I have met and seen online too many people who claim to be “anti capitalist” in some fashion working for defense contractors.
I can give some leeway for people who work as mindless drones in an assembly line putting together munitions in a factory that could blow up if they generate too much static, but the people I’m talking about are not doing manual labor. They sit on their ass for 8+ hours in an office typing on the computer. They design weapons thar get dropped on children with no repercussions, or they stitch together epic clips of their jets zooming through the skies (conveniently leaving out who those jets target, of course).
They’re aware that they’re evil, because they often try to preemptively defend themselves by being self deprecating or sighing before revealing who they work for. It’s like a youtuber apology. And if you criticize it, then you’re the bad guy for not having worker’s solidarity!
We live under capitalism! I have no choice but to build an AI system that targets a population. I need to design the next generation of imperial weapons to pay my rent! Work a less lucrative job? Be a janitor? Clean toilets? Work 2 jobs? What am I? An immigrant? Sorry! I need that $100,000 BAE Systems salary so I can afford self care and resist capitalism (posting on twitter)!
(this guy is you for suggesting that I’m bad for not putting in more effort to find a job that doesn’t directly contribute to global human suffering while paying me very handsomely)
I don’t even understand why he bothers. Is it just western hubris?
He’s no longer the quirky college drop out go getter. His name and company are synonymous with profit via poison. If you already have the infrastructure in place to replace him, there’s no reason to ever consider his products. The only value he has is that the company has access to billions of people’s info across the world, and I’m sure China is already able to access that through data brokers and espionage