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There is no such thing as a defensive weapon. You might be tempted to say "what about a missile shield?" but such a thing allows the owner to act with impunity

by jmyeet 10mo ago

There is no such thing as a defensive weapon. You might be tempted to say "what about a missile shield?" but such a thing allows the owner to act with impunity with levels of violence we arguably haven't seen since 1945. As a real example of this, the only reason a deeper conflict didn't develop with Iran this year was because Iran demonstrated they could overwhelm the various layers of Israel's missile shield and Iran seriously depleted the various munitions used by those air defense systems (eg interceptors, THAAD) and those take a long time to replenish.

oytis 10mo ago
[flagged]
- computerthings 10mo ago
  [dead]
- kubb 10mo ago
  Settlements in West Bank are Israel’s great crime.
  - oytis 10mo ago
    I didn't mean that Israel doesn't do any crimes, but still the main things that triggers all the rockets, terror attacks etc. is Israel existing. Better defence for Israel will make the region safer, including even for Palestinians
JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
> There is no such thing as a defensive weapon I agree if we reframe it as “purely defensive,” though there is a bit of tautology invoked with the “weapon” qualifier. That said, there is legitimacy to developing defensive arms, even if one doesn’t like the ones doing it. > the only reason a deeper conflict didn't develop with Iran this year was because Iran demonstrated they could overwhelm the various layers of Israel's missile shield This hypothesis is not sustained by Iran’s reduced firing rate throughout the conflict. All evidence suggests Iran lost its war with Israel and would lose it again if they go for round 2.
jstummbillig 10mo ago
> You might be tempted to say "what about a missile shield?" but such a thing allows the owner to act with impunity with levels of violence we arguably haven't seen since 1945. I would still say "what about a missile shield?". If a missile shield is a weapon, because of its affordances, then any object is a weapon. And while that's marginally true I don't think we get anywhere by entertaining category errors. If something enables aggression, because it makes counter attacks unreasonable, that seems like a fairly nice thing to have more of, in a world where destruction is far too easy and construction is fairly hard.
- kennywinker 10mo ago
  > If something enables aggression, because it makes counter attacks unreasonable, that seems like a fairly nice thing to have more of You’re imagining a world where this kind of tech is equally distributed. It’s not. Israel spends something like $30b/year in defense (in part due to ~$7b/year from the US). Gaza has something like $0.3b to spend. The consequence of that asymmetry is one of them has a missile shield, the other has more than 80,000 dead citizens, famine, and virtually no infrastructure left standing.
  - FunnyUsername 10mo ago
    Gaza's "air defense" is hundreds of miles of tunnels, civilians just aren't allowed to shelter in them. Hamas having better technology wouldn't change the fact that they're not interested in protecting civilians.
    - kennywinker 10mo ago
      I’m not going to defend hamas’ choices, but i think it’s disingenuous to say that they have the ability to protect the people of gaza. A few thousand fighters in tunnels is possible, but millions of civilians? And wouldn’t that be more of this “using human shields” stuff people like to point out so often?
      - FunnyUsername 10mo ago
belorn 10mo ago
If you want society to be more vulnerable to military action, then the biggest innovation is health care. Improved health care is what allowed nations to create and maintain larger military forces. Through out history, disease and malnourished caused more death by a large margin than actually violence in combat, and many war campaign stopped suddenly because one or both sides became unable to continue.
- JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
  > Improved health care is what allowed nations to create and maintain larger military forces Isn’t it the other way? With a lot of medicine’s modern advances being rooted in combat medicine?
  - wat10000 10mo ago
    I think they mean communicable diseases, not combat injuries. For example, around 2/3rds of the military deaths in the American civil war were from disease, not combat. I don’t think much of the medical advances that prevent that came from combat medicine.
    - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
      > don’t think much of the medical advances that prevent that came from combat medicine Triage and ambulances come from battle medicine [1]. (Not sure about communicable-disease prevention.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Jean_Larrey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Jean_Larrey
      - wat10000 10mo ago
        Right, those are relatively minor improvements compared to soldiers no longer dying en masse from typhoid, smallpox, measles, etc. Good improvements to be sure, but not quite as significant.
- _DeadFred_ 10mo ago
  America's school lunch program was created so that it would have healthier soldiers. We better stop feeding children. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Lunch_Program https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Lunch_Prog...
drnick1 10mo ago
> As a real example of this, the only reason a deeper conflict didn't develop with Iran this year was because Iran demonstrated they could overwhelm the various layers of Israel's missile shield and Iran seriously depleted the various munitions used by those air defense systems (eg interceptors, THAAD) and those take a long time to replenish. Lol no, Iran was utterly humiliated in this conflict, and outed as a paper tiger.
wat10000 10mo ago
That’s gross. You’re basically saying that hundreds of millions of people need to be held as hostages to ensure good behavior, and that trying to rescue those hostages is morally wrong.

