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The simplest way to keep that from happening again is to prevent wars like Afghanistan from happening again. Technology that makes it easier for the DOD to jus

The simplest way to keep that from happening again is to prevent wars like Afghanistan from happening again. Technology that makes it easier for the DOD to justify a war (by reducing civilian casualties) makes war more likely. Therefore, be refusing to build this technology, you help make war less likely. I personally find this line of reasoning quite compelling. It's pretty clear that precision guided bombs, drones, body armor, and other technologies designed to save lives in war have also made war much more politically palatable for the DOD.

simonh 8y ago
I'd love to have avoided the war in Afghanistan, it's a horrible quagmire with no end in sight. But let's not forget the western world was perfectly happy to let the Taliban get on with whatever they wanted to get on with, right up until they conspired with an international terrorist organisation operating from their territory with their support and blessing, to murder 2,977 people in New York. Until you can come up with a viable, demonstrably effective non-military approach to eliminating threats like that, we will continue to need a military capability. I speak as a Brit, about the wider 'we'. British troops are operating in Afghanistan right now, some of them are even Muslims. We're standing by the US, yet we have Americans here advocating undermining your own military, putting US and foreign services lives in greater danger, so they can feel a smug sense of moral superiority while sipping their skinny lattes in a nice comfortable office, just like the ones incinerated in New York in 2001. Wars are horrible messy affairs. Innocent people suffer. It sucks. But advocating pretending threats don't exist and it's not our problem without addressing the actual issues is an utter abrogation of moral responsibility. Western militaries have gone to huge lengths to improve intelligence gathering techniques and achieve more precise targeting, massively reducing civilian casualties and blue-on-blue incidents. Surely supporting such technologies and programmes is worthwhile?
- ScottBurson 8y ago
  > they conspired with an international terrorist organisation operating from their territory with their support and blessing It's not clear that they conspired [0], though I suppose you could call them an accessory after the fact for refusing to extradite bin Laden. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_September_11_attacks#Taliban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_Septemb...
  - simonh 8y ago
    Al Qaeda had already mounted and claimed multiple attacks on the US, and even the World Trade Center for years before 9/11 and the Taliban continued to provide support and protection to the group and explicitly endorsed their activities throughout. They were clearly culpable.
torstenvl 8y ago
Your argument is that more civilians should die so that war is less likely. That's not only morally repugnant on its face, it's flatly untrue. Greater collateral damage has rarely if ever prevented war. Past wars with high collateral damage have been longer, costlier, and more frequent than they are today. Even if your utilitarian analysis were stomachably close to moral (it's not), it would still fail any sort of empirical test.

simonh 8y ago

I'd love to have avoided the war in Afghanistan, it's a horrible quagmire with no end in sight. But let's not forget the western world was perfectly happy to let the Taliban get on with whatever they wanted to get on with, right up until they conspired with an international terrorist organisation operating from their territory with their support and blessing, to murder 2,977 people in New York. Until you can come up with a viable, demonstrably effective non-military approach to eliminating threats like that, we will continue to need a military capability. I speak as a Brit, about the wider 'we'. British troops are operating in Afghanistan right now, some of them are even Muslims. We're standing by the US, yet we have Americans here advocating undermining your own military, putting US and foreign services lives in greater danger, so they can feel a smug sense of moral superiority while sipping their skinny lattes in a nice comfortable office, just like the ones incinerated in New York in 2001. Wars are horrible messy affairs. Innocent people suffer. It sucks. But advocating pretending threats don't exist and it's not our problem without addressing the actual issues is an utter abrogation of moral responsibility. Western militaries have gone to huge lengths to improve intelligence gathering techniques and achieve more precise targeting, massively reducing civilian casualties and blue-on-blue incidents. Surely supporting such technologies and programmes is worthwhile?

ScottBurson 8y ago
> they conspired with an international terrorist organisation operating from their territory with their support and blessing It's not clear that they conspired [0], though I suppose you could call them an accessory after the fact for refusing to extradite bin Laden. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_September_11_attacks#Taliban https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_Septemb...
- simonh 8y ago
  Al Qaeda had already mounted and claimed multiple attacks on the US, and even the World Trade Center for years before 9/11 and the Taliban continued to provide support and protection to the group and explicitly endorsed their activities throughout. They were clearly culpable.

torstenvl 8y ago

Your argument is that more civilians should die so that war is less likely. That's not only morally repugnant on its face, it's flatly untrue. Greater collateral damage has rarely if ever prevented war. Past wars with high collateral damage have been longer, costlier, and more frequent than they are today. Even if your utilitarian analysis were stomachably close to moral (it's not), it would still fail any sort of empirical test.