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Between 2003 and 2019, 183,535 – 206,107 civilians died in the Iraqi War / Occupation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Iraqi_civilian_c

Between 2003 and 2019, 183,535 – 206,107 civilians died in the Iraqi War / Occupation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Iraqi_civilian_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Ira...). The US is seen as responsible for about 1/3 of those. If drone strikes replace ground troops, they're an absolute godsend. If they supplement them, it's another tragedy. I'd love to live in a world where no one is killed and these sorts of body calculations aren't necessary but it's pretty clear we choose not to live in that world. As a result, technology can either be a tool to reduce violence by making it more precise and targeted or it can automate violence and make it cheap.

SahAssar 7y ago
What do you envision a world where all wars are fought with drones or other robotics would look like? International wars are generally fought to either gain territory (which is only valuable if it's livable and people tend to live where it's livable) or resources (and people tend to live near or work near where there are resources). How would a robotic army not still lead to civilian casualties in this scenario? Wouldn't that just make it cheap (in the public opinion sense) for a larger economy to fight senseless wars? Besides that, think about how civil wars would be impacted. Think about how the recent genocides in darfur or kosovo would play out if they had access to current information tech and drones. I hope wars stay extremely expensive, both in the monetary sense and in the public opinion sense, of which one component is that the ones risking their lives are actually the citizens.
- dumbfoundded 7y ago
  War has dramatically changed. I don't envision mass drone armies bombing cities. I imagine extremely precise and targeted strikes enabled by technology. Why fight a whole war when you can just kill the generals? If we want to think about war from an economic perspective, it doesn't make sense to kill civilians. Civilians are valuable. Murdering the labor force you seek to extract rent from is usually a bad decision. Civilians probably don't care as much about the political situation as their personal situation. It also just complicates things. It's possible that technology pushes war in this direction but it could also go in the direction you hint at. A country may be able to conduct an asymmetric war where their soldiers/civilians face 0 risk and the other side faces all of the risk. A country may also use this technology to control its own civilians. I think it's an active choice and if we don't push in the better realistic direction the other path will be taken.

SahAssar 7y ago

What do you envision a world where all wars are fought with drones or other robotics would look like? International wars are generally fought to either gain territory (which is only valuable if it's livable and people tend to live where it's livable) or resources (and people tend to live near or work near where there are resources). How would a robotic army not still lead to civilian casualties in this scenario? Wouldn't that just make it cheap (in the public opinion sense) for a larger economy to fight senseless wars? Besides that, think about how civil wars would be impacted. Think about how the recent genocides in darfur or kosovo would play out if they had access to current information tech and drones. I hope wars stay extremely expensive, both in the monetary sense and in the public opinion sense, of which one component is that the ones risking their lives are actually the citizens.

dumbfoundded 7y ago
War has dramatically changed. I don't envision mass drone armies bombing cities. I imagine extremely precise and targeted strikes enabled by technology. Why fight a whole war when you can just kill the generals? If we want to think about war from an economic perspective, it doesn't make sense to kill civilians. Civilians are valuable. Murdering the labor force you seek to extract rent from is usually a bad decision. Civilians probably don't care as much about the political situation as their personal situation. It also just complicates things. It's possible that technology pushes war in this direction but it could also go in the direction you hint at. A country may be able to conduct an asymmetric war where their soldiers/civilians face 0 risk and the other side faces all of the risk. A country may also use this technology to control its own civilians. I think it's an active choice and if we don't push in the better realistic direction the other path will be taken.