Comment by Eddy_Viscosity2
6 hours ago
It seems like the argument is that doing science/tech-development for an organization which both has and adheres to benevolent intents and goals, or even just going on your own is the same as working for a company that is intending from the onset to use the work malevolently. Because, all tech gets abused eventually.
This is a terrible argument and is defeatist in the same was as 'what does anything matter at all if the sun is going to explode'.
If you choose to do work for bad leaders, you are going bad in the same way that 'just following orders' for bad things is also bad. You are responsible for the outcomes in those cases. If you are ok with the resulting bad outcomes because the science was interesting and the pay is good, that's your decision. But there is no absolution just because you can suppose that someone else would have done it so it might as well have been you.
> what does anything matter at all if the sun is going to explode
It would not surprise me if this is the exact reasoning that underpins decisions made by leaders of these big companies.
It's terribly hard to convince some people that this is not a sound argument.
In fact, I think it's mostly an evolutionary trait that most of us have, but looking at other species, I don't think it's universal to help others.