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Working on drones saves soldiers’ lives. Working for intelligence saves civilian lives by preventing terrorist plots. People who work for the military and the i

Working on drones saves soldiers’ lives. Working for intelligence saves civilian lives by preventing terrorist plots. People who work for the military and the intelligence usually see themselves as paragons of high ethical standards.

pjc50 8y ago
> Working for intelligence saves civilian lives Well, apart from all those airstrikes on schoolbuses.
- golergka 8y ago
  You have to look at the net result. If you're 50% certain that a schoolbus with 30 children has a leader of a terrorist cell that will on average perform one attack with ~100 casualties 1-2 times a year, and otherwise this terrorist is expected to have a life expectancy of 3-5 years, and without him this cell has a 60-70% probability of disintegrating, it's a very clear cut case. I don't personally work in intelligence and I don't have first-person experience with this calculations. Of course, I expect that in reality they are much more complex and carry a lot more uncertainty - at least those I've read in detail certainly are, but I wouldn't be able to describe them in sufficient detail in a single HN comment. But refusing to make such a choice is still making a choice, and not always a best one. Any conflict known to man have had loss of innocent lives by both sides. If you try to avoid it at all costs, all that you'll manage is loose, with more innocent lives destroyed, most of them on your side.
  - andrepd 8y ago
    Your analysis is predicated on the fact that the war is being done to protect against terrorism, when in fact its a war being waged for economic gain and geopolitical influence.
  - pjc50 8y ago
    I find it hard to imagine it ever being that clear-cut, even with the panopticon. Besides, the Geneva convention doesn't allow you to do this, on either side; the US has simply unilaterally declared that "terrorist" is a new category of person who's neither military nor civilian, so they can be murdered at will (as if they were military) but aren't subject to the laws relating to PoWs (which would affect Guantanamo). The "double tap" practice of murdering first responders with a second missile strike is definitely a war crime. The whole thing relies on the certainty that nobody in the US will ever be prosecuted no matter how gratuitously they murder those deemed to be "enemy".
  - Fnoord 8y ago
    This downright rational coldness where a human life gets a value based on where their father and mother were born or located during birth is the kind of escalation due to racism, discrimination, and other forms of bigotry which is the disguised reason of why we had WWII and its aftershocks in the first place. The bigotry Hitler suffered during his childhood and the discrimination the German people suffered from WWI (receiving the blame solely) and the Jewish people suffered before and during WWII (receiving the blame for poverty of the German people) is what, ultimately, lead to WWII in Europe at least just like ISIS is the result of the American misbehaviour in Iraq which is proven te be started for fictitious reasons (WMDs) as Scott Ritter already claimed back in the days. And those are the overt operations. "A 2016 study by Carnegie Mellon University professor Dov Levin found that the United States intervened in 81 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000, with the majority of those being through covert, rather than overt, actions" [1] You reap what you sow. It does not have to be this way. The world doesn't have to be this way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_the_U...
  - viraptor 8y ago
    This is as contrived as the trolley problem. You present two choices while there are so many more. We're talking about a bus here, not a secret getaway car with special camouflage - it will go fairly slowly and people will just walk out, most likely on the side of a street.
andrepd 8y ago
>Working on drones saves soldiers’ lives. Working for intelligence saves civilian lives by preventing terrorist plots. You seem to regard us as the "good guys". I suggest you read more on the atrocities committed by the United States and by the allies it arms and supports, both historical and those happening right now. Was it last week that our dear democratic ally the Saudi Arabia bombed a schoolbus full of children? How many months has their blockade of Yemen been in place now? And how many civilians have died of famine? Please... Factually speaking, our military is working to further our economic interests, not for any ideal of liberty or protection, committing any atrocities they can get away with for that goal.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

pjc50 8y ago

> Working for intelligence saves civilian lives Well, apart from all those airstrikes on schoolbuses.

golergka 8y ago
You have to look at the net result. If you're 50% certain that a schoolbus with 30 children has a leader of a terrorist cell that will on average perform one attack with ~100 casualties 1-2 times a year, and otherwise this terrorist is expected to have a life expectancy of 3-5 years, and without him this cell has a 60-70% probability of disintegrating, it's a very clear cut case. I don't personally work in intelligence and I don't have first-person experience with this calculations. Of course, I expect that in reality they are much more complex and carry a lot more uncertainty - at least those I've read in detail certainly are, but I wouldn't be able to describe them in sufficient detail in a single HN comment. But refusing to make such a choice is still making a choice, and not always a best one. Any conflict known to man have had loss of innocent lives by both sides. If you try to avoid it at all costs, all that you'll manage is loose, with more innocent lives destroyed, most of them on your side.
- andrepd 8y ago
  Your analysis is predicated on the fact that the war is being done to protect against terrorism, when in fact its a war being waged for economic gain and geopolitical influence.
- pjc50 8y ago
  I find it hard to imagine it ever being that clear-cut, even with the panopticon. Besides, the Geneva convention doesn't allow you to do this, on either side; the US has simply unilaterally declared that "terrorist" is a new category of person who's neither military nor civilian, so they can be murdered at will (as if they were military) but aren't subject to the laws relating to PoWs (which would affect Guantanamo). The "double tap" practice of murdering first responders with a second missile strike is definitely a war crime. The whole thing relies on the certainty that nobody in the US will ever be prosecuted no matter how gratuitously they murder those deemed to be "enemy".
- Fnoord 8y ago
  This downright rational coldness where a human life gets a value based on where their father and mother were born or located during birth is the kind of escalation due to racism, discrimination, and other forms of bigotry which is the disguised reason of why we had WWII and its aftershocks in the first place. The bigotry Hitler suffered during his childhood and the discrimination the German people suffered from WWI (receiving the blame solely) and the Jewish people suffered before and during WWII (receiving the blame for poverty of the German people) is what, ultimately, lead to WWII in Europe at least just like ISIS is the result of the American misbehaviour in Iraq which is proven te be started for fictitious reasons (WMDs) as Scott Ritter already claimed back in the days. And those are the overt operations. "A 2016 study by Carnegie Mellon University professor Dov Levin found that the United States intervened in 81 foreign elections between 1946 and 2000, with the majority of those being through covert, rather than overt, actions" [1] You reap what you sow. It does not have to be this way. The world doesn't have to be this way. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_the_U...
- viraptor 8y ago
  This is as contrived as the trolley problem. You present two choices while there are so many more. We're talking about a bus here, not a secret getaway car with special camouflage - it will go fairly slowly and people will just walk out, most likely on the side of a street.

andrepd 8y ago

>Working on drones saves soldiers’ lives. Working for intelligence saves civilian lives by preventing terrorist plots. You seem to regard us as the "good guys". I suggest you read more on the atrocities committed by the United States and by the allies it arms and supports, both historical and those happening right now. Was it last week that our dear democratic ally the Saudi Arabia bombed a schoolbus full of children? How many months has their blockade of Yemen been in place now? And how many civilians have died of famine? Please... Factually speaking, our military is working to further our economic interests, not for any ideal of liberty or protection, committing any atrocities they can get away with for that goal.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]