Google was enabling the DoD to be more efficient at killing people and China to be more oppressive until its workers protested. So he's right about humanity having to solve its problems but he's forgetting that Google, the corporation, is opting to make it harder for humanity to solve its problems by enabling those who do not have humanity's best interest in their heart.
The world is complicated, and things are never as simple as that.
Would you consider drones and smart bombs bad when the alternative is carpet bombing?
It is always too easy to ignore the world as it is and focus on a utopian case. War will happen, with whatever tools are available.
Whether nuclear weapons and targeted drone strikes made the world in some broad strokes more peaceful on purpose, well, probably not. Nonetheless, we haven't had carpet bombings anywhere near the scale of WWII in decades.
Deaths in armed conflict form a fat-tailed distribution. Extreme events dominate, and the absence of any world wars for several decades is not evidence that humanity has gotten more peaceful if world wars happen roughly every couple hundred years. See Taleb, who is much more clear. http://www.fooledbyrandomness.com/violencenobelsymposium.pdf
I think we’re definitely seeing the landscape of war changing. I really hope traditional bloody war is obsolete.
So, yeah, the importance of minds as resource might be part of the reason for the absence of major armed conflict, but for almost the exact opposite of the reason Hariri suggests.
And because the propaganda tends to kill less than bombs, the conflicts do not end up as wars.
I haven't read Sapiens, and I hope Harari is correct, but I'm not tracking the second argument. Certain governments believe they can conquer minds, as evidenced by detention/propaganda camps and universal surveillance/scoring. If a government with this perspective successfully invaded another country, wouldn't they institute a similar program there and expect similar results?
No country of consequence can be invaded like this today - nuclear weapons upped the stakes considerably.
No nuclear power can be, nor can any country closely allied with a nuclear power, but not every country of consequence is in one of those categories.
Unless you define “of consequence” specifically to mean in those two categories, and so exclude, e.g., Ukraine.
On the other hand, I'd personally rather take a 1% chance of obscene nuclear war and otherwise peace, than a (let's say) 40% chance of ongoing infantry warfare.
That's not the alternative, though. Drones are used in hundreds of situations where without them, the US simply wouldn't have taken action.
I see people pointing at cases where civilians were killed and saying "See! Its bad!". But that isn't an argument that it was a bad judgment. Collateral damage is, unfortunately, inevitable with the technology that we have. The question we have to ask is: is the amount of collateral damage we're causing worthwhile and/or could we substantially reduce collateral damage without harming our objectives. And i've basically never seen anyone even attempt to make that case.
But this raises a valid concern. Is drone striking weddings really winning the hearts and minds of people, or is it just setting up the next generation of (IMO, justified) hate toward the US? [0] [1]
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wech_Baghtu_wedding_party_airs... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haska_Meyna_wedding_party_airs...
Adults are expected to understand the potential consequences of their actions. If you knowingly fire missiles into a populated area, you don't get to say "oops, I didn't mean to" when you accidentally kill a few dozen innocent civilians.
It absolutely matters. Intending to kill civilians and killing them accidentally are very, very different things.
> Adults are expected to understand the potential consequences of their actions. If you knowingly fire missiles into a populated area, you don't get to say "oops, I didn't mean to" when you accidentally kill a few dozen innocent civilians.
Are you alleging that they didn't understand the risks involved? Or are you alleging that they did understand the risks involved, and made a conscious decision that those risks were worth it? If the latter, do you have reason to believe that their calculation was wrong?
I take issue with your stance that the burden of evidence lies with the 'let's not shoot missiles crowd', though. While we don't have specific evidence on the specific efficacy of individual drone strikes, I'd argue that the intelligence community's track record (or what's been declassified or widely known) does not inspire the greatest confidence in their ability to make nuanced, apolitical judgment.
Well, we've elected people (who've then appointed people) to make those judgments on our behalf. Someone has to make them. If you have evidence that they're being made poorly, then that's something worth hearing. But what is that evidence? If you don't have such evidence...then are you arguing that nobody should be making decisions like that at all, ever?
If you bomb an outdoor wedding party with dozens of visible women and children, and then return to fire again when ambulances are on the scene, that's not an "unfortunate accident". That's deadly negligence at the very best. You're trying to twist the second example into the framework of the first.
Is it? Do you have a sense of what went into that particular decision? Was the wedding party the target, or were they hit accidentally? Did they know it was a wedding party? Did they actually do a double tap strike in this instance?
