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TAForObvReasons 8y ago
You are talking besides the point. War != "War Profiteering". You can believe war is unavoidable and still find excess profiting from war morally repugnant
- killjoywashere 8y ago
  The company with the single best resources to execute on this mission is trying to help make sure the kinetic energy doesn't get off target. How is that evil, exactly?
  - Iv 8y ago
    It is evil when the target choice is immoral. Simple as that.
  - rdiddly 8y ago
    By putting it on the target, duh. If I shoot you I don't get hailed as a hero for saving your family's lives and neither does the gun sight manufacturer. Especially since they did it for the money.
Waterluvian 8y ago
If you're trying to make a point, it is entirely lost in the rambling.
- killjoywashere 8y ago
  Read The Dictator's Handbook. Then come back and tell me if I'm rambling. https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845 https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - perfmode 8y ago
    Thanks for the link. I'm sure we all might find more coherence in the barcode on the back than was present within the entirety of your wandering treatise.
  - boomboomsubban 8y ago
    Now, I'll start by saying i haven't read the book. The description says all leaders are supremely focused on maintaining power. Given that, how can you possibly argue that the US killing anyone it considers a "bad person" without jurisprudence is a moral act?
    - wallace_f 8y ago
      That highlights the cognitive dissonance in his post: >There are a lot of bad people in the world, and quite a fraction of countries are ruled by them. Thugs respond to power. The US is still a good country, with a good government, but it's ridiculous to assume it immune to the same threats of tyranny as every other nation.
wavefunction 8y ago
This reads like the historical analysis of a thirteen year-old. OP, your moral compass is pointing due North.
colordrops 8y ago
No, your moral compass is off. The US has toppled a large number of sovereign states that were not acting violently toward other nations, and installed dictators and monarchs. The US supports Saudi Arabia, one of the most authoritarian nations on earth, who backed an actual attack on US soil, and yet they invade nations with false claims of WMD and kill hundreds of thousands. To claim that the US is the police and not the thugs is to completely ignore reality.
- jacobolus 8y ago
  The US has a long tradition of tacitly supporting genocide, slaughter of civilians, collective punishment, torture and assassination or other extrajudicial murder of journalists and dissidents and labor leaders, mass surveillance, etc. etc. in places where “our dictator” happened to be in charge. More directly, the US has directly toppled many democratically elected governments, undermined sovereign political processes via propaganda and support for anti-democratic political groups and targeted economic pressure, supported American and multinational corporations in their unethical and often criminal behavior around the world, given money and weapons and training to armed opponents of various democratic governments (who then used those for slaughtering civilians) ... Not to mention being one of the world’s foremost producers and distributors of small arms (that end up in the hands of local gangsters, child soldiers, ...). As a particularly tragic example, look to the case of Guatemala. The democratically elected president of Guatemala demanded that the United Fruit Company – who owned an incredibly high proportion of all arable land in the (starving) country – sell back some portion of the land which they were not currently using at the price it had been assessed to be worth for tax purposes. Unfortunately for Guatemala, the Dulles brothers (CIA director and Secretary of State), as well as various other members of the Eisenhower administration, had a direct business interest in United Fruit. The US toppled the government, installed a friendly dictator, and kicked off 2 generations of civil war in which a shockingly high proportion (5% or something?) of all Guatemalans were killed, including the mass-murder of many villages by thugs with machetes. It is true that the presence of nuclear weapons has prevented for the past ~70 years the break-out of another “hot” war directly between nuclear-armed states. On the other hand, if someone slips up when nuclear weapons are involved, we’ll all be screwed.
toweringgoat 8y ago
The rest of the world vehemently disagrees. Which should be more than enough to know it's not good.
- jonnybgood 8y ago
  The rest of the world actually doesn't disagree. Just look at what countries supported and participated in US conflicts. And there are countries who don't support openly, but behind the scenes with intelligence and logistics.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Because the US also happens to dominate the global economy for now. Soldiers from my country went to help the US in Iraq and Afghanistan too, and we all know why - because the country needs to suck up to US to strengthen its position relative to the neighbors. Moral reasoning didn't even enter the picture.
- bmelton 8y ago
  Argumentum ad populum Ignoring whether or not the world actually does, or how vehemently they might disagree, the rightness of a thing isn't measured at all by how many people think the thing is right.
perfmode 8y ago
