I worked in aerospace, and all my work was defensive. Civilians don't have missiles to track or shoot down, and it was my choice if I didn't want to work on a particular project.
Selling a multi-use product or technology removes you from control. Might you approach a foundation or ex-spouse with no malicious intent? Certainly, the military, and sadly, our new paramilitary have half the GDP. But since the wealthy have the other half, why not look to them as collaborators in a worthy project? At the very least,positive use can be negotiated and cooked into the terms of use.
I can find good aspects to the work I've done, but certainly many hate one or more of my past employers or their industries for a variety of reasons, many good ones TBQH.
I've learned that it's best to simply not look to others for validation that your work is meaningful. This is especially true if the others are politically leftist, if only because leftists currently have more of a 'purity' complex going on than rightists. There is no winning with that because eventually you will fall short somewhere, so it's better to just not care what they think about your job from day one and focus on having a nice day.
> the obvious reason is that the military tends to involve killing sometimes
Your wording downplays it, but killing people is the entire reason militaries exist.
> People don't have similar disdain for working at advertising corps like Google and Facebook for the killings they do indirectly.
A whole lot of people do.
> My drone is for surveillance only—it has a self-detachment feature (SDA) that is activated when the drone is attacked, but other than that the drone is for surveillance only.
That makes it no less a weapon, though. Just sayin'.
As someone who has done work for the US military in the past, here's my take on the social implications of it. If you're working on an offensive (in the military sense) project, there are going to be a lot of people who find that ethically objectionable. Less so in times where the US is less belligerent, but we don't live in those times right now.
If you're working on basic research projects funded by the military (this is what I have done), there are far fewer people who would find that objectionable. If you're working on something purely defensive, that falls somewhere in the middle.
However, military work will always be polarizing to some degree.
My friend still insisted what I'm doing is bad and equated my work to some sort of mercenary, as an analog
I do not have an answer to your original question but I would add that there are many in tech that are working on intelligence related tools that will be used in war and do not even realize it. There are hundreds of appliances in data-centers created by tech arms of the intelligence community and have offensive capabilities and this is even before we talk about some of the current hype-tech. I am not going to name them as I signed many NDA's in the past related to them but many here on HN have worked with the tech and probably did not even realize it's dual/multi-use purpose is war time related. Just because something isn't a missile does not mean it won't be used to erase a group of people even if indirectly. Some of the worst tech offenders all the way from WWII to current military engagements are not obvious weapons in the traditional sense. This is not restricted to tech either. Some in biology fields are working on dual-use medicines that are also precision weapons that can select on specific sets of genetic traits.
I guess what I am saying is that people may want to take a long hard look at all the tech they use or contribute to before making a judgement. The internet itself was designed for war-time communication and is being partially deprecated by Starlink as just one example. Most interstate highways in the US were funded for the purpose of moving military troops and equipment as another example. Mainframes and punch cards optimized the erasure of a plethora of civilians. War bucks and war needs the biggest catalysts for the funding of innovation.
> People don't have similar disdain for working at advertising corps like Google and Facebook
I can't speak for Google, but I have noticed in general people very much do have disdain for working for Facebook, and have done for the last decade.
> I thought about this because I am currently working on a pretty advanced drone that I want to sell to the DoD. My friend argued that I am in the "death industry," which pisses me off. Drones could be used to help distribute medicine in remote areas, or for surveillance. My drone is for surveillance only—it has a self-detachment feature (SDA) that is activated when the drone is attacked, but other than that the drone is for surveillance only.
Okay, so obvious question is why are you selling them to the DOD rather than directly to humanitarian organisations, medicine distributors, etc.?
I mean, obviously it's because the DOD is a massive buyer, but the reason they're a massive buyer is not because they ship *medicines* everywhere.
Who do you think it's more likely to pay money for a drone, an org that distributes medicine to remote areas or a weapon's dealer?
I know this will seem odd, but there's a skill issue sometimes. Defense companies often have a lot of people, relative to purely commercial companies because the US government likes to have its money go to a lot of constituents. Defense companies are also under equipped sometimes, for the same reason - the gov would rather the money go to voters.
There's the effect of classification too: new tech often doesn't get used in classified programs because it's hard to get new people cleared.
For these reasons and more, folks working in aerospace are often behind the curve.
Defense is the sanitised version.
Let's say you program code for a hellfire heat tracking missile. Now sure you can tell yourself it's only going to be used by the good guys but really you know at some point your code is going to be responsible for someone innocent getting killed.
So there's probably that bit of people with morals and a conscience who have an issue with the 'defense' industry.
How exactly does your drone defend? Does it do it by being a good offense?
That may give you an idea of why you are getting judged.