If he didn't bother looking closely enough to identify his target, that's negligence or incompetence. (Middle Eastern women are noted for dressing distinctively.) If he didn't care, that's intentional murder, or whatever euphemism we're supposed to use in those circumstances. If he was told it was all right to fire without being able to see the target clearly, that's bad policy. If he was told it's all right to knowingly kill women and children, that's also bad policy. If the drone was authorized to fire without any human in the loop somewhere, that's really bad policy, and also bad tactics--there's no point in wasting a missile on an empty field that you expected a terrorist to be standing in.
There is no circumstance where someone wasn't lethally and unnecessarily careless with innocent lives. Whether it was due to malice or incompetence is not really relevant.
> Did they actually do a double tap strike in this instance?
Yes. You've already been linked to relevant articles in this thread. Do your own homework.
You are not going to Socratic-method anyone into admitting that, yes, it actually is okay to blow up a wedding if we think there might be a terrorist in there somewhere.
No they didn't. Cite a source for that. Don't just editorialize nonsense.
> If he didn't bother looking closely enough to identify his target, that's negligence or incompetence. (Middle Eastern women are noted for dressing distinctively.) If he didn't care, that's intentional murder, or whatever euphemism we're supposed to use in those circumstances. If he was told it was all right to fire without being able to see the target clearly, that's bad policy. If he was told it's all right to knowingly kill women and children, that's also bad policy. If the drone was authorized to fire without any human in the loop somewhere, that's really bad policy, and also bad tactics--there's no point in wasting a missile on an empty field that you expected a terrorist to be standing in.
> There is no circumstance where someone wasn't lethally and unnecessarily careless with innocent lives. Whether it was due to malice or incompetence is not really relevant.
People like to make silly statements like this, maybe for rhetorical effect. Whether or not something is attributable to malice or incompetence is always relevant. Mistakes happen in war. This may well be an instance of that. But it is not evidence that the policy is net bad. There are hundreds of these strikes. Some of them will kill civilians, but sometimes it's worth killing a few civilians to kill some unusually bad actors. We have people who's job it is to make that tradeoff. Do you have evidence that they're doing so poorly?
> Yes. You've already been linked to relevant articles in this thread. Do your own homework.
Firstly, the wedding that got bombed twice was not by drones, it was by jets. So, if the point of this thread is to discuss drones, it is irrelevant. There have been many wedding strikes, which one are you referring to?
> You are not going to Socratic-method anyone into admitting that, yes, it actually is okay to blow up a wedding if we think there might be a terrorist in there somewhere.
What, exactly, is the terrorist density of a wedding that makes it bombable? 50%? 80%? 99%? Do you know what the terrorist density of these particular weddings were?
I'm...not sure how you think attack drones work? There is always a human in the loop, at least for now. Humans pick the targets and authorize weapon release.
> Whether or not something is attributable to malice or incompetence is always relevant.
It's relevant to the discussion of how and why these things happen. It's not relevant to the question of whether or not a wrong has been committed. If you drive drunk and kill four people, you certainly didn't mean to, but you still go to prison.
> We have people who's job it is to make that tradeoff. Do you have evidence that they're doing so poorly?
Do you have evidence that they're not? They've certainly had limited success in stopping international terrorism.
We discussed earlier how extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you believe that a goal was achieved here that outweighed 50 or so innocent lives, it's on you to demonstrate that, not on me to falsify it. Do your own homework.
Many of these wedding bombings didn't involve drones, they involved jets. The drones are also using fairly low res cameras, so if we are talking about one of the instances where a drone bombed a wedding, it may or may not have been clear to the operator that that's what it was. It may also have been a targeting issue. That is all to say that we do not know that a person consciously, knowingly chose to bomb a wedding full of civilians.
> It's relevant to the discussion of how and why these things happen. It's not relevant to the question of whether or not a wrong has been committed. If you drive drunk and kill four people, you certainly didn't mean to, but you still go to prison.
It's relevant to the level of the wrong, just as it is in the car case. If you kill four people in a car on purpose that is a much more serious crime than doing so by accident. Further, if the CIA intended to do this, then we are having a very different moral discussion than if they did this accidentally.
> Do you have evidence that they're not? They've certainly had limited success in stopping international terrorism.
Are they? By what metric? There have been very few Islamic terrorist attacks on US soil. Sure, they haven't wiped out radical Islam in the entire region...but we don't really have a basis for comparison here. We cannot conclude much of anything about its efficacy.
What we do know is that there are networks of people who have organized themselves for the purpose of enacting terrorist attacks on western soil. What do you propose that we do about it, if not this?
