Anduril was the focal point of last year’s letter against MIC sponsorship, and has come up in controversy since. While individual community members have laid out their individual objections against Anduril and the MIC though, the open letter itself did not go into reasoning: it settled for opposition itself as a common denominator. To some extent, individual reasoning thereby remained unstated.
This may have hampered understanding of such reasoning among non-signees in the community, who on different occasions seem to have painted those opposition to Anduril as naive doves — a strawman I have seen argued again recently by @crertel, @mightyiam and lunduke. At this point, I consider elaborating on such reasoning (to add to existing angles on MIC, autonomous weapons or Thiel) as more pressing. To that end, I would argue:
The threat Anduril contributes to is existential (and not over some p(doom)):
- Climate change poses an existential problem of planetary proportions. (ICJ)
- We are on our way to hitting climate tipping points. (NYTimes, paraphrased)
- US interventions have served to spread neoliberal policy. (NSA whistleblower John Perkins, paraphrased)
- Capitalism can’t solve climate change. (Time magazine)
- US federal stance on climate change has nevertheless appeared undeterred.
- The US has invaded or been militarily involved with almost every country on earth.
- Such interventions have owed to US military dominance, topping the rest of the world’s in fire power, budget and military bases.
- Anduril builds weapons for American dominance. (X: Anduril founder Palmer Luckey)
- Anduril has the funding, partnerships, technical foundations, and the political goodwill to be well-positioned to pursue this end.
- In spite of international and popular opposition to their use, Anduril’s weapons are autonomous, potentially prolonging such military dominance, if not aggravating escalation.
Combining these: the threat posed by US imperial domination, which Anduril materially contributes to, is existential in the face of climate change. (While I’m aware that may be a privileged argument to make amid a genocide, I also realize this type of argument may unfortunately also be more likely to resonate with those dismissing MIC critiques as dove-ish than the moral argument.)
Now, whereas our software licenses are open-source, community policies can and do have an impact.
Even putting aside employer leverage though, those swayed by the dominant war hawk rhetoric may sympathize with MIC perspectives regardless of employment. Instead, I worry our democratic foundations are unstable, giving room for take-overs of the SC even if only a minority of our community supported this.
I don’t necessarily expect to sway people, and realize my title is vulnerable to framing, while moderation may be stricter currently, given capacity. That said, I hope the sources here may somewhat build my case in a way at least intelligible to those of different convictions.
