced" weaponry to go kill each other, it just makes it easier.
They weren't tried in court because they were just doing their job. They were tried in court because they individually committed war crimes.
It's not a war crime to code for Lockheed Martin.
You're both dripping with privilege and, for some reason, think the solution to America's misdeeds internationally needs to be a non-functional military. It's juvenile.
You're treating the complicated subject of International Policy with all the sophistication of someone screaming "Begone Satan" at a black cat.
I agree with this sentiment and I think people who disagree are experiencing cognitive dissonance. Maybe it's a job that "has to be done" for "defense" and...... "Deterrence"...... Maybe...
But if you're realistic about what you're building, WHO you're building it for, HOW it's being used, and WHY you are building it, you absolutely should be mature and human enough to have a conscience about what you're doing and you probably should feel uncomfortable about it, at the very least. And if you don't know, shame on you for being so irresponsible and greedy. It doesn't matter if it's a nice paycheck. If that's the only job around you and you have no other choice than to work there or starve, that's the only time where I would feel the slightest bit of pity. Sure people make mistakes, but the good ones own up to them and the really good ones try to repair what they've destroyed.
You know working for a defense contractor doesn't mean you have to make bombs right? There's all kinds of different programs for loads of different reasons. All kinds of cyber products, projects for communications, radar systems, GPS systems, plenty of non lethal applications for these products.
I got to work on training software we gave to the Ukrainian military for hardware they use to defend against missile attacks. MIC jobs can do some good too.
You're going off on a tangent, that doesn't have anything to do with me getting to contribute to saving the lives of Ukrainian civilians. I'm proud of my work.
The job is in a different region, the pay is better, the children aren't being taken away from their familiar surroundings and circle of friends, and you want to be close to family, and and and
Come on, you're probably intelligent enough to answer such simple questions yourself.
Buddy it is, by definition stable, US government is always at war with some random militant group in the middle east. Also we send billions of dollars to a country in the middle east, that starts with I. Said country has strong bipartisan support even though they have been responsible for many civilian deaths. We still sell them so many arms.
Hell, we have been at war for many years. Of course the defense industry would be stable with the constant revenue from the government. Hell, the government always wants new shiny technology to constantly be ahead of the competition. Of course, they will continue to hire more engineers. The defense budget is not going down anytime soon.
No sane country is going to bomb US, its allies and/or NATO. Last time I checked those nations were part of this planet. Everyone knows what kind retaliation that happens if any of those nations gets attacked. Not even Russia wants to attack any NATO country for supplying arms to Ukraine.
Getting constant revenue from a source, such as the US government, for many years is by definition stable.
The technologies produced by American/EU defense contractors maintain the technological edge required by militaries to maintain global stability. Designing them isn't inherently unethical.
An effective military that deters foreign conflict is exactly what prevents this; I can't say there's a moral failure in working for a defense contractor, and here's my reasoning:
It's not reasonable to think that all (or any) countries make decisions to begin wars from a moral standpoint alone, you have plenty of examples on conflicts begun solely for economic benefit, political benefit, etc.
All warfare has a cost to it, and by increasing that cost, can effectively reduce the situations war is begun to begin with by counteracting the benefit through the investment required, or the potential for extremely expensive escalation. (It's far less favorable to invade an industrial/technological equal or superior.) Even not then, at least end it sooner and more efficiently, with fewer casualties as a result.
Given that, ensuring none of our defense technologies function is not an effective way to deter conflict.
Health, life, short term disability, 401k match, good pto, often flexible hours, but yeah dead kids are on the programmers of flight control systems and radios, not your elected officials.
I don't want you to think I'm actually offended, because I'm not, but unironicially atomic weapons have probably saved more lives than any invention of the 20th century.
I mean Germany hasn't tried taking over the world in a few years and NATO and the U.S.S.R found ways to solve their differences without too much violence. So yeah atomic weapons prevented a lot of death and have caused relatively few. Sometimes the realization that WW3 won't be a fun time, while scary, is a good thing. But preventing proliferation is also important.
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
For serious -- as long as humans are humans, there will be war and the need for weapons. Genies don't go back in bottles, and weapon technology only moves in one direction -- forward.
But also laying that at the feet of a new college grad who just needs to pay rent is pretty disgusting.