> We discussed earlier how extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you believe that a goal was achieved here that outweighed 50 or so innocent lives, it's on you to demonstrate that, not on me to falsify it. Do your own homework.
Ok. Drone strikes have killed hundreds of high ranking members of Islamic terror networks. And it is highly likely that to the extent that civilians were harmed, most of them were probably, at the very least, sympathetic to these people to begin with.
How about if your camera is so low res or your drones are too shitty to avoid killing innocent people, you stop fucking using drones?
I have 0 doubt you would find it ridiculous to use the same drones on US soil because of the risk but hey as long as its not your family/friends, its just a "risk" right?
I would not find it ridiculous at all. So, I guess your argument kind of falls apart then.
1 - https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/us/tally-of-attacks-in-us...
First of all, you cropped the start at 2001. Presumably after September 11th, 2001, because a whole lot more than 26 people died there. Second, Islamic terrorism is not just about attacks that happen inside the US. The difference between Islamic terrorism and most other forms of domestic terrorism, is that Islamic terrorism represents a global, organized threat to liberal democracies, in general. Islamic terror attacks have happened through western and eastern Europe, China, Canada, they are positively endemic in Africa, and they continue to plague many other places.
No doubt about it, there are real and serious domestic terror threats inside the United States, and it is important that our law enforcement agencies work to stop them. But in the regions of the world where we're employing drone strikes, substantial fractions of the population are involved in these organizations. In some cases, such as Afghanistan, the recognized government of the country (the Taliban) consisted of these people. There are no similarly large sections of the US population to target for drone strikes. That doesn't mean there aren't domestic terrorists here, there are, and many of them are not Islamic. The reason drones don't work here though is that they don't have the critical mass to organize - they're lone wolves. Drones simply aren't an effective tool in that context.
Don't pretend the US is doing this bullshit out of altruism for the world. You got hit once, 17 goddamn years ago, and you haven't stopped hitting back since then. Its just killing a 1000, 10000 people for every one of yours killed, responding so monstrously out of proportion that anyone who attacks the US will think twice.
There aren't "large sections" of Afghanistan population to target via drones either - believe it or not, most of the people there just want to live their lives like the rest of us. You think "substantial fractions of the population" are involved in terrorism in ANY country? Do you think more than 0.01% of the population is involved in terrorism? Its just a ridiculous claim.
But again, the US doesn't care about innocent bystanders killed or collateral damage or how little their efforts have reduced terrorism (they haven't). They only want to send a message - "you kill 10 of ours, we kill 10000 of yours". While pretending thats all A-OK morally and totally not terrorism. So 90% of the population of 2-3 entire countries suffer because of the 0.1% or 1% of bad apples who are terrorists. For 17 years. Entire generations of people who've known nothing but war for shit they had nothing to do with.
Even the phrasing grates at me. Killing a bunch of innocent people in another country is just a "risk" to some moron with a drone. If all of a sudden that moron was piloting a drone IN THE US and blew up a church/school on accident, I guarantee you wouldn't be so comfortable abstracting away lives as "risk".
By the way, if we count all the innocent people killed by the US as "mistakes", it is certain that number would be >10x the people who died to Islamic terrorists on 9/11... so isn't the US military as much of a terrorist?
Its a sick strain of sociopathic paternalism by which you can abstract away peoples lives as long as they aren't your own countrymen.
I wouldn't be happy about it. But these things are inevitable consequences of war. People get shot accidentally by the police, here, in the United States. We try our best to minimize it, but it happens. It is an inevitable consequence of law enforcement. If one of my family members were accidentally killed by a cop, I would be upset. I'd want to understand the specifics of the incident, and see if perhaps the cop was being negligent in some way. But, if they were not being negligent and the situation had warranted it, and it was just an unfortunate accident, then I would not be angry with the officer, or the department.
For some proper context, I really suggest reading this CS Monitor piece from back in 2001 [0].
Keen observers will quickly realize that pretty much everything written there has become reality over these past 17 years. It should also be noted that there's a certain irony to it when the "Christian Science Monitor" is peeved about your religious rhetoric being a bit too much on the extreme end.
This is something that seemingly passed by many US Americans like it never happened. But you can't declare yourself a "Christian nation" going on "crusades", hinging large parts of your popularity drive on this imagined "clash of the cultures", and then act all surprised and outraged when the opposite side also reacts with more radicalization.
Just looking at the trends for global terrorism for these past 2 decades [1], there's a very clear picture to be found there. Before 2002 countries like India, Colombia and Algeria topped the "terrorism charts".
