You are arguing that advanced weaponry does not increase bloodshed, which I disagree with,
Man, go on and look at the bloodiest conflicts in world history. Tell me what advanced modern tools they were waged with. Tell me what advanced technology enabled Pol Pot to stick the heads of dissidents on wooden stakes and murder some 25% of the entire population.
and you are avoiding any discussion of responsibility, which I think is a pretty natural impulse within all of us but it really fucking matters.
No, I'm not avoiding a discussion of responsibility. I'm pointing out that a double-standard for responsibility is being used. You want the defense industry to be the scapegoat to avoid having to confront that every major industry that does international business is neck-deep in horrific shit by the standard of "You sell it, you're responsible for what it's used for". You can try to avoid looking in the mirror by pointing fingers, but it's a very easy tactic to recognize. "Weapons evil" is an easy sell on an emotional level, but you don't want to confront that it doesn't actually hold up as a coherent argument.
There was controversy during the Gulf War about DU munitions from 20mm autocannons. 30 years of study has disproven some of the initial scares, but concerns remain about DU dust from such shells possibly being widely dispersed enough to cause health problems (though not radioactivity-related health problems).
Tank DU munitions are generally regarded as safe anymore, though.
Yeah, that’s a pretty pointless response on the Uyghur front
"I wish I was being beaten to death with a homemade truncheon, instead of a mass-produced one"?
China’s comprehensive surveillance system is what makes tracking the movements of Uyghurs possible. It is what has made detaining and killing them so easy. So the people that made that system possible are responsible. Please explain how actually it’s nobody’s fault because things just happen.
You're absolutely right. Everyone who makes computers for any company which sells to China is going to hell.
It is pretty radical to argue that a small contingent of Zionist Israelis would be successfully eradicating the people of Palestine if both sides just had sticks, so the U.S. should just keep manufacturing and selling MK-84 bombs.
Yes, a small contingent of some half-a-million Israeli soldiers and reservists obviously wouldn't be able to shoot any Palestinians if the US wasn't supplying them. This is why nowhere on earth does genocide happen, save when America is supplying someone involved.
Or we can talk about how absurd a claim it is that the arms industry is looking out for the little guy
lmao
Not even trying, are you?
Thank god for arms manufacturers—that’s probably what Uyghurs think when they’re stopped at checkpoints by military police
"If only they didn't have stealth jets created by the massive and advanced Chinese defense industry" probably isn't what goes through the minds of most Uyghurs when stopped by military police.
Sorry for having the radical idea that mass violence predates specialized weapons industries. Or the radical idea that countries should be allowed to defend themselves against genocidal aggressors. Whichever of the two you're objecting to.
Israel, Russia, and Ukraine sure seem to think so. None are producing enough munitions domestically to satisfy themselves.
In the case of Russia and Ukraine, the reason they need to produce more munitions is to prevent the opposition from having the advantage in the war. If both sides were totally stripped of munitions by tomorrow, you wouldn't see a cessation of the war, you'd see a continuation of the war simply with less advanced tools, such as in the civil war in Sudan. And Russia has already demonstrated that it has no shortage of men who are willing to murder people with knives and sledgehammers.
Don't really know what you think "No more munitions!" is going to achieve here. Certainly don't know what shunning the Western MIC is going to do here, except expose more Ukrainians to Russian genocide.
Israel isn't producing enough munitions to satisfy itself because it knows it doesn't have to when the US is willing to subsidize their genocide.
Anyone involved in the production of white phosphorus weapons, cluster bombs, or depleted uranium munitions are knowingly participating in a war crime. Everyone from the assembly line workers to the designers to the executives needs to be locked up.
WP is legal for use as an incendiary and smokescreen, cluster bombs are not banned by the US, DU is not illegal by any treaty I'm aware of.
Yes, there are other non-weapon items we also need to sanction Israel to prevent access to, such as bulldozers.
Nothing should be going into Israel from any civilized country, if we were actually discussing questions of morality and interaction through one's labor for internationally trading firms.
Of all the tools for oppression and murder, advanced weaponry is pretty low on the list for what actually makes the murdering happen. If you work for a company that does any kind of business with any repressive regime (ie most companies above a certain size), the simple fact that you're working for a cog in enabling the economy of the repressive regime to pay its cops, its soldiers, its secret police and informants and massive bureaucracy, is as much as a contribution as "I was .1% of designing a multirole jet that's 10% better than the previous multirole jet"
Hell, anyone making steel of the correct grade to go into small arms probably kills more innocent people, by that standard, than your average person working for Western defense contractors.
"Last gasps" is a strong word, but symptomatic of a weakening of misogyny in general society, yes. Time will tell if this weakening is another step towards crushing that particular bigotry, or if it'll experience a second wind in these sickened circumstances.
I can't think of any realistic situation in which the fate of the rulers does not rely on the complicity of the masses short of full AI army shenanigans.
I think the decline of misogyny is the reason. As it's not as normalized as it once was, yet still a very powerful lingering thread in our culture, men are seeking validation for it where they would have otherwise found validation for misogyny, unasked for and unconditionally, in their everyday social circles in previous eras.
PugJesus @ PugJesus @lemmy.world Posts 1,523Comments 4,180Joined 2 yr. ago
Man, go on and look at the bloodiest conflicts in world history. Tell me what advanced modern tools they were waged with. Tell me what advanced technology enabled Pol Pot to stick the heads of dissidents on wooden stakes and murder some 25% of the entire population.
No, I'm not avoiding a discussion of responsibility. I'm pointing out that a double-standard for responsibility is being used. You want the defense industry to be the scapegoat to avoid having to confront that every major industry that does international business is neck-deep in horrific shit by the standard of "You sell it, you're responsible for what it's used for". You can try to avoid looking in the mirror by pointing fingers, but it's a very easy tactic to recognize. "Weapons evil" is an easy sell on an emotional level, but you don't want to confront that it doesn't actually hold up as a coherent argument.