You joke, but let me tell you a story from an old man who I used to work with many years ago.
He told me that he helped develop this new missile system that had an advanced informational feature intended to be mounted on aircraft under the wing. In fact, it was so useful that the equipment was giving the pilots better information than the actual purpose built onboard aircraft systems. Pilots loved it! It was so very good that none of them would actually shoot the missile. Supposedly pilots had to be ordered to fire the thing to collect performance data because it was just too useful from a user experience perspective to be used for its intended purpose.
Task failed successfully? Apparently they thought minus one missile was a pretty good value.
That’s a funny story but that old man still sold a weapon to a murderer. Or more accurately, he sold his effort towards creating a weapon to an industrial murder machine, but same difference.
Possibly that’s true, but that is a naïve oversimplification. Do farmers feed murders? Everyone’s gotta eat, and it’s a job. It doesn’t mean they necessarily approve of each specific action to follow. One can’t even say the same thing for a fighter pilot. When you’re in a war zone, people shoot at you, and you might have to shoot back if you want to live. Do you think every Russian soldier is in support of Russia’s actions?
If you pay taxes, does that mean you’re a murderer? The taxpayer should reasonably know that their government might take actions that kill people.
Ethical concerns are serious, but layman’s use of the term murderer is pretty loaded. I think it’s far more appropriate to say that he worked for a weapons manufacturer, but context matters. Is this an ethical job? I don’t think that question has a simple and universal answer unless perhaps if you’re a pacifist and believe there’s no such thing as a justifiable killing.
If you pay taxes, does that mean you’re a murderer?
Yes. Citizens of unjust governments have a moral imperative to rebel. That’s why I’m a communist. I try to be a murderer in as few ways as possible, and to murder as few people as possible.