But by 2003, as a response to the "War on Terror" started by the US, you already see Iraq and Afghanistan making their way up the list, steadily increasing in the number of attacks and fatalities until in 2005 they take the top.
Since then there's been little change, only Pakistan making their way up there some years, one might wonder why? [2]
But all three of these countries represent massive outliers and make up the vast majority of "Islamic terrorism", what do they all have in common?
9/11 was bad, no debate there. But the US's reaction to 9/11 was worse, it perfectly played into Osamas original intentions of starting a "culture clash", stigmatizing even moderate Islam in the Western world, making frustrated and discriminated moderates more likely to join his cause.
In that context, the US pretty much kicked a hornet's nest down the street and still keeps kicking it to this day. Yet many US Americans keep wondering where the angry hornets are coming from and "why they hate us so much".
[0] https://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0919/p12s2-woeu.html
Hm? Which crusades are those?
> Just looking at the trends for global terrorism for these past 2 decades [1], there's a very clear picture to be found there. Before 2002 countries like India, Colombia and Algeria topped the "terrorism charts".
You mean countries that had civil wars going on in them? That seems practically tautological.
> But by 2003, as a response to the "War on Terror" started by the US, you already see Iraq and Afghanistan making their way up the list, steadily increasing in the number of attacks and fatalities until in 2005 they take the top.
You mean that terrorist attacks increased in places when they had foreign military bases in their country to target? What is that evidence of, exactly?
> But all three of these countries represent massive outliers and make up the vast majority of "Islamic terrorism", what do they all have in common?
Fundamentalist Islam and low economic development.
So there may be irony in the name, but not in their practices.
I've never researched their actual background, but over the years I've noticed their content to be usually of very good quality.
I suppose it's a good example of why one should never judge a book by its cover, or in this case, the content of a website by its domain name ;)
If you look at the history of terrorism in Europe for instance, before the 70s it was mostly independentist mvts / de-colonisation related. 70s to early 80s was mostly far left terror attacks. Mid 80s state sponsored terrorism (Libya, Iran). 90s to now, islamist terrorism.
Islamists were blowing bombs in the metro in Paris in the 90s, and tried a 9/11 style plane attack on Paris in 1994 [1].
Islamism is a worldwide phenomenon, like communism in its time. If you go through every single muslim country from Marocco to Indonesia, the largest or second largest political party is an islamist party, or the islamists are in power, or they have been outlawed after taking too much power, or they are one of the major party to a civil war. Terrorism is a side effect of this rise in islamism, like the red brigades, RAF, etc were to communism.
So no, it’s not just a reaction to the war in Iraq.
And what allowed Islamism to rise and prosper like that over these past decades?
The power vacuum created by the removal of Saddam in an illegal invasion? The resulting unleashed sectarian violence?
You can't just switch around cause and effect like that and call it a day. To quote from the 2001 article:
> Moderate Muslim opinion could also easily be swayed against America, predicted Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, head of the Muslim Parliament in Britain, an umbrella group for Muslim organizations. "If they end up killing innocent civilians it will be very unfair," Dr. Siddiqui said. "The problems will arise if people see that justice has not been done."
Now, nearly 2 decades later, we have relentless and ML driven drone warfare [0], torture scandals [1], a US president who is not only condoning it but actively advocating for it. The blatant injustice is done out in the open to see for everybody [2], justified in haphazard "They do not have rights" ways to a point where a US president just declares a "Muslim ban", followed up with pointless legal shenanigans how "it totally isn't a Muslim ban, but a Muslim country ban!", like that's in any way better.
How can you look at all that and deny it contributed to the rise of Islamist sentiments? Don't you think it's kind of telling that you have to summon the good ol "they caught the communism" bug to still justify these US actions?
Is it really that difficult to take a step back and admit: "We've fucked up, we've been going about this the wrong way from the very beginning"? Is doubling down on this oppressive and destructive path really the only way forward from here?
[0] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-n...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp
It seems to me that your question is coming at this from the wrong angle.
a) be aware of all the information relevant to each operation
b) make a judgment as to whether each individual operation is worthwhile
Now, i'm not saying that makes them infallible. It certainly doesn't. There's a long history of people in such positions making poor choices. But if you're implying that they are, i'd like to see some evidence. Because what I see is a lot of "civilians died, therefore it was bad", but very little consideration of the objective of the mission, and whether or not the possibility of collateral damage was justified. What we do know is that smart people in positions of power believed that it was, and i'm happy to second-guess those beliefs if given good reason, but thus far i've never seen anyone give good reason in the case of these drone strikes.