Your comment wobbles and stumbles into a large number of complicated and nuanced subject areas with the grace of a headless bird: war vs. war profiteering the notion of voting as a proxy for consent anything is worth it bad people in the world, and they aren't here. they're there. kinetic energy? targets? condescendence?
mikejb 8y ago
> the world has been a safer place over the last 70 years because there's a global cop who's willing to use force to keep the peace. No, the world has become a safer place for us because we live in nations with nuclear weapons, and they're a pretty good deterrent for attacks by other nations. The world is still a very unsafe place for many people, partly because of this self-proclaimed 'cop'. If you think the US has this military might for any other reason than ensuring it's own political and economical wellbeing, I'd like to know what it is. It sure isn't to "keep the peace" - they're selling a bit too many weapons to questionable figures for that.
- nyolfen 8y ago
  > No, the world has become a safer place for us it's become safer for everyone: https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ourworldindata_wars-long-run-military-civilian-fatalities-from-brecke1-750x490.png https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ourwor... which obviously isn't to say that nobody dies in wars anymore.
fakescience 8y ago
Do you think anyone in a position of political power truly thinks of themselves as a "thug"? I imagine, in their own ways, they think they are doing a "just" and noble deed. Much like the way you characterize America's perpetual war machine, that has destabilized the world in direct ways that supposedly require us to go BACK and "steer them...in the direction our fellow citizens desire." See : Iran, ISIS, several Latin American countries, etc.
galvarez800 8y ago
I disagree that the world has been made safer by the US playing world police for the past 70 years. I could list examples from Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa, southeast Asia, etc. but you probably understand where I'm going. The US should not be out droning people in other countries except in explicit self defense ("they might have been going to attack us" doesn't count). That is my opinion, you are free to disagree with it. If "the goal is to kill fewer people," the best way to do that is to... not kill people. Also, the fact that representatives I voted for voted in favor of extrajudicial killings of people in other countries is not something I'm happy about. I wish every day that the US could abolish its first past the post election system so that I could vote for candidates I actually agree with rather than being forced to vote for someone I sort of agree with.
ajtulloch 8y ago
Imagine actually believing this.
- ninjakeyboard 8y ago
  This is someone responding on Hackernews too. Every time I go to the US on business I see a different world. Adult bible study groups talking in coffee shops about how they are praying that, and believe that Trump will save america, etc. People can think what they want I guess. It just has more of an effect on the world than I thought it used to so I feel a little saddened watching this new dark age come about.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
pferdone 8y ago
What peace are you talking about? The one in Syria, which has led to mass migration?! The middle-east is not a safer place. Actually battle related deaths have risen in the last years. https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace Your superficial statements about ‚bad guys‘ and ‚thugs‘ that only respond to ‚power‘ led me to believe you‘ve watcht one to many movies. Destabilizing countries doesn‘t bring peace to the world.
Iv 8y ago
> because there's a global cop who's willing to use force to keep the peace Are you talking about UN? If not when was the last time the US took the initiative of a peace-keeping mission? Arguably it would be more than 25 years ago, in the Balkans and even there, it can be argued that this was under the auspices of the UN. In the 70 years you mention, US has often been the lesser evil, but especially since USSR's fall, it is not clear at all that it is a force for good. Its last strong engagement, in Iraq, was a totally evil and misguided operation that made the world less stable. Its refusal to help in Syria before ISIS took hold there is another blow. The crass incompetence of the Bush administration on both Iran and North Korea, and the apathy of the Obama administration on NK, led to a less safe world. US' recent interventions are sources of instability and now US' policies seem to be guided from Moscow and align more often with the views of dictatorships than that of democracies. In such a context, wondering about the ethics of improving US army's capabilities makes a lot of sense.
- taneq 8y ago
  > Are you talking about UN? Clearly they're talking about Team America: World Police.
yipbub 8y ago
The corrupt global cop that is responsible for most of the harsh environments that spawn extremists? Edit: adding stuff. IMO, most anti-progressive views spawn from anti-USA views. Isn't the US responsible for a lot of the instability in the middle-east and South America? As I type this I have this vaguely plausible fear that someone in the NSA is flagging my general sentiment and incorrectly labeling me for something or the other even though I'm mostly a pacifist.
ewngzen 8y ago
> the world has been a safer place over the last 70 years because there's a global cop who's willing to use force to keep the peace. for god's sake. there are really people thinking this way.

