U.S. Stood by as Indonesia Killed a Half-Million People, Papers Show

Re:U.S. Stood by as Indonesia Killed a Half-Million People, ... by michaelmrose on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @06:33PM (#15503850)

Evil is really hard to define in any remotely acceptable way. If 95% of a population was actively dangerous to the safety of me or people I cared about I would totally be OK with harming up to and including killing the innocent 5% if and only if there wasn't a better way.

Herein population can be understood to mean any group of people from a small band of individuals up to the population of a continent.

This isn't morally reasonable because I would in fact probably sacrifice any number of people who are not close to me for those that are however I tend to think that the majority would make the same decision. This is why having individuals make such life and death decisions would probably be a bad idea.

I don't think I could reasonably on the other hand punish the guilty 1% and also the innocent 99%. I guess everyone probably has a line but I don't know if you can ethically define and what point it becomes right or wrong because I don't think most people consider even the mundane choices they make logically.

I think most such choices are actually made emotionally.

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Re:U.S. Stood by as Indonesia Killed a Half-Million People, ... by Retric on Wednesday October 18, 2017 @10:45PM (#15505112)

> I think most such choices are actually made emotionally.

I would go so far as to suggest most choices are made emotionally. Brand advertising and propaganda are used because they work.

Also, I must complement you for honesty, and I think most people share your views. I can only comment that very rarely is a population a meaningful direct threat rather than at worst a dangerous tool, but those terms will be banded about to leverage our natural responses.

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