Because the very action they are using to eliminate enemy combatants may in fact be creating more of them?
That's an interesting statement. Do you have evidence for it?
“over the past 15 years. Increased US efforts are correlated with a worsening of the overall terror situation. Statistical modeling indicates for every additional billion dollars spent and 1,000 American troops sent to fight the war on terror, the number of terror attacks worldwide increased by 19 (data available from the author). Furthermore, the model finds up to 80 percent of the variation in the number of worldwide terror attacks since 9/11 can be explained by just those two variables—US money spent and military members sent to fight the war on terror. The data for both money spent and troops deployed come from the Congressional Research Service publication, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11 by Amy Belasco. The number of terror attacks is from the Global Terrorism Database, hosted by the University of Maryland.”
“The data show countries the US invaded had 143 more terror attacks per year than countries the US did not invade. Similarly, countries in which the US conducted drone strikes were home to 395 more terror attacks per year than those where the US did not.”
https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/parameters/issues/Spring...
The fundamental problem is that where the US targets its drone strikes is (or at least, should be) correlated to where terrorism is in the process of springing up. So, if our government was actually doing a really great job analyzing these things, you would see the same data pattern - drone strikes lead terrorist attacks.
It does not trouble me at all from a moral position that these individual were targeted and killed, however. If they were not US citizens, i'd consider this an excellent example of a great use of drones. Do you disagree and if so why?
Regardless, not taking action at that time would likely have been better. They were US citizens, their rights were abrogated and they were killed illegally.
He was a 16 year old Al Qaeda member who was the son of a leader of the group.
> The second, because the president using his sole authority to order the assassination of someone shouldn't happen.
Ever?
> Regardless, not taking action at that time would likely have been better. They were US citizens, their rights were abrogated and they were killed illegally.
Agree that because they were US citizens they should have been given due process, or at the very least, the legal rationale for their killing should have been subject to public scrutiny. But I don't think this really makes the case against drone strikes as a tool.
Yes.
You could make the argument that targeted strikes authorized by a single person are acceptable in a state of war (which we are not in), but even with that an assassination should have checks on it, always.
Edit: Actually I'll go further than that. You lose all moral authority to wage war the moment you start deliberately targeting civilian medics, and that's standard policy with US drone strikes. See "double-tap."
You think their policy is designed to kill civilian medics? Or do you think the policy was designed to kill other terrorists who come by to try to save their brothers?
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/outrage-at...
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2013-08-01/get...
Was it being done in built-up areas? I see the word 'rescuer' being used in these articles. But I notably do not see the word 'civilian'. A terrorist who tries to save the lives of his terrorist buddies is still a 'rescuer', and that's exactly who these drone strikes ought to be targeting.
Do you believe that the CIA is purposefully targeting random villagers for drone strikes?
If yes...why?
If no...then you must believe that the CIA is intelligent enough to have asked the very same question that you have, and concluded that the likely respondents would in fact be enemy combatants.
Of course not. I believe that the CIA doesn't care who dies as long as they get their guy, and if they make everyone afraid to help drone strike victims, then it's much more likely that any terrorists who survive the initial attack will bleed out on the ground. (Innocents too, but they don't care about them.)
This is hardly an unusual claim. You can't be unaware that the CIA is infamous for decades of murder and abuse.
So, your supposition is that the CIA is purposely killing civilians to deter them from giving aid to possible terrorists?
> This is hardly an unusual claim. You can't be unaware that the CIA is infamous for decades of murder and abuse.
The CIA has certainly assassinated people over the years. They've certainly fomented revolutions and meddled in geopolitics in myriad ways. I'm unaware of any explicit campaign to target civilians, though. Are you?
That's what I just said, yes.
> I'm unaware of any explicit campaign to target civilians, though. Are you?
There's been enough evidence presented so far that I believe it's now on you to demonstrate that it's false, if you can.
Maybe this has worked for you before, demanding indisputable evidence for every fiddly detail, hoping that your opponent takes the bait and gets bogged down in minutiae?
Zero evidence has been presented that the CIA targeted civilians intentionally. All you'd have to do to prove me wrong is link it, if it's already here.
> Maybe this has worked for you before, demanding indisputable evidence for every fiddly detail, hoping that your opponent takes the bait and gets bogged down in minutiae?
Maybe this has worked for you before? Where you insist evidence has been supplied elsewhere without ever providing any of your own?
