A part of me that lived through being bombed by F117 in my childhood and rejoicing at our military taking one down despite it’s stealth, cannot help but feel like the nerdy aspects of the post and comment (which excite me too) are more saddened by bats dying than the fact that these are weapons of war that kill sometimes civilians?
Hmm my general take on this is that war is bad! It is frequently irrational, and always destructive I’d like there to be less war. Conditional upon there being war however, I think the sadness of weapons causing people to die is sort of “priced in”[1], whereas the death of the bats was idiosyncratic and particular to stealth technology specifically.
I do get what you’re saying, and I apologize if my post was insensitive. For what it’s worth, my impression is that other things I’ve seen covering weapons are substantially more cold-minded, and my full review of Skunk Works will investigate the ethical issues of working in the US military-industrial complex more thoroughly.
Thanks Linch, agreed on these points. I suppose if no sadness for bats was shown I’d look at it as an “emotionless piece on tech” and that’d be fine, but something about “and these kill bats” kicked me out of that and into noticing “and humans too, right?” Thank you for the empathy, I am looking forward to reading the whole thing!
A part of me that lived through being bombed by F117 in my childhood and rejoicing at our military taking one down despite it’s stealth, cannot help but feel like the nerdy aspects of the post and comment (which excite me too) are more saddened by bats dying than the fact that these are weapons of war that kill sometimes civilians?
Thanks for the feedback!
Hmm my general take on this is that war is bad! It is frequently irrational, and always destructive I’d like there to be less war. Conditional upon there being war however, I think the sadness of weapons causing people to die is sort of “priced in”[1], whereas the death of the bats was idiosyncratic and particular to stealth technology specifically.
I do get what you’re saying, and I apologize if my post was insensitive. For what it’s worth, my impression is that other things I’ve seen covering weapons are substantially more cold-minded, and my full review of Skunk Works will investigate the ethical issues of working in the US military-industrial complex more thoroughly.
Though I suppose you could make the argument that stealth is more offense dominant than defense dominant, unlike say trench-lines.
Thanks Linch, agreed on these points. I suppose if no sadness for bats was shown I’d look at it as an “emotionless piece on tech” and that’d be fine, but something about “and these kill bats” kicked me out of that and into noticing “and humans too, right?” Thank you for the empathy, I am looking forward to reading the whole thing!
Thanks for being nice about the whole thing! Would totally understand if you’re really angry given the context etc.