Moral concerns can go both ways as well. We don't know what the Pentagon will us... | Hacker News

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p0rkbelly on Oct 9, 2018 | parent | context | favorite | on: Google Drops Out of Pentagon's $10B Cloud Competit...

Moral concerns can go both ways as well.

We don't know what the Pentagon will use the raw compute/storage resources for. I'm sure they are not telling MS/AWS/GOOG either.

I do know that the US Military invests heavily to make weapons better at killing, but also better at killing the right targets. Let's assume the due to US politics war is unavoidable. But, because of investments in technology (smarter drones, AI, guidance systems) in systems powered by the JEDI project we are now able to reduce civilian casualties by 90% in a military conflict. Hell even 10% is a huge win. Is this now a morally just cause?

BurningFrog on Oct 9, 2018 [–]

When your assumption is also your conclusion, you have what's called a "circular argument".

It's obviously true, but says nothing about anything outside itself.

p0rkbelly on Oct 9, 2018 | [–]

Maybe I was being too Socratic? But, philosophy/logic was never my strong suit. Perhaps that's why I'm an engineer flirting with mediocrity...

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