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Black and white decisions are a luxury that not all people are afforded. Yes it's terrible that innocent lives are lost but it's at least equally terrible, man

Black and white decisions are a luxury that not all people are afforded. Yes it's terrible that innocent lives are lost but it's at least equally terrible, many would argue even more so, that innocent lives of your clan are lost. For many decisions outside the obvious, it is often the case that you're selecting from a pool of bad choices.

gonvaled 10y ago
> Black and white decisions are a luxury that not all people are afforded. Specially if you are in a hurry for dinner with your pals and you need to press that "yes, do drone strike" button in your mobile phone while you are getting dressed, even though you never heard about this "Abdulah" guy whose photograph you are seeing in the screen right now, but he is unshaven and looks dirty, and is not looking friendly to the camera, so yes, please just strike, and could I have fries with that, please? > innocent lives of your clan are lost No, there are right things, and wrong things, no matter what members of what clan they affect. Repeat with me: all human lives have exactly the same value.
- rottyguy 10y ago
  I assure you not everyone shares your opinion (as not everyone shares mine). I'll just state there are lots of inconvenient truths in life and, until, you encounter them, you may not fully understand. The trick is to realize the possibility and not hold an absolute stance when in discussion. We are always learning.
  - gonvaled 10y ago
    > I assure you not everyone shares your opinion (as not everyone shares mine) I know. And the only thing I would like from you american leaders is to state this openly: we are only interested in defending our way of life, with wherever means it takes. This is what is happening all around the world right now, but you are hypocritically pretending that you are trying to uphold an specially pure moral standard in your multiple conflicts around the world. That's something going for Trump: he does not seem to be hypocritical.
- awesomerobot 10y ago
  >never heard about this "Abdulah" guy whose photograph you are seeing in the screen right now, but he is unshaven and looks dirty, and is not looking friendly to the camera, so yes, please just strike, and could I have fries with that, please I get the sentiment — but the commander of military power is basically saying yes or no to military intelligence — it's not their role to be the researchers, just the approvers of the people in command of the research. There's definitely a 'banality of evil' level of separation there, for sure. And what good is having military intelligence when no one is held accountable for bombing a hospital? Too many degrees of separation.
  - gonvaled 10y ago
    > it's not their role to be the researchers, just the approvers of the people in command of the research. Poor Abdulah dies. He was just buying some groceries for his family, and was taken for Muhamed, who really looks like him, but they just were once in a bar drinking tee, just by chance on the same place at the same time. Somebody fucked up. The gatherers of information on the field are not responsible because they are just collecting facts, which could be used for anything, so they have nothing to do with the death of Abdulah. Errors happen all the time when collecting information, and anyway who would know this one little fact would be used to assassinate poor Abdulah? The intelligence provider is not responsible because he is not taking any decission, just passing information higher up the chain of command. The approver is not responsible, because he is just vetting intelligence provided by others. The one pulling the drone's trigger is not responsible, since he is just following orders. The drone is not responsible, since it is just a machine. The politicians designing the whole system are not responsible, since they were doing their best and, you know, shit happens, we can not make perfect laws which cover every possible eventuality. In fact nobody killed poor Abdulah. I wonder if he is still alive? > Too many degrees of separation By design, if you ask me. Now you can bomb anything and kill anybody, since nobody really did it.
    - awesomerobot 10y ago
      Even if you track down the person in the chain of command who's responsible, they just get a slap on a wrist for making the "mistake" of bombing a civilian hospital.
richmarr 10y ago
> Black and white decisions are a luxury... Yes and no. In this case a lot of the 'grey' in these decisions is caused directly by wilful and callous foriegn policy, in which Clinton has played her part. You don't see the Prime Minister of Sweden executing foreigners on his Apple Watch
- rottyguy 10y ago
  Except life is not like writing a program where you've coded down some rabbit hole and realize you should have done X several layers up and are able to go back and fix it. It's more of hack as you go and hope the whole thing doesn't blow up until you, possibly, get a chance to rewrite or build an improved version
  - richmarr 10y ago
    > Except life is not like writing a program... So, your argument is that it's okay to have terrible foreign policy because we don't have time travel. Are you sure you want to go with that?
  - chriswarbo 10y ago
    > It's more of hack as you go and hope the whole thing doesn't blow up until you, possibly, get a chance to rewrite or build an improved version That's certainly true a lot of the time. I disagree regarding legal/political cases like this though, since a "the whole thing blowing up" (in the sense of public outcry) is the rewrite/improvement. The aim of the game is to accrue as much power, capability, mindshare and precedent as possible, but slowly enough that the frog doesn't jump out of the water.

