Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!shelby!decwrl!limbo!taylor
From: efrethei@afit.af.mil (Erik J Fretheim)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: Computer Science jobs without military connections
Message-ID: <1796@limbo.Intuitive.Com>
Date: 24 Feb 91 19:22:03 GMT
Sender: taylor@limbo.Intuitive.Com
Organization: Intuitive Systems, Mountain View, California  +1 (415) 966-1151
Lines: 34
Approved: taylor@Limbo.Intuitive.Com

Larry Hunter writes:
 
> With respect to several recent claims about the difficulty of doing
> advanced CS research in institutions unsupported by the military, e.g:
> I would like to suggest that biomedical computing offers a wide
> variety of career paths in industry, government and academia that
> involve research, design and engineering of state of the art computer
> systems uninvolved with the military...I chose to pursue my machine 
> learning research in a biomedical environment to avoid contributing my
> expertise to the military industrial complex, at some personal financial 
> sacrifice.

> In my view, the primary priviledge of not being oppressed is the
> ability to choose among the people and interests I serve.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but you too are serving in the military-
industrial complex.  The more goodies you develop to patch people back
together, the quicker they can be put back on the lines to collect more
holes for you to patch.  After all, why do you think the military funds
and supports so much medical research, to include supporting or working 
with all of the institutions you mentioned.

The only way, (and I repeat only) way to work against war is to alleviate 
those social conditions which place people in the condition where they 
feel they have nothing to lose by fighting.  As for the rest of us we 
are merely making the cost threshold high enough to give the politicians 
and others to complete this task.  After all we don't want to introduce a 
common standard of living by lowering everyone to the lowest common 
denominator.  It would be much preferable to raise everyone to some common 
high level, even if a few remain at a yet higher level still.

Standard disclaimer emphasized.  These are my personal remarks.

Erik J Fretheim


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