On the upside, I guess maybe DeepMind is hiring.
... I'm sure I'll get flamed into oblivion for this but it's weird to me how the zeitgeist is anti-colonialism but also against enforcing borders and national sovereignty. I guess maybe they are okay with it unless you're a western nation. Whatever, there's no room for nuanced opinions anymore in modern online discourse.
I'll admit to being a weird outlier on this. I may not like what certain parts of the government are doing but I'd go work for the Voldemort companies in a heartbeat -- they just require in-office and aren't anywhere near me. I'd rather my nation develop the best technologies than let other nations do it.
Just look at how far behind the eurozone is by not making the right investments.
> I'm sure I'll get flamed into oblivion for this but it's weird to me how the zeitgeist is anti-colonialism but also against enforcing borders and national sovereignty
Let me try a reply that is perhaps a little more constructive than where this discussion went.
I think most folks would frame home rule and freedom of movement in the context of basic individual rights, not national rights. I suggest you might fare better explaining some context about why you believe they should care about nation states to begin with
Fair comment and thank you.
"Freedom of movement" is a fairly loaded term, but is defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is: - "Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state." - "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."
Freedom of movement isn't the right to go live anywhere you want across any national jurisdiction (although some people/organizations would disagree, but that just doesn't survive any legal test). Every nation on the planet has very explicit rules around this. Even the unrecognized ones.
I guess I don't necessarily agree with elected officials systematically not enforcing laws that they don't agree with. It's hard to be rigid about this when there's things like Executive Orders, but I'm very pro "Change the law". And admittedly that's very difficult and it should be so -- new law should be hard to get to.
This process happens all the way from the local to national level, but we have terrible governance. Every structure seems to be abdicating its responsibility and overreaching in one way or another. It's precisely in these conditions that I think leaning into rule of law is more important than ever.
Otherwise we're just playing Whose Country Is It Anyway? Where the rules are made up and your rights don't matter. I also feel that this should be a compelling enough argument regardless of your political persuasion, but we've gone just about completely tribalist.
If it's any consolation, I'd have upvoted the original version of your comment before you appended the hand-wringing about karma points and personal opinions.
It's not lacking nuance to oppose both empire politics and nationalist jingoism. I don't think that the author is wrong for holding that opinion - I just think they shouldn't have joined Google if they sincerely believed it. Their personal conviction is not going to be enough to overturn Google's policy, even if they're the LeBron James of AI research. This was a pointless exercise in getting crushed under the boot that they claim to oppose. And anyone with the ability to add two and two together could see where this was headed.
Outliers like you are what the state counts on. Morally deaf, money and status-obsessed, easily placated with remote work and fat pension payments. As the middle class shrinks and the collective insecurity of a generation expands, more people like you will trade in their morals to make a "dignified" living doing horrible things. It speaks volumes to your character, but maybe you'd have a hard time hearing it from your boat with your hearing aids turned off. It's a tricky market for people that want to make genuine positive change in the world, and money talks.
[flagged]
Same to you I guess? The world is not a black and white place. Rigorous self-defense is not evil.
I chose to be vulnerable and honest knowing what kind of responses I would get and the guidelines of this board call for assuming good faith. It's discourse like yours that is inflaming and ruining our society.
I didn't even endorse any specific actions here, I'm just not meeting your moral threshold based on your interpretation of some pretty thinly-detailed comments that I made.
You also can't influence the game if you're not a player so opting out of working in the entire defense industry is probably against your interests.
make no mistake, it’s mindsets like yours that put us on the path we currently tread.
> I'd go work for the Voldemort companies in a heartbeat […]
being honest and vulnerable about being a shitty person does not beget or earn you any kind of mutual respect. we are simply not the same.
> some comment you edited out where you said I'm heartless and spineless.
And I know what it's like to live in a place without adequate law enforcement and/or military.
Personal insults and calling me mentally ill. Are you projecting?
Apparently willingness to work at Palantir or Anduril or other defense contractors makes me irredeemably evil. I'm sure you're real fun at parties.
Tbh, I'm glad though. I'm really great at what I do and have had a long and successful career. We need more hiring filters and I don't want coworkers with deeply skewed perspectives, inadequate objectivity and who cannot coexist with those of different world-views. Self-filtering is the cheapest and best kind.
> I don't want coworkers with deeply skewed perspectives, inadequate objectivity and who cannot coexist with those of different world-views
and I don’t want coworkers that are okay with killing children in Gaza or conducting mass surveillance and calling it a “different world-view”.