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I think GolfPepper had a decent interpretation.

Yours is a particularly extreme example I guess, but I didn't say it was a happy reality, I don't agree, and I agree.

It's not your job unless it's your job, but otherwise it's not your job, that's basically it, and sometimes in life it's your job to make the war machine, or if it's in your power to not make the war machine, then don't. If you're taking care of kids, it's your job to take care of kids, not have a moral stance on what your labor is going to. You're not the Angel of Death, and ideally you should do whatever you can to not be. These are the tricky bits of life.

Edward Snowden stuck his neck out, and while he may have won a virtue medal and might be chilling these days with a wife and kids as Russians, what he probably should have done was nothing, that's a sacrifice you make for an overvalued sense of personal heroism imo. Now he's beholden to Putin.

If you've already ascended some ranks and can make decisions that are good for people more broadly, great, that's part of your job.




Now he's beholden to Putin.

Sucks for him, and it can't possibly be good for the US either.

But the Obama administration should have known better before pushing him into that hole.




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