I didn't actually kill anyone, I just designed tools for the u.s. military to be able to kill people more efficiently.
There's a whole world of academic Ethical Philosophy programs too, also military-funded, to develop and normalizes ethical frameworks that justify these sorts of actions in these ways.
It's how the military can say the following about drone bombing, despite that it kills 40+ innocents per 'target':
- We know that innocents will die as collateral damage BUT
- Our intention is to kill the target, not the innocents SO
- Because we know we will kill innocents, but aren't intending to,
- It is ethically acceptable to kill those innocents; it's an accident, and unintended collateral loss.
Yes, this is literally what philosophy PhDs are paid by the military to cook-up, and it's the guiding philosophy of the military.
To be fair, pretty sure the Doctrine of Double Effect was first discussed by Thomas Aquinas in 1485, so I don't think it was literally cooked up by philosophy PhDs for the military.
Ya I don't mean to say they invented the school of thought. More that they're being paid to entrench/normalize it in academia. The military funds more philosophy papers than any other org, to push their agenda. Someone looking through the literature might think it's just a 'fair and balanced marketplace of ideas', but it's of course not.
It's so weird. I do cryptography (only have been paid by the NSF, no shady funders yet as far as I know and all my work is public) but I constantly saw DoD and other military/military adjacent projects floated funding around my undergrad. Like most cryptographers won't want to go work for the NSA for ethical reasons, but can still get caught up in these public funded projects as it doesn't seem as bad. For this though, I mean did this person think at all for a second. Like I considered doing a project on a drone personal assistant which would follow you because it's cool as fuck, but like consider why the DoD is funding you for this research! what on earth did they think they wanted with it!
Right? And the sheer volume of obviously disastrous projects this person work on... I would assume they were going out of their way to do 'killing people' work; especially as they framed the list as "I, a trans person, have done more for the defense of America than removed ever will" like... you knew exactly what you were doing, don't back-pedal now because you didn't realize a consequence would be extreme unpopularity. They bought imperialist narratives hook, line, and sinker, or they just never thought through what giving the military better guns really means which... after years of very specific, high-tech research work... Really? Like... really?? Haha
Yeah it's ridiculous. Like her work indirectly kept troops alive and planes in the sky to do what we know they do. She's technically right that she wasn't employed by the DoD or employed to build munitions, but come on, you served the war machine.
Even if it was just the healing tech, maaaybe she has a point. But you bragged about developing tech that helps drones track people who are running away? Ie. not a threat? Come on, You served the war machine.
During my undergrad, I did a gov't funded research project to use differential game theory to figure out how to make a drone chase a person
What the fuck. ???????. Completely disgusting, not an ounce of humanity.
that my work has killed anyone or been used to been used to kill anyone; this is false
That your work doesn't get implemented doesn't mean shit. If you willingly helped make drones chase people you were ready to kill innocent people. You WANTED to kill people.
Our Dionysian chaos alone is glorious communism! Destruction, drugs, specialized dancing, art and critical theory! To the underworld!
GIVE US THE GLORIOUS SHAKESPEAREAN REVENGE OF THE HUMANITIES THAT WILL LET A HUNDRED FLOWERS OF THOUGHT BLOOM
FUCK APOLLO FOR REAL
That first tweet is a knee slapper. Like damn, wait to validate everything we've ever said.
