I’m sorry. I’m in a bad mood and that was unecessary. That being said, given the current hyper militarized climate in Silicon Valley, I find this detachment of the science / engineering from its use cases to be more than a little distasteful.
You are to be commended for an apology, it shows class and decency.
As for the militarization of Silicon Valley, it's been said we have god-like tech, but not the emotional discipline for such responsibilities. Aside from the fact that we humans suck, we repeat our worst mistakes without, it seems, a second thought. Then, when we're called out, we let our ego warp to any excuse that will suffice. The Kissinger example mentioned above almost made me ill.
another real fact: "Between 1964 and 1973, the United States conducted a covert "Secret War" in Laos, dropping over two million tons of ordnance during 580,000+ bombing missions, "
The revelation of secret bombing campaigns was one of the main reveals of The Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg. This arguably turned American public opinion against the war decisively as it revealed the USA had no cohesive strategy for winning and was repeatedly lying to the American public about the multiple fronts of the war in Southeast Asia for more than twenty years.
And other people, like Henry Kissinger, drew random dots on a map to tell it where to drop the bombs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Menu