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Lame attitude. The purpose of war is to kill people, yet nearly everyone agrees there are some particularly bad ways to do such - some of those ways are bad sol

Lame attitude. The purpose of war is to kill people, yet nearly everyone agrees there are some particularly bad ways to do such - some of those ways are bad solely by their shear effectiveness. The whole point of finance is maximizing profits, sure. The whole point of not "accepting" that as-is and thus regulating is because there are some particularly awful ways to make profits.

daemin 10y ago
The purpose of war is to get the other side to give you what you want. Killing people is just a side-effect or method to accomplish your goals.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
  In the widest sense the purpose of war is profit.
  - simonh 10y ago
    Only for largely uselessly overblown interpretations of the term profit to mean any perceived gain or advantage, or incremental progress towards any goal whatsoever.
  - daemin 10y ago
    Wars were fought for honour, various slights or (diplomatic or personal) insults, lots of reasons, not all of them profitable. In general war is not profitable to the entities that wage them.
forgetsusername 10y ago
>yet nearly everyone agrees there are some particularly bad ways to do such Do they, really? Ethics and rules in war are a luxury, and usually imposed by the rich and dominant. When things are truly desperate it all flies out the window. I think history (and its multitude of atrocities, including by the US) supports this view.
- Godel_unicode 10y ago
  The fact that it takes things being truly desperate for them to fly out the window would seem to support the theory that people agree that those things are bad.
gaius 10y ago
The purpose of war is to kill people To fight and conquer in all your battles is not the supreme excellence. Supreme excellence is to defeat the enemy without fighting. -- Sun Tzu. Infact the whole Art of War is about avoiding fighting wherever possible, and when you have no other choice, fight to win but with no more destruction of people or property than you absolutely need.
- ethanbond 10y ago
  Okay, the purpose of battles is to kill people. Who cares? The point is that just because the purpose of x is y, and you want y, does not mean that you must accept all forms of x.
  - gaius 10y ago
    Okay, the purpose of battles is to kill people Very rarely. The purpose of a battle is to take and hold ground, usually. If you do it without killing anyone it's still a victory. A lot of Gulf War 1 was fought this way, the Iraqis took a look at Western tank divisions and simply surrendered. Another reason is to degrade the enemy's ability to fight subsequent battles. You could do this by destroying all their equipment and supplies. If you do it without killing anyone it's still a victory. An example of this is catching an enemy's air force by surprise and destroying their planes while still on the ground. The Israelis are masters of this technique. No sane general wakes up and thinks, I just want to kill some people today, I don't care about strategic objectives.

daemin 10y ago

The purpose of war is to get the other side to give you what you want. Killing people is just a side-effect or method to accomplish your goals.

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
In the widest sense the purpose of war is profit.
- simonh 10y ago
  Only for largely uselessly overblown interpretations of the term profit to mean any perceived gain or advantage, or incremental progress towards any goal whatsoever.
- daemin 10y ago
  Wars were fought for honour, various slights or (diplomatic or personal) insults, lots of reasons, not all of them profitable. In general war is not profitable to the entities that wage them.

forgetsusername 10y ago

>yet nearly everyone agrees there are some particularly bad ways to do such Do they, really? Ethics and rules in war are a luxury, and usually imposed by the rich and dominant. When things are truly desperate it all flies out the window. I think history (and its multitude of atrocities, including by the US) supports this view.

Godel_unicode 10y ago
The fact that it takes things being truly desperate for them to fly out the window would seem to support the theory that people agree that those things are bad.

gaius 10y ago

The purpose of war is to kill people To fight and conquer in all your battles is not the supreme excellence. Supreme excellence is to defeat the enemy without fighting. -- Sun Tzu. Infact the whole Art of War is about avoiding fighting wherever possible, and when you have no other choice, fight to win but with no more destruction of people or property than you absolutely need.

ethanbond 10y ago
Okay, the purpose of battles is to kill people. Who cares? The point is that just because the purpose of x is y, and you want y, does not mean that you must accept all forms of x.
- gaius 10y ago
  Okay, the purpose of battles is to kill people Very rarely. The purpose of a battle is to take and hold ground, usually. If you do it without killing anyone it's still a victory. A lot of Gulf War 1 was fought this way, the Iraqis took a look at Western tank divisions and simply surrendered. Another reason is to degrade the enemy's ability to fight subsequent battles. You could do this by destroying all their equipment and supplies. If you do it without killing anyone it's still a victory. An example of this is catching an enemy's air force by surprise and destroying their planes while still on the ground. The Israelis are masters of this technique. No sane general wakes up and thinks, I just want to kill some people today, I don't care about strategic objectives.