[deleted]

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

You are talking besides the point. War != "War Profiteering". You can believe war is unavoidable and still find excess profiting from war morally repugnant

killjoywashere 8y ago
The company with the single best resources to execute on this mission is trying to help make sure the kinetic energy doesn't get off target. How is that evil, exactly?
- Iv 8y ago
  It is evil when the target choice is immoral. Simple as that.
- rdiddly 8y ago
  By putting it on the target, duh. If I shoot you I don't get hailed as a hero for saving your family's lives and neither does the gun sight manufacturer. Especially since they did it for the money.

Waterluvian 8y ago

If you're trying to make a point, it is entirely lost in the rambling.

killjoywashere 8y ago
Read The Dictator's Handbook. Then come back and tell me if I'm rambling. https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Politics/dp/1610391845 https://www.amazon.com/Dictators-Handbook-Behavior-Almost-Po...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- perfmode 8y ago
  Thanks for the link. I'm sure we all might find more coherence in the barcode on the back than was present within the entirety of your wandering treatise.
- boomboomsubban 8y ago
  Now, I'll start by saying i haven't read the book. The description says all leaders are supremely focused on maintaining power. Given that, how can you possibly argue that the US killing anyone it considers a "bad person" without jurisprudence is a moral act?
  - wallace_f 8y ago
    That highlights the cognitive dissonance in his post: >There are a lot of bad people in the world, and quite a fraction of countries are ruled by them. Thugs respond to power. The US is still a good country, with a good government, but it's ridiculous to assume it immune to the same threats of tyranny as every other nation.

wavefunction 8y ago

This reads like the historical analysis of a thirteen year-old. OP, your moral compass is pointing due North.

colordrops 8y ago

No, your moral compass is off. The US has toppled a large number of sovereign states that were not acting violently toward other nations, and installed dictators and monarchs. The US supports Saudi Arabia, one of the most authoritarian nations on earth, who backed an actual attack on US soil, and yet they invade nations with false claims of WMD and kill hundreds of thousands. To claim that the US is the police and not the thugs is to completely ignore reality.

jacobolus 8y ago
The US has a long tradition of tacitly supporting genocide, slaughter of civilians, collective punishment, torture and assassination or other extrajudicial murder of journalists and dissidents and labor leaders, mass surveillance, etc. etc. in places where “our dictator” happened to be in charge. More directly, the US has directly toppled many democratically elected governments, undermined sovereign political processes via propaganda and support for anti-democratic political groups and targeted economic pressure, supported American and multinational corporations in their unethical and often criminal behavior around the world, given money and weapons and training to armed opponents of various democratic governments (who then used those for slaughtering civilians) ... Not to mention being one of the world’s foremost producers and distributors of small arms (that end up in the hands of local gangsters, child soldiers, ...). As a particularly tragic example, look to the case of Guatemala. The democratically elected president of Guatemala demanded that the United Fruit Company – who owned an incredibly high proportion of all arable land in the (starving) country – sell back some portion of the land which they were not currently using at the price it had been assessed to be worth for tax purposes. Unfortunately for Guatemala, the Dulles brothers (CIA director and Secretary of State), as well as various other members of the Eisenhower administration, had a direct business interest in United Fruit. The US toppled the government, installed a friendly dictator, and kicked off 2 generations of civil war in which a shockingly high proportion (5% or something?) of all Guatemalans were killed, including the mass-murder of many villages by thugs with machetes. It is true that the presence of nuclear weapons has prevented for the past ~70 years the break-out of another “hot” war directly between nuclear-armed states. On the other hand, if someone slips up when nuclear weapons are involved, we’ll all be screwed.

toweringgoat 8y ago

The rest of the world vehemently disagrees. Which should be more than enough to know it's not good.

jonnybgood 8y ago
The rest of the world actually doesn't disagree. Just look at what countries supported and participated in US conflicts. And there are countries who don't support openly, but behind the scenes with intelligence and logistics.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Because the US also happens to dominate the global economy for now. Soldiers from my country went to help the US in Iraq and Afghanistan too, and we all know why - because the country needs to suck up to US to strengthen its position relative to the neighbors. Moral reasoning didn't even enter the picture.
bmelton 8y ago
Argumentum ad populum Ignoring whether or not the world actually does, or how vehemently they might disagree, the rightness of a thing isn't measured at all by how many people think the thing is right.

