So....hobbyists are still going on about that one youtuber's comments. The video was taken down, the creator apologized, but the debate about it still goes on.
Basically, the guy reviewed a gaming hardware product made by a tech bro billionaire who also does defense stuff, particularly drones. The guy is controversial and people dont like him. The youtuber is, by his own admission, not knowledgeable of politics and tried to address the elephant in the room with some comments about how the guy creates jobs and how he might get a job in the drone factory. Given our current foreign policy discussions, this did not go over well.
Honestly, I kind of think the comments almost came off as parody, but from what I remember, no he was serious, which makes it more cringe. So I wanted to address the issue, given my own unique ideology.
So...job creation. Our society is obsessed with it, I hate it. It's peak "jobism", ie the idea that jobs are inherently good and the answer to all social problems. We tend to value work for its own sake, and this leads to a lot of cringe. I dont see jobs as inherently good. The social contract linking money to work is artificial, and jobism is an artifact of that. But rather than question it, we just insist we create as many jobs as possible and people work them, often while being uncritical of the work created. This can lead to a lot of "BS jobs", jobs that dont need to exist, or even jobs that actively do harm to others. And sadly,...not very informed people buy these arguments because youre not against jobs are you? Yay jobs! Imagine if we threw those people out of work, you wouldnt want that, would you? Yay jobs!
Btw, this is how the defense industry is often sold to Americans. We have the most bloated military budget in the world, and while we certainly do get our money's worth (see how Russia is doing with their budget), we clearly are spending way too much and a lot of it is wasteful. Even worse, due to existing foreign policy conflicts, we are basically using the weapons created to do harmful and even evil things in the world. Like bombing kids (Iran). And funding others who bomb kids (Israel). And a lot of people are against that, hence the controversy.
I have a more moderate approach. While I hate jobs for their own sake, I do understand we do need national defense. We just dont need to spend $1.5 trillion a year on it (yeah, that's roughly the number we're up to now....). Ive historically been for minor cuts, but at this point the 50% reduction the greens want is looking more and more attractive. But let's face it, we do need to fund a military. And having some military is good. ANd hell, drones are the current thing. And we need drones to fight modern wars. Ukraine has used them to insane effect, and yeah, I am all for us building drones and giving them to ukraine, for example. So I'm not even gonna say military stuff is even all bad.
Really, it's just...the current face of our military, with ghouls like donald trump and pete hegseth in charge where we're just openly doing war crimes and supporting war criminals thats the problem. And fiscally, its a problem with the republican party. We cut peoples' healthcare but then we throw that money into tax cuts for rich people and foreign wars we shouldnt even be involved in. So...yeah. Again, if you dislike the current administration and get angry when someone talks about drone factories creating jobs, yeah I can see that. Everything current admin is doing is very distasteful and evil. And I'd like to see these guys tried for war crimes when democrats retake power.
This isnt the Bush era any more. People complained about that, arguing that he was a war criminal, but at least Bush explicitly stated that we werent at war with islam and that our goal is to help people. Trump? "Here's a high octane video of us bombing a girl's school bro, isn't this so cool?!" No, it's not, you're a fricking monster and you should be impeached. I could see why most people didnt wanna try bush for war crimes, even if the far left was screaming for it. These days though? Yeah, trump has broken that illusion of respectability so much he's just evil. He doesnt even try to make us look like the good guy, and he's acting like anyone who doesnt outright support his behavior is just unamerican or not patriotic. Make no mistake, I'm pro America, but like with Al Franken's idea of patriotism, we gotta have an honest discussion about the weird criminal behavior we've been engaging with lately and not just love the country like a 4 year old loves their mommy.
So yeah. If you dislike our current foreign policy, i dont blame you. If you hate the defense industries openly making killing machines for this administration, and who get a bit too giddy over killing people, i dont blame you. At the same time, Im not categorically against defense. We do need a strong military. However, im more of a "speak softly but carry a big stick" kind of guy. We're currently a "speak loudly, swing the stick, and then scream more on social media at 3 AM on a golden toilet" kind of country.
As for the jobs. Well....again, jobism is a mental disorder as I see it. Like, not an outright one, but like....something we're brainwashed into. Jobs arent good for their own sake. Theyre good for what they do. And if what we're doing is evil, then it's evil. People who defend drone factories because jobs are like the people who parody star wars and call the death star a work program or something. It's dumb. And we should rethink jobs as a concept.
Anyway, that's my thought on that.
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