Explanation: It’s a common meme to point out that men oft think about the Roman Empire. Here, the artist ArchonOfFlesh shows an… interesting reason why some boys of a certain submissive and/or masochistic bent might be thinking about the Roman Empire.

Mandatory historical note: once crucified, the odds of survival were very low. The Jewish-Roman writer Josephus once had three of his acquaintances rescued shortly after crucifixion, and even with professional medical help, two of them died after lingering in agony for a few days. Getting nails shoved through your bits is traumatic.

Explanation: It’s a common meme to point out that men oft think about the Roman Empire. Here, the artist ArchonOfFlesh shows an… interesting reason why some boys of a certain submissive and/or masochistic bent might be thinking about the Roman Empire.

Mandatory historical note: once crucified, the odds of survival were very low. The Jewish-Roman writer Josephus once had three of his acquaintances rescued shortly after crucifixion, and even with professional medical help, two of them died after lingering in agony for a few days. Getting nails shoved through your bits is traumatic.

If the admins are at some point distracted, or otherwise are unexpectedly removed from their ability to moderate for a time, and comms have no reliable moderators, then everything will be… well, unmoderated. Having active users as moderators, even if they currently don’t do much moderating compared to the admins, makes the moderation system as a whole more likely to survive any unforeseen events.

With Lockheed you are forced to choose between being complacent with it because they supply Ukraine’s defense against occupation by an imperialist power or outright oppose it due to its supplying towards the Palestinian genocide. The genocide is a dealbreaker in any capacity for me.

But then, is that not just enabling one genocide in exchange for another? Palestinian genocide is a dealbreaker, but Ukrainian genocide is an acceptable price to pay? (I’m not actually accusing you of accepting Ukrainian genocide for not supporting Lockheed-Martin - honestly, fuck Lockheed-Martin as a company - just highlighting that the argument necessitates accepting utilitarian consequences that run contrary to the anti-genocidal goal of the principled stand)

My point, though, is more that Lockheed-Martin is more than a no-brainer. There is consideration to be had. These firms are amoral, but that means that they are capable of enabling good as well as enabling evil.

If your choice is designing tractors, which will be sold to farmers recovering from a genocidal civil war in Sudan as well as genocidal colonists in Israel to consolidate their land gains and draw a profit with which to imperialize more, or designing warplanes, which will be sold to those resisting genocide in Ukraine as well as those perpetuating genocide in Israel, which is the moral choice? I don’t think it’s a no-brainer to say that the weaponry is the more immoral of the two. I’d say that the core immorality is selling to the genocidaires at all - which would not be specific to either industry.

And the core of the objection is against the idea in the meme that people who work at these firms as engineers are in some way more immoral than the rest of us working for soulless genocide-enabling corporations that provide the tools and funding for genocide.

Even ignoring the genocide, the bad outweighs the good to me by a longshot. I oppose it just like how I oppose McDonald’s, Amazon, Starbucks, and more.

I mean, I wouldn’t argue with that. But I also wouldn’t put much moral weight on whether someone chose to work at one of those places in anything but a pretty high executive capacity.

Not so sure about the deterrence argument. My point is just that defense industry firms are not particularly core to the problem of people murdering each other, and certainly not the workers therein, any more than farmers are guilty of feeding murderers if their client sells to a genocidal state.

They are produced for imperialist powers to defend the interests of exploitors, oppressors, and war mongers.

And also to oppose the interests of exploiters, oppressors, and warmongers.

From causes as good as anarchists in Rojava to as evil as fascists in Israel.

I do think there is nuance to the situation and exceptions. Your example being one. But I would consider Lockheed (the example of the original post) would be the no brainer one. Those weapons aren’t going to defending my family from an imperialist power, they are going to death squads in South America and committing genocide in Palestine.

But Lockheed-Martin’s equipment is going to Ukraine as well. Are the families of Ukrainians not worth defending? And ‘death squads’ in South America are not particularly likely to be using state-of-the-art US jets and missiles for their murders. And considering the state of things in Taiwan and Europe, if the US doesn’t end up on the side of the imperialist powers, I don’t know how much I would bet that Lockheed-Martin weapons won’t be defending other families from imperialist powers in the near the future,

Considering the strict controls on defense exports, it is far more relevant to question who the US government chooses (directly or indirectly) to support with Lockheed-Martin’s output. When the US is against genocide, as in Ukraine, Lockheed-Martin’s output is used to save innocent lives; when the US is for genocide, as in Palestine, Lockheed-Martin’s output is used for murder. Though even then I would note that it’s not particularly pivotal to the murders committed.

The correct target for ire in this, other than perhaps capitalism in general for creating a significant disconnect between social responsibility and firms of all industries, is the US government and where it funnels this equipment. The firms themselves are amoral but unexceptional, both in consequences and in nature; and the people who work at them (other than at the highest decision-making levels) are no more immoral than any other cog in the capitalist machine.

There are only a handful of genocides that even compare on a numbers scale

On raw numbers, that’s because the world population tripled between 1600 and 1900.

Try percentages, and you get a good idea of how many people a single human with a blade can kill.

Hmm if all the candidates will both be responsible for killing people, are the people who didn’t vote responsible?

You’ll be responsible for different sets of people being killed.

There’s no option for innocence, as much as folk wish there was.

It might be a no-brainer if it was all “We are making orphan crushers for the orphans”, but the defense industry is much more complex than that. For example, would you say that a Ukrainian working for a Ukrainian defense firm, whose sole purpose is to develop weapons for killing people, is evil?

And if you haven’t voted (but been able to), you are likewise guilty for allowing the candidate who became president and CiC to commit their crimes (instead of the crimes the other candidate would have committed).

The only way forward is to improve society as a whole.

I mean, I agree that selling weapons to war criminals is horrific. But the manufacturers aren’t really at the heart of the problem so much as the US government. There are strict export laws regarding the defense industry. They aren’t exactly jumping to sell WP to Russia (statement may be subject to change considering the Trump administration). They’re acting in accordance with the desires of their biggest customer, the US government, which is currently (and has been for quite some time) supporting war criminals in Israel.

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.

Less weapons made still means less weapon used.

No, it means less of that particular weapon used.

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.

Or maybe the problem isn’t “Weapons are being produced”, it’s “Authoritarian regimes are being traded with”.