No Qualms on the Western Front

Published December 5th, 2024
I spent almost half my time in university studying mechanical engineering. The other MechE students would joke about the dollar amount they'd "sell their soul" to Lockheed Martin for. It's long been a meme.
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The message is clear: the defense industry is lucrative, but evil. I certainly hope it remains lucrative. More importantly, I hope we lose this false sense of immorality around our defense sector.
People act like the choice is to either do something or not. You either go to war, or you don't. You embrace AI or reject it. The choice feels like one of action, but as a collection it's a choice of outcome. Winning is not easy, and not without discomfort. To win, you must take action. And if America doesn't win, someone else will.
That someone is likely to be China (+ friends).
Think about AI. Imagine the worst case scenario. That we achieve AGI and it becomes an entity more powerful than us. Something that could easily destroy us. It's a terrifying thought. A seemingly rational instinct might be to hault advancement and prevent the risk.
But what happens in this scenario? America decides to stop, and the rest of the world agrees? On the contrary. Adversaries see an opportunity. A weakness. Now China controls AI. Is this your preferred outcome?
America is responsible for the fate of the Western world. We protect Europe militarily, hold the reserve currency, back it up economically, and produce basically all innovation. While Europe stagnates, America accelerates. We are the wealthy sibling supporting the family.
If we don't step up, no one else from the West will. Currently they aren't even able to.
The question is not whether we are the perfect global leader. It's whether we are better than China. If your answer is not yes, then I hope you're not a U.S. citizen.
It is critical that America wins at any cost—at least any cost that is net-better than China winning. And frankly, that is quite a bit of wiggle room. There will be mistakes and tragedies, but substantially fewer than China would cause.
That's not to say that we should ignore our ethics. Quite the contrary—they should be built into our beliefs and actions. But it does mean we should not have any qualms about championing our own military success.
This is our best chance at reducing suffering.
The same holds true for any global power vertical: military, AI, economic strength... we must strive to lead all of it. Unapologetically.
Such a view was previously seen as controversial. That time is now over.
Qualms are the product of luxury. You can entertain them when when you have the space to do so. We left this phase years ago. We no longer have time for qualms, and we are about to see far fewer with regard to defense tech.
 
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