My personal views and my research work kind of collide. What can I do?
The fact that some projects lead nowhere is natural to research. That is not &quot;wastage&quot;, it's investment. If something works, it can be scaled up and benefit humankind. You can try and concentrate on projects where, if successful, it will save energy, optimize water, etc.
I suggest it is legitimate to waste material and energy to develop these to viable directions, because it will save orders of magnitude more than you waste now. So, I do not necessarily see a contradiction in finding good topics that correlate with your lifestyle/philosophy.
As for defense research, that's quite a different matter. If you really do not believe in defense work, there is no way you can justify to yourself to do it. To take the advocatus diaboli: some people may say that it is in the nature of things that there are less than friendly actors around in the world; neutral and even friendly relations can sour to a point where it is essential to have the country you generally agree to live in the military option at least in the hope that its use will not be necessary.
But if you are strictly opposed to this, either as fundamental principle of non-violence, or because you believe that with all lofty aspirations, the military-industrial complex and/or the political echelon has too many ulterior motives, then I do not see a possibility to reconcile your private beliefs with defense-related work.
The argument of people effectively supporting an activity they fundamentally disagree with by offering a &quot;critical&quot; perspective is not something you can easily get away with, unless you live in a dictatorship and have no reasonably good other choices. And there, being &quot;critical&quot; means being subversive.
To use a similar picture: If you like the taste of steaks and want to protect animals, there is a contradiction; unfortunately, that means that the best you can do at this point are vegan steak replacements. The ones I know are so yucky that it's better to identify genuinely vegan food that does not pretend it's something else.
Standing up to principles requires sacrifice - not always, but more often than not.