perfmode 8y ago

Your comment wobbles and stumbles into a large number of complicated and nuanced subject areas with the grace of a headless bird: war vs. war profiteering the notion of voting as a proxy for consent anything is worth it bad people in the world, and they aren't here. they're there. kinetic energy? targets? condescendence?

mikejb 8y ago

> the world has been a safer place over the last 70 years because there's a global cop who's willing to use force to keep the peace. No, the world has become a safer place for us because we live in nations with nuclear weapons, and they're a pretty good deterrent for attacks by other nations. The world is still a very unsafe place for many people, partly because of this self-proclaimed 'cop'. If you think the US has this military might for any other reason than ensuring it's own political and economical wellbeing, I'd like to know what it is. It sure isn't to "keep the peace" - they're selling a bit too many weapons to questionable figures for that.

nyolfen 8y ago
> No, the world has become a safer place for us it's become safer for everyone: https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ourworldindata_wars-long-run-military-civilian-fatalities-from-brecke1-750x490.png https://assets.weforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/ourwor... which obviously isn't to say that nobody dies in wars anymore.

fakescience 8y ago

Do you think anyone in a position of political power truly thinks of themselves as a "thug"? I imagine, in their own ways, they think they are doing a "just" and noble deed. Much like the way you characterize America's perpetual war machine, that has destabilized the world in direct ways that supposedly require us to go BACK and "steer them...in the direction our fellow citizens desire." See : Iran, ISIS, several Latin American countries, etc.

galvarez800 8y ago

I disagree that the world has been made safer by the US playing world police for the past 70 years. I could list examples from Central and South America, the Middle East, Africa, southeast Asia, etc. but you probably understand where I'm going. The US should not be out droning people in other countries except in explicit self defense ("they might have been going to attack us" doesn't count). That is my opinion, you are free to disagree with it. If "the goal is to kill fewer people," the best way to do that is to... not kill people. Also, the fact that representatives I voted for voted in favor of extrajudicial killings of people in other countries is not something I'm happy about. I wish every day that the US could abolish its first past the post election system so that I could vote for candidates I actually agree with rather than being forced to vote for someone I sort of agree with.

ajtulloch 8y ago

Imagine actually believing this.

ninjakeyboard 8y ago
This is someone responding on Hackernews too. Every time I go to the US on business I see a different world. Adult bible study groups talking in coffee shops about how they are praying that, and believe that Trump will save america, etc. People can think what they want I guess. It just has more of an effect on the world than I thought it used to so I feel a little saddened watching this new dark age come about.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

pferdone 8y ago

What peace are you talking about? The one in Syria, which has led to mass migration?! The middle-east is not a safer place. Actually battle related deaths have risen in the last years. https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace Your superficial statements about ‚bad guys‘ and ‚thugs‘ that only respond to ‚power‘ led me to believe you‘ve watcht one to many movies. Destabilizing countries doesn‘t bring peace to the world.

Iv 8y ago

> because there's a global cop who's willing to use force to keep the peace Are you talking about UN? If not when was the last time the US took the initiative of a peace-keeping mission? Arguably it would be more than 25 years ago, in the Balkans and even there, it can be argued that this was under the auspices of the UN. In the 70 years you mention, US has often been the lesser evil, but especially since USSR's fall, it is not clear at all that it is a force for good. Its last strong engagement, in Iraq, was a totally evil and misguided operation that made the world less stable. Its refusal to help in Syria before ISIS took hold there is another blow. The crass incompetence of the Bush administration on both Iran and North Korea, and the apathy of the Obama administration on NK, led to a less safe world. US' recent interventions are sources of instability and now US' policies seem to be guided from Moscow and align more often with the views of dictatorships than that of democracies. In such a context, wondering about the ethics of improving US army's capabilities makes a lot of sense.

taneq 8y ago
> Are you talking about UN? Clearly they're talking about Team America: World Police.

yipbub 8y ago

The corrupt global cop that is responsible for most of the harsh environments that spawn extremists? Edit: adding stuff. IMO, most anti-progressive views spawn from anti-USA views. Isn't the US responsible for a lot of the instability in the middle-east and South America? As I type this I have this vaguely plausible fear that someone in the NSA is flagging my general sentiment and incorrectly labeling me for something or the other even though I'm mostly a pacifist.

ewngzen 8y ago

> the world has been a safer place over the last 70 years because there's a global cop who's willing to use force to keep the peace. for god's sake. there are really people thinking this way.