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"The Empire’s accidental harming of Luke’s Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen can be directly compared to the casualties of President Obama’s drone campaign, whose body c

by gd1 11y ago

"The Empire’s accidental harming of Luke’s Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen can be directly compared to the casualties of President Obama’s drone campaign, whose body count terrorists capitalize upon for recruitment." Uh-huh. And I suppose Alderaan was like Hiroshima, they were just forcing the rebels to surrender without risking stormtrooper lives with a ground invasion. Or something like that.

jameskilton 11y ago
Actually, yes. That's exactly right. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/10/29/the-destruction-of-alderaan-was-completely-justified/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/10/29/t...
- masklinn 11y ago
  Not even that. The Empire had a population of >100 quadrilion, Alderaan killed about 2 billion people. That's a difference of 8 orders of magnitude (50 million), that's equivalent to killing ~140 earth humans. In relative scale, it doesn't come close to Hiroshima, it's closer to having bombed a large wedding.
  - tehstone8 11y ago
    I'm not sure it's fair to argue that it would scale in such a way. Sure numerically it's an insignificant portion of the population but the Death Star still literally destroyed and entire planet and every living being on it. Rather than comparing it to bombing a wedding, I think it's more accurate to compare it to destroying every trace of some micro-nation and then cleansing any plant and animal life native to that nation.
    - masklinn 11y ago
      > I'm not sure it's fair to argue that it would scale in such a way. Sure numerically it's an insignificant portion of the population but the Death Star still literally destroyed and entire planet and every living being on it. Between core worlds, protectorates, governorships and colonies, the empire is estimated to cover close to 70 million inhabited worlds, and billions of uninhabitable planets. > Rather than comparing it to bombing a wedding, I think it's more accurate to compare it to destroying every trace of some micro-nation More like a small town taken over by entrenched terrorists. > then cleansing any plant and animal life native to that nation. A firebombing would do that, and that's an unfortunate side-effect more than the purpose of the act.
  - gd1 11y ago
    You can try this in court one day. "Well, there were only 100 million people in Roman times, and there are like 6 billion people now, so on a relative scale, so me brutally murdering someone is an order of magnitude less serious. That's like killing 1/60th of a human, like a field mouse or a small puppy or something?"
bluejekyll 11y ago
I don't think this article was meant to be more than thought provoking. It ignores the history of the Jedi as a peace keeping force of a "good" republic, who are dispersed from that service after a cruel dictator rises to take control over that republic with his supreme powers over the military and no political method to prevent or restrict that control. As a comparison to the US, it's better to think about this as a concern about what happens as Congress continues to push more power into the hands of the President because they don't want to deal, or are incapable of compromising, due to political issues derived from radicalized voting bases formed from gerrymandered political districts. In all this tongue in cheek stuff, there is a real possibility that some crazy radical religious fundamentalist ends up in power and abuses that... Oh George W Bush happened, did we survive?
- fbbbbb 11y ago
  Yes, the article is essentially quote mining the movies.
  - CWuestefeld 11y ago
    But back in the real world, are the news networks doing much different from that?
cwyers 11y ago
I am incredibly conflicted about what happened at Hiroshima, and I am coming around to the belief that what the US did there wasn't justified. (When I was serving in the Marine Corps in Japan, I visited the bridge that was the bomb target -- chosen because it could be easily seen from a plane -- and talked to a survivor, and it was really harrowing.) But... the US and Japan were at war at the time. Alderaan was a part of the Empire! There were declared hostilities with the Rebellion, but the Rebellion wasn't ON Alderaan. Leia grew up there, but that was about the extent of it. The Empire wasn't at war with Alderaan. It's as if during the Civil War we murdered everyone in Cleveland because one of the key members of the Confederacy had an uncle who lived in Cleveland. There's no ambiguity here, the destruction of Alderaan is clearly beyond the pale.

by gd1 11y ago

jameskilton 11y ago

Actually, yes. That's exactly right. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/10/29/the-destruction-of-alderaan-was-completely-justified/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2015/10/29/t...

masklinn 11y ago
Not even that. The Empire had a population of >100 quadrilion, Alderaan killed about 2 billion people. That's a difference of 8 orders of magnitude (50 million), that's equivalent to killing ~140 earth humans. In relative scale, it doesn't come close to Hiroshima, it's closer to having bombed a large wedding.
- tehstone8 11y ago
  I'm not sure it's fair to argue that it would scale in such a way. Sure numerically it's an insignificant portion of the population but the Death Star still literally destroyed and entire planet and every living being on it. Rather than comparing it to bombing a wedding, I think it's more accurate to compare it to destroying every trace of some micro-nation and then cleansing any plant and animal life native to that nation.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    > I'm not sure it's fair to argue that it would scale in such a way. Sure numerically it's an insignificant portion of the population but the Death Star still literally destroyed and entire planet and every living being on it. Between core worlds, protectorates, governorships and colonies, the empire is estimated to cover close to 70 million inhabited worlds, and billions of uninhabitable planets. > Rather than comparing it to bombing a wedding, I think it's more accurate to compare it to destroying every trace of some micro-nation More like a small town taken over by entrenched terrorists. > then cleansing any plant and animal life native to that nation. A firebombing would do that, and that's an unfortunate side-effect more than the purpose of the act.
- gd1 11y ago
  You can try this in court one day. "Well, there were only 100 million people in Roman times, and there are like 6 billion people now, so on a relative scale, so me brutally murdering someone is an order of magnitude less serious. That's like killing 1/60th of a human, like a field mouse or a small puppy or something?"

bluejekyll 11y ago

I don't think this article was meant to be more than thought provoking. It ignores the history of the Jedi as a peace keeping force of a "good" republic, who are dispersed from that service after a cruel dictator rises to take control over that republic with his supreme powers over the military and no political method to prevent or restrict that control. As a comparison to the US, it's better to think about this as a concern about what happens as Congress continues to push more power into the hands of the President because they don't want to deal, or are incapable of compromising, due to political issues derived from radicalized voting bases formed from gerrymandered political districts. In all this tongue in cheek stuff, there is a real possibility that some crazy radical religious fundamentalist ends up in power and abuses that... Oh George W Bush happened, did we survive?

fbbbbb 11y ago
Yes, the article is essentially quote mining the movies.
- CWuestefeld 11y ago
  But back in the real world, are the news networks doing much different from that?

cwyers 11y ago

I am incredibly conflicted about what happened at Hiroshima, and I am coming around to the belief that what the US did there wasn't justified. (When I was serving in the Marine Corps in Japan, I visited the bridge that was the bomb target -- chosen because it could be easily seen from a plane -- and talked to a survivor, and it was really harrowing.) But... the US and Japan were at war at the time. Alderaan was a part of the Empire! There were declared hostilities with the Rebellion, but the Rebellion wasn't ON Alderaan. Leia grew up there, but that was about the extent of it. The Empire wasn't at war with Alderaan. It's as if during the Civil War we murdered everyone in Cleveland because one of the key members of the Confederacy had an uncle who lived in Cleveland. There's no ambiguity here, the destruction of Alderaan is clearly beyond the pale.