by jmyeet 10mo ago

oytis 10mo ago

[flagged]

computerthings 10mo ago
[dead]
kubb 10mo ago
Settlements in West Bank are Israel’s great crime.
- oytis 10mo ago
  I didn't mean that Israel doesn't do any crimes, but still the main things that triggers all the rockets, terror attacks etc. is Israel existing. Better defence for Israel will make the region safer, including even for Palestinians

JumpCrisscross 10mo ago

> There is no such thing as a defensive weapon I agree if we reframe it as “purely defensive,” though there is a bit of tautology invoked with the “weapon” qualifier. That said, there is legitimacy to developing defensive arms, even if one doesn’t like the ones doing it. > the only reason a deeper conflict didn't develop with Iran this year was because Iran demonstrated they could overwhelm the various layers of Israel's missile shield This hypothesis is not sustained by Iran’s reduced firing rate throughout the conflict. All evidence suggests Iran lost its war with Israel and would lose it again if they go for round 2.

jstummbillig 10mo ago

> You might be tempted to say "what about a missile shield?" but such a thing allows the owner to act with impunity with levels of violence we arguably haven't seen since 1945. I would still say "what about a missile shield?". If a missile shield is a weapon, because of its affordances, then any object is a weapon. And while that's marginally true I don't think we get anywhere by entertaining category errors. If something enables aggression, because it makes counter attacks unreasonable, that seems like a fairly nice thing to have more of, in a world where destruction is far too easy and construction is fairly hard.

kennywinker 10mo ago
> If something enables aggression, because it makes counter attacks unreasonable, that seems like a fairly nice thing to have more of You’re imagining a world where this kind of tech is equally distributed. It’s not. Israel spends something like $30b/year in defense (in part due to ~$7b/year from the US). Gaza has something like $0.3b to spend. The consequence of that asymmetry is one of them has a missile shield, the other has more than 80,000 dead citizens, famine, and virtually no infrastructure left standing.
- FunnyUsername 10mo ago
  Gaza's "air defense" is hundreds of miles of tunnels, civilians just aren't allowed to shelter in them. Hamas having better technology wouldn't change the fact that they're not interested in protecting civilians.
  - kennywinker 10mo ago
    I’m not going to defend hamas’ choices, but i think it’s disingenuous to say that they have the ability to protect the people of gaza. A few thousand fighters in tunnels is possible, but millions of civilians? And wouldn’t that be more of this “using human shields” stuff people like to point out so often?
    - FunnyUsername 10mo ago

belorn 10mo ago

If you want society to be more vulnerable to military action, then the biggest innovation is health care. Improved health care is what allowed nations to create and maintain larger military forces. Through out history, disease and malnourished caused more death by a large margin than actually violence in combat, and many war campaign stopped suddenly because one or both sides became unable to continue.

JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
> Improved health care is what allowed nations to create and maintain larger military forces Isn’t it the other way? With a lot of medicine’s modern advances being rooted in combat medicine?
- wat10000 10mo ago
  I think they mean communicable diseases, not combat injuries. For example, around 2/3rds of the military deaths in the American civil war were from disease, not combat. I don’t think much of the medical advances that prevent that came from combat medicine.
  - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
    > don’t think much of the medical advances that prevent that came from combat medicine Triage and ambulances come from battle medicine [1]. (Not sure about communicable-disease prevention.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Jean_Larrey https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_Jean_Larrey
    - wat10000 10mo ago
      Right, those are relatively minor improvements compared to soldiers no longer dying en masse from typhoid, smallpox, measles, etc. Good improvements to be sure, but not quite as significant.
_DeadFred_ 10mo ago
America's school lunch program was created so that it would have healthier soldiers. We better stop feeding children. https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Lunch_Program https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Lunch_Prog...

drnick1 10mo ago

> As a real example of this, the only reason a deeper conflict didn't develop with Iran this year was because Iran demonstrated they could overwhelm the various layers of Israel's missile shield and Iran seriously depleted the various munitions used by those air defense systems (eg interceptors, THAAD) and those take a long time to replenish. Lol no, Iran was utterly humiliated in this conflict, and outed as a paper tiger.

wat10000 10mo ago

That’s gross. You’re basically saying that hundreds of millions of people need to be held as hostages to ensure good behavior, and that trying to rescue those hostages is morally wrong.