Also, unfortunately other technologically advanced powers exist. Regardless of the desire for pacifist isolationism, Russia and China will continue to work on military technology, and it only takes a few decades of complacency to fall far behind.
Consider arming police officers with tasers. We were promised it would be an alternative to guns and help protect civilians but instead police officers use tasers a ton and still shoot people a ton as well.[1]
There’s always the excuse new smarter technologies will save lives but it ends up the “safer” they are the lower the threshold to use.
1. Da_chicken’s reply below has a good source!
You cannot escape the law of unintended consequences.
https://www.alternet.org/story/149115/the_6_most_shocking_ca...
A taser can't replace a gun, it doesn't function like a gun, it's not as reliable as a gun, it doesn't have the range, etc.
But it can be useful in lieu of physical force or if someone is resisting, which is what became its use case.
-- Joseph Weizenbaum in "Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment To Calculation" written in 1976, more timely than ever
Weren't drones used to carefully select targets inside cities and other areas with civilians. I'm not sure carpet bombing is an alternative for those cases:
"Carpet bombing of cities, towns, villages, or other areas containing a concentration of civilians is considered a war crime[5] as of the 1977 Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions." - source Wikipedia entry for Carpet Bombing
Because there are more courses of action other than "drone strike" and "carpet bombing".
Indeed, but those courses aren't always available, and war will happen in the way war happens.
If not, your argument isn't about drones, it is about pacifism. That's like saying "I'll magically lift everyone out of the way" in the trolley problem. Sure, it is a nice thought, but it is not an answer to the question.
I'll ask again: if the only two options were carpet bombing and smart bombs, which one would you choose?
Don't run away from the question.
In some imaginary world where you are somehow being compelled to chose between a button that says "Drone Strike" and one that says "Carpet Bombing", obviously "Drone Strike" is the correct option. But, equally obviously, that is a terrible model for reality. In reality, the decision maker always has the option to not kill anybody at that time. Yes, always. There might be other consequences for that choice, but admitting that it exists isn't pacifism, it's just common sense.
Carpet bombing and a drone strike are not in the same "solution space", its like trying to tighten your shoelaces with your hands or with a 10 ton excevator.
Oh, but they are (particularly because I'm not just including drone strikes, but smart bombs).
Wanna destroy a factory, a power-plant, a bunker, a government office?
In WW2, you'd just carpet-bomb the surrounding area and hope some bombs hit the target.
Today, you deliver a payload to a specific part of it.
Compare the bombing of Belgrade in the Balkan wars to any WW2 bombing run.
There are two discussions in place:
- How we make weapons more precise and limit collateral damage - How we reduce the need for weapons in the first place
Both lead to a better situation than the status quo.
That’s a false dichotomy. You could do neither.
That's the only alternative?
No one was ever going to carpet bomb a wedding.
Not a wedding, indeed, an entire town, with possibly dozens of weddings happening at the same time. Plus hospitals, schools, etc.
If you had to pick between carpet bombing and smart bombs, which one would you pick? (And consider you don't have a choice, like the trolley problem, you NEED to pick one).
How do we not have a choice to NOT bomb a desert on the other side of the world?
Can you at least accept that the burden of proof is on the guy who wants to go bomb random people not on the pacifists.
Can I choose to drop the bomb on Americans instead?
>killing 42,600 civilians and wounding 37,000 in Hamburg and virtually destroying most of the city.
>The unusually warm weather and good conditions meant that the bombing was highly concentrated around the intended targets and also created a vortex and whirling updraft of super-heated air which created a 460 meter high tornado of fire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_Wa...
---
17 January 1991 – 23 February 1991
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_War_air_campaign
>2,000–3,000 Iraqi civilians killed
>10,000–12,000 killed
>100,000 sorties, dropping 88,500 tons of bombs,
>Coalition bombing raids destroyed Iraqi civilian infrastructure. 11 of Iraq's 20 major power stations and 119 substations were totally destroyed, while a further six major power stations were damaged.[18][19] At the end of the war, electricity production was at four percent of its pre-war levels. Bombs destroyed the utility of all major dams, most major pumping stations, and many sewage treatment plants, telecommunications equipment, port facilities, oil refineries and distribution, railroads and bridges were also destroyed.
---
NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia
>The bombing killed between 489 and 528 civilians, and destroyed bridges, industrial plants, public buildings, private businesses, as well as barracks and military installations.
>In 2000, a year after the bombing ended, Group 17 published a survey dealing with damage and economic restoration. The report concluded that direct damage from the bombing totalled $3.8 billion, not including Kosovo, of which only 5% had been repaired at that time
>In 2006, a group of economists from the G17 Plus party estimated the total economic losses resulting from the bombing were about $29.6 billion.
