Top Engineers Shun Massacre Machinery
Philip Taubman had an interesting article on the front page of the New York Times yesterday: “Top Engineers Shun Military; Concern Grows.” The article profiles an engineer by the name of Paul Kaminski who worked for the Air Force designing planes for several decades. Kaminski now heads a task force that is attempting to deal with the difficulties the military is having recruiting engineers. According to Taubman, the number of engineers working for the Air Force has decreased 35-40% over the last 14 years. The reasons cited for the decline include:
- better pay in high tech firms
- more cachet at Google or the like
- more engineering students from foreign countries who can’t get security clearances
- lack of exposure to new technology in the military
Strangely, Taubman omits what I suspect, perhaps foolishly, is the central cause– top engineers are driven to solve problems. As I consider the central problems facing the world today, I do not notice an alarming lack of weapon systems. The US military is already extremely good at killing. If you’re really a top engineer, you can choose where to work. I can’t imagine why someone would be drawn to weaponry when there are so many obvious unsolved problems elsewhere.
As an interesting footnote, the article gave no hints of what Mr. Kaminski’s task force will do about the lack of people willing to carry out the jobs they have in exchange for the salaries they offer. One solution might be to stop trying to build so many damn weapon systems.
I have told my sons that they are not under any circumstances to take part in massacres, and that the news of massacres of enemies is not to fill them with satisfaction or glee. I have also told them not to work for companies which make massacre machinery, and to express contempt for people who think we need machinery like that.
–Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five