re In an Open Letter, Microsoft Employees Urge the Company To Not Bid on the US Military's Project JEDI

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
> Date: October 15, 2018 13:40:51 JST
> To: dave () farber net
> Subject: Re: [IP] re In an Open Letter, Microsoft Employees Urge the Company To Not Bid on the US Military's Project 
> JEDI
>
>
> Please don't try the Trump garbage on me.  I have enormous respect for
> the military. And among the many military folks I know, there is
> widespread disgust with the kinds of missions to which they're put,
> how they're so often treated as disposable meat to put pushed into a
> grinder for political purposes.
>
> JEDI is specifically described as an effort to "increase lethality."
> Last time I looked it up, lethality meant death, and killing human
> beings on purpose is murder. JEDI is a murder machine. Now, there's a
> separate argument about when murder is justified in national defense
> arenas. But you're talking to someone from the Vietnam War era who 
> knew many military who came back with their lives ruined and who were
> treated atrociously by our own government.
>
> The military technology argument almost always reads along the lines
> of: "With this technology we can make individual soldiers more
> effective and save more of their lives." The problem is that these
> systems inevitably entice civilian leadership (that is, the politicos)
> into more and more unwise military ventures, which often end up
> killing even more of our fine military volunteers than before.
>
> The underlying problem we're dealing with here is that the U.S.
> military is attempting to expand their traditional military-industrial
> complex from the traditional defense contractors -- whose employees
> know full well what they're signing up for when they join -- to
> firms like Amazon, Google, and Microsoft -- whose employees we can bet
> by and large did not sign on expecting their code to be used to help
> kill people, even in ostensibly defensive postures.
>
> This is at the heart of the current rebellion in these spheres
> inside these companies.
>
> --Lauren--
>
>
> > On 10/15 13:11, Dave Farber wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > Begin forwarded message:
> >
> > > From: Sidney Karin <skarin () ucsd edu>
> > > Date: October 15, 2018 12:29:18 JST
> > > To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
> > > Subject: Re: [IP] In an Open Letter, Microsoft Employees Urge the Company To Not Bid on the US Military's Project 
> > > JEDI
> > >
> > > Dave,  (For IP if you choose.)
> > >
> > > The U.S. Military is not a murder machine.  Lauren’s comment is highly
> > > insulting to a very large number of people and is way out of line.  Of course
> > > Lauren is on the sidelines.  The Microsoft employees are in the game, their
> > > position is at least equally insulting, to the military and to the nation.
> > >
> > >
> > > …….Sid
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > P.S.  I am not now, nor have I ever been, a member of the U.S. (or any other)
> > > military, however I have consulted to some units of the U.S. military.
> > >
> > >
> > > > On Oct 14, 2018, at 5:45 PM, Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > Begin forwarded message:
> > > > >
> > > > > From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
> > > > > Subject: [ NNSquad ] In an Open Letter, Microsoft Employees Urge the Company To Not Bid on the US Military's 
> > > > > Project JEDI
> > > > > Date: October 15, 2018 0:57:14 JST
> > > > > To: nnsquad () nnsquad org
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > In an Open Letter, Microsoft Employees Urge the Company To Not Bid on
> > > > > the US Military's Project JEDI
> > > > >
> > > > > https://yro.slashdot.org/story/18/10/14/1359239/in-an-open-letter-microsoft-employees-urge-the-company-to-not-bid-on-the-us-militarys-project-jedi
> > > > >
> > > > > On Tuesday, Microsoft expressed its intent to bid on the Joint
> > > > > Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract -- a
> > > > > contract that represents a $10 billion project to build cloud
> > > > > services for the Department of Defense. The contract is
> > > > > massive in scope and shrouded in secrecy, which makes it
> > > > > nearly impossible to know what technologies Microsoft would be
> > > > > building for the Department of Defense. At an industry day for
> > > > > JEDI, DoD Chief Management Officer John H. Gibson II explained
> > > > > the program's impact, saying, "We need to be very clear. This
> > > > > program is truly about increasing the lethality of our
> > > > > department."
> > > > >
> > > > > - - - 
> > > > >
> > > > > When you've been urging your employees to be ethical, it can be tricky
> > > > > to get them working on murder machines.
> > > >
> > > > Archives | Modify Your Subscription | Unsubscribe Now    
> > >
> > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> > >     Sidney Karin Ph.D., P.E.
> > >     skarin () ucsd edu
> > >     858-534-5075
> > >
> > >     Professor Emeritus,
> > >     Department of Computer Science and Engineering
> > >     Director Emeritus,
> > >     San Diego Supercomputer Center
> > >     University of California, San Diego 
> > >     9500 Gilman Drive  
> > >     La Jolla,  CA  92093-0505
> >
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------



-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=18849915
Unsubscribe Now: 
https://www.listbox.com/unsubscribe/?member_id=18849915&id_secret=18849915-a538de84&post_id=20181015004426:FCF62DE0-D034-11E8-A887-8480662C6509
Powered by Listbox: https://www.listbox.com