We're in a world where the destructive properties of a modern army are so extreme that combat has evolved/devolved to medieval like small scale/intensity battle. Instead of targeting economic output, social networks of individuals are targeted.
People always seek effective ways to kill their enemies in conflict.
> enabling those who do not have humanity's best interest in their heart.
This statement is all subject to your interpretation of "humanity's best interests". Not saying I disagree with your interpretation... Just saying: there are many interpretations, especially in other cultural bubbles.
Face the truth. If you want no killing, Your enemy isn’t Google, it’s your neighbour.
That person lost.
> it's not Google's fault either.
Starting from a false truth, you can come to any conclusion. Google is responsible for choosing to enable immoral acts and pretending there are no fault actors is one of your faults.
- If you continue this line of thinking, your only option probably is to extinguish all human being.
Enough said, enjoy your day.
You can withhold taxes by dropping your income below the minimum threshold.
You could ofcourse proclaim not wanting to take part in said nation anymore and not pay the taxes, but then you would also loose out of well, the rest of society basically.
Assuming isolated China vs. US war, there's still the whole Europe to manufacture trinkets for.
Maybe it's my memories of being taught about World War 1 and 2 speaking, but it seems more likely Europe would side with the US than China, and kinda unlikely they'd let both parties import goods as they please.
The chances of it remaining an 'isolated' war where no one else gets involved would be low enough than action would probably cost China most of the European market along with the likes of Canada/Australia/etc.
Of course, it's all pretty insane to speculate about, since:
A: Most countries now seem like they're trying to avoid actual wars as much as possible, and most remaining issues seem to be sparked off more by extremist nutcases/cults than a country's army trying to invade or fight off another.
B: The US, most of Europe, China, etc have nuclear weapons, so any actual war between any of them would probably end like everyone's worst fears about the Cold War made reality. Don't think there'd be much trade or economics left after that.
The US never has to surrender - they simply say we will use our nuclear weapons. These wars have no victor hence these wars have been replaced by proxy wars in various locations.
That's why Russia now focuses solely on disrupting elections and cyber warfare-only from within can these nations be affected and weakened.
> Quick question: in this hypothetical where China presents an existential threat to the US, what happens to the Chinese economy when they invade the largest consumer of their domestically produced goods and services?
WWII was not bad for the US economy. The car plants were converted to build tanks and airplanes, then they were converted back when the war was over.
I don't think China poses an existential military threat to the US itself in the medium term, but it does pose one to Taiwan and potentially some other countries in the region. Unfortunately, the main thing that contains that threat and maintains peace is US military superiority.
Is it personal liberty within the confines of enough law to provide some semblance of stability? The US is straining with that and it is arguably the most free of the Western Nations. Before the EU apologists jump on, keep in mind the EU Human Rights Court ruled that no one is allowed to speak against Mohamed (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/european-court-ind...). Gun violence appears to be leaving the ghettos and moving into more civilized neighborhoods.
Is it an authoritarian power that feeds, houses, and medicates its population? China does a lot of this. Hunger is down dramatically. People are still largely free to go about their daily lives.
Is it in-between? I don't know. The EU is starting to fray there. Nationalist movements are seeing that countries have to give up their current individual identities to conform with a Brussels/German worldview. Is this wrong? How are you to say?
My whole point in all this is that you've alluded to some truth claim as an attack on Google. Can you a) clearly define your truth claim, at least to yourself, and b) say why it's more true than the Chinese view that people are sheep and need a shepard? The Left in the US holds this view to varying degrees. That's why we need all this regulation. No one should be free to buy plastic straws.
No they didn't. They said you're not allowed to incite religious hatred by focussing attention on one particular religious figure from one particular time when the practice was common.
If that commentator is interested in paedophilia she will have made comments about the practice of child marriage among Christians -- something still happening in the US today. She did not mention any other region because she's not interested in attacking paedophilia, she's interested in attacking Muslims.
The greater part of the ruling is that you can't say something that might incite to violence a 3rd party. If I say that Manchester is a terrible team, am I not at risk of loosing my free speech? Many of those footballer fans are violent, as shown by numerous riots. Clearly making them fussy is a risky thing. Am I liable if some adults fair to act rationally when the honor of their team, of which they are not personally members, is attacked? According to the EU court, maybe.
