>Your first comment is effectively "the ends justified the means".

Yes? Welcome to the real world. The Nazis developed technologies that Western Europe, USA and the Soviet Union all wanted. In your view what should the US have done? Let the Soviets poach them all up and get better at tech and maybe take over Europe even more?

>I think this is a perspective more easily held when your own life isn't impacted by "the means"

I can say the same to you. I have seen the rapid decline of my country, Sweden, directly due to the 2015 migration crisis and before. So we very much are directly impacted, thank you.

>Life's got plenty of nuance - we don't need to lose our humanity at every opportunity for an incremental technological gain that would eventually come either way.

This is a very naive view that I am surprised to see on HN.

Would Linux have "just happened anyway" without Linus Torvalds? Would Windows have happened without Bill Gates? Facebook without Mark? Clean sewage without Joseph Bazalgette? Mobile X-Rays without Marie Curie? This is in reaction to your Werner Van Braun comment. Do you really think the USA set him to make rockets and engines because he was just a random engineer? No, some people are truly geniuses, and their one impact can matter.

Some societies are just better than others. You sit in (probably) the USA or western world, in probably a nice apartment or house willing to say screw it all all the good things will just materialize and happen by itself... I do too but I am not so naive. We have fought for our society.