gonvaled 10y ago

> Black and white decisions are a luxury that not all people are afforded. Specially if you are in a hurry for dinner with your pals and you need to press that "yes, do drone strike" button in your mobile phone while you are getting dressed, even though you never heard about this "Abdulah" guy whose photograph you are seeing in the screen right now, but he is unshaven and looks dirty, and is not looking friendly to the camera, so yes, please just strike, and could I have fries with that, please? > innocent lives of your clan are lost No, there are right things, and wrong things, no matter what members of what clan they affect. Repeat with me: all human lives have exactly the same value.

rottyguy 10y ago
I assure you not everyone shares your opinion (as not everyone shares mine). I'll just state there are lots of inconvenient truths in life and, until, you encounter them, you may not fully understand. The trick is to realize the possibility and not hold an absolute stance when in discussion. We are always learning.
- gonvaled 10y ago
  > I assure you not everyone shares your opinion (as not everyone shares mine) I know. And the only thing I would like from you american leaders is to state this openly: we are only interested in defending our way of life, with wherever means it takes. This is what is happening all around the world right now, but you are hypocritically pretending that you are trying to uphold an specially pure moral standard in your multiple conflicts around the world. That's something going for Trump: he does not seem to be hypocritical.
awesomerobot 10y ago
>never heard about this "Abdulah" guy whose photograph you are seeing in the screen right now, but he is unshaven and looks dirty, and is not looking friendly to the camera, so yes, please just strike, and could I have fries with that, please I get the sentiment — but the commander of military power is basically saying yes or no to military intelligence — it's not their role to be the researchers, just the approvers of the people in command of the research. There's definitely a 'banality of evil' level of separation there, for sure. And what good is having military intelligence when no one is held accountable for bombing a hospital? Too many degrees of separation.
- gonvaled 10y ago
  > it's not their role to be the researchers, just the approvers of the people in command of the research. Poor Abdulah dies. He was just buying some groceries for his family, and was taken for Muhamed, who really looks like him, but they just were once in a bar drinking tee, just by chance on the same place at the same time. Somebody fucked up. The gatherers of information on the field are not responsible because they are just collecting facts, which could be used for anything, so they have nothing to do with the death of Abdulah. Errors happen all the time when collecting information, and anyway who would know this one little fact would be used to assassinate poor Abdulah? The intelligence provider is not responsible because he is not taking any decission, just passing information higher up the chain of command. The approver is not responsible, because he is just vetting intelligence provided by others. The one pulling the drone's trigger is not responsible, since he is just following orders. The drone is not responsible, since it is just a machine. The politicians designing the whole system are not responsible, since they were doing their best and, you know, shit happens, we can not make perfect laws which cover every possible eventuality. In fact nobody killed poor Abdulah. I wonder if he is still alive? > Too many degrees of separation By design, if you ask me. Now you can bomb anything and kill anybody, since nobody really did it.
  - awesomerobot 10y ago
    Even if you track down the person in the chain of command who's responsible, they just get a slap on a wrist for making the "mistake" of bombing a civilian hospital.

richmarr 10y ago

> Black and white decisions are a luxury... Yes and no. In this case a lot of the 'grey' in these decisions is caused directly by wilful and callous foriegn policy, in which Clinton has played her part. You don't see the Prime Minister of Sweden executing foreigners on his Apple Watch

rottyguy 10y ago
Except life is not like writing a program where you've coded down some rabbit hole and realize you should have done X several layers up and are able to go back and fix it. It's more of hack as you go and hope the whole thing doesn't blow up until you, possibly, get a chance to rewrite or build an improved version
- richmarr 10y ago
  > Except life is not like writing a program... So, your argument is that it's okay to have terrible foreign policy because we don't have time travel. Are you sure you want to go with that?
- chriswarbo 10y ago
  > It's more of hack as you go and hope the whole thing doesn't blow up until you, possibly, get a chance to rewrite or build an improved version That's certainly true a lot of the time. I disagree regarding legal/political cases like this though, since a "the whole thing blowing up" (in the sense of public outcry) is the rewrite/improvement. The aim of the game is to accrue as much power, capability, mindshare and precedent as possible, but slowly enough that the frog doesn't jump out of the water.