Child marriage is not now, nor has it even been common in Christianity. There are fringe groups that endorse it, and they are rare. They are operating well outside of the bounds of the historic teachings of the church. This is not a no-true-scottsman argument. There are teachings of the churches throughout the ages. If someone behalves in a manner that countermands those teachings, they are an apostate (assuming they still claim fidelity to the great religion). You've created a false-dichotomy in order to remove the true issue here: as the West embraces Muslims with open arms, you're going to run afoul of cultural differences. The West can either say, "No, you many not mutilate a 9 year olds vagina and marry her!" Or it can say, "Sure, why not?" At present, the vanguard of the process such as Sweden, is already ruling on such unions [1]. It is a thorny issue, but the EU will do what it always does: capitulate to invading forces.
https://www.quora.com/Did-Sweden-legalize-child-marriage-and...
But any time an entity is afraid to be challenged, it is selfishly choosing its own survival over the possibility that there exists a better provider for its citizens. That part is the "not best" part, and it's also the part Google is accused of helping with. If Google was secretly working with the PRC to improve Chinese citizens' medical care, there wouldn't be any concern.
If 90% of the population's standard of living improves at the expense of the 10%, is that wrong? Where is the line? Even when a rising tide raises all boats, there are many who will still get swamped. Should we stop forward progression due to that?
(Well, maybe it correlates, but then I'd argue you're just optimising the wrong variable...)
I'm not following how your second paragraph is connected to the question of governments protecting themselves at the expense of their citizens' well-being. It sounds like you're talking about the trolley problem, and tying that to some notion that we can halt 'progress'? What do you mean?
GPs framing of this as "EU Human Rights Court ruled that no one is allowed to speak against Mohamed" is very misleading, the court ruled no such thing. (I still don't like how that case went, on all levels, but it's no-where near extreme as some people claim)
IMHO no need to go from "this treaty isn't as absolute on free speech as I'd like" to "what's the point of any of it then?".
But Google has so much power to help, and in fact is better-positioned than almost any organization to help - and in fact has a duty to do so given that it helped create the problems. For instance, Youtube is one of the biggest sources of propaganda and uncivilized discourse there is.
That's a subjective judgement that depends on who, where and when you are. Kipling's vision of "humanity" and its interest is very different that Mao's, which is in turn very different from yours.
Technology makes things more efficient, but doesn't change the act. Getting your head bashed in by a caveman, cut off by a 19th century cavalry sabre wielded by a horseman, or vaporized by an explosive shell has the same end result.
Do you equate the person who whittled the caveman's club, raised the cavalryman's' horse or operated the supply train that transported the shell with Google?
Both are working in service of making it easier for the government to kill people.
No such product launched, so no enabling has occurred. You might be confusing Google with Apple here, but Apple's workers haven't protested, as far as we've heard.
Is it any wonder they did what they did?
They're starting to articulate a shift away from Larry Page's idealistic view of making information universally accessible and useful and toward tempering expectations about what technology can do.
After that they'll pivot increasingly toward a position that lets them justify the drone and censorship programs without the baggage of Page's original naivety.
Again, that's an overly cynical take. But it's kind of hard to avoid reading that as a possibility.
I'd argue you're being overly naive rather than overly cynical -- real-world trade offs have downsides, and require deliberation. They're not solvable with sloganeering or absolute purity.
It requires "humanity" to achieve those goals. So if idealistic goals aren't achieved, it's not because Google did the wrong thing, it's because Google's users didn't do the right thing.
So it's a diversion of responsibility away from Google, which frees them to take a less vision-directed and more financially-directed approach.
But that doesn't mean that he's an empty vessel. It sounds like he's thinking about it and trying to weigh upsides against downsides, even if Google would be disproportionately blamed for the downsides.
But then I've long thought that about the whole 'technology sector' shorthand. As if construction, agriculture, manufacturing, medicine, etc. were not technologies.
Until the world gets violent, technology is solving problems. Even then, it will be the politicians, not the programmers who caused this.
EDIT: HN whales, I'll never understand your silence.
"Do you still feel like Silicon Valley has retained that idealism that struck you when you arrived here?"
"There’s still that optimism. But the optimism is tempered by a sense of deliberation. Things have changed quite a bit. You know, we deliberate about things a lot more, and we are more thoughtful about what we do. But there’s a deeper thing here, which is: Technology doesn’t solve humanity’s problems. It was always naïve to think so. Technology is an enabler, but humanity has to deal with humanity’s problems. I think we’re both over-reliant on technology as a way to solve things and probably, at this moment, over-indexing on technology as a source of all problems, too."