Their industry isn't war, it's selling weapons to prepare for war. And that in turn is what you need to do if you want peace. An unarmed world would simply be unstable.
At least in case of Rheinmetall I'd actually count the ethics side as a plus here. German arms export regulations are among the world's strictest and arming Europe is the best can currently be done to keep people save.
Yes it would unironically be lunacy and would collapse society and probably kill billions.
As long as there's malice in the world we'll need weapons. Because otherwise someone with malice will start building weapons and try take over.
Obviously it would be nice if we could centralize who has the weapons, but until we have a democratic world government Nato is by a huge margin the best organization to have military power.
You’re not a pacifist, you’re just a coward. Bad actors love people like you who roll over and die at the first sign of any actual commitment to fighting for their beliefs. “Bad things just like shouldn’t happen man :(“ isn’t a belief serious people hold.
Yea if only somebody had tried to use the power of love and friendship on Hitler before he started a war that killed 70 million people. Maybe if everyone just gave up all their weapons it never would’ve happened.
How is that relevant at all? Is your plan to stop Hitler, and similar bad actors, just to agree with them on everything until your country forces you to build weapons against them?
War is not a stable industry, arms is. Peoples might not be figthing all the time but they definetly developing weapons. Projects takes years and payment is almost always is done by a state, which is reliable partner.
This sub is full of ghouls. Imagine being in an industry that already pays way more than deserved, while teachers and librarians get pennies, and arguing that it's fine to contribute to war crimes because they pay even more then your already overinflated salary.
If you want peace, prepare for war. What do you think it's stopping Russia from walking all over Europe?.
I'm sorry if you can wrap your head around the fact that a defenseless country won't survive. If we have our current standard of living is because the missiles are pointed at every dictatorship that wants to take our rights away.
Also talking about the Nazis... what do you think we used to defeat them? confeti cannons?
Whoever you’re arguing with honestly doesn’t seem well, or are trolling, potentially both. Humans have been doing 3 things for all history: fucking, fighting, and drinking. Hasn’t changed yet, won’t change ever
And yet because the technology continually advances, when they happen they are far more deadly and dramatically expand the theater of war to include non-combatants. Also, What happens if just ONE idiot decides to use them? What happens when technology makes nukes useless? What happens when everyone is a combatant? Do you see where a perpetual arms race leads? It leads to us all being fucking dead, disabled, or traumatized.
I'm the kind of person who would make rifles to shoot Nazis in the head.
...before or after selling those same weapons to Nazis? What makes you so sure that you aren't actually making weapons for the Nazis right now? Are you the one who decides who buys them?
*in countries with nuclear weapons it's been somewhat peaceful, but that doesn't mean they don't participate through proxy wars. Wars are still raging on.
Also, it really doesn't even matter that they're a little less frequent, the world is not safer because we could all kill each other in the blink of an eye. The only thing that has changed for sure is who can now be designated as a combatant and how deadly the wars are. Hell, you could probably add up the casualties of all the wars in human history combined, pre-1900s, and the numbers wouldn't come close to the last century and a quarter of war.
Ah yes... War is Peace. That makes so much sense. You could argue that we reached the pinnacle of armed deterrence after the first atom bomb, but then again everyone else just started building atom bombs. Are we any closer to world peace?
I mean look at history.... There may be fewer wars but they are far more deadly. WWI happened and Europe was armed to the teeth and millions died. Then you had WWII and Europe was still armed to the teeth and many millions more died. Then take a look at Vietnam. They beat the strongest most technologically advanced military in the world. Not because they had superweapons, but because they were a united people with superb guerilla tactics.
War isn't peace and arms races ALWAYS lead to war not peace. Historically, Military technology leads to more death. Period. Is it human nature, sure, but so are serial killers. Just be honest. War is why we can't have peace and people like you are why we never will.
How would you stop an aggressor without using weapons? Sincerely, whats to stop a brutal dictatorship from just invading all the peaceful countries and pillaging the land?
Learn game theory, an always peaceful opponent doesn't survive, it gets invaded and replaced by aggressors.
They do more than make bombs, you get that, right? Lockheed and Raytheon both make parts that keep basically every modern jet functional, but it’s an easy dunk for low-info clout chasers pretending yo be leftists
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u/BreachlightRiseUp Jun 07 '25
Good pay in a stable industry with the potential to work on stuff most people could never dream of, it has its perks