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A deliberate bombing of hospitals and whole cities were not a feature in 1900. Deliberate attempts to create refugee crisis or just kill then all are feature no

by watwut 8mo ago

A deliberate bombing of hospitals and whole cities were not a feature in 1900. Deliberate attempts to create refugee crisis or just kill then all are feature now. By all means, count in all the civilians killed in 1900 too. But it is completely ridiculous to count only soldiers. Civilians are more likely to die due to wars. And soldiers kill civilians intentionally. > proportion of people that die in armed conflicts That must include the majority of victims of it all.

ineedasername 8mo ago
I’m not counting only soldiers. I didn’t pull these estimates out of thin air they’re not hard to find so I’m not going to take my time. I’ll say this: the difference isn’t small around this general question, hospitals don’t get bombed every day, and if you’re going to disagree with something that would be commonly known among knowledge among people familiar with a topic if you pause for a moment to reflect then the habit of checking to see if your instinct or sense of a thing is actually correct is a useful habit. Analysis is both a profession for me as well as a habit so I’ll stipulate I could be wrong and would welcome discussion of anything I’ve missed. That said: things like bombing a hospital is now possible yes but destroying them has ever been so, or simply slaughtering their residents as you march through, and there were far fewer norms against that sort of thing. Much worse things done more often. Deliberate slaughter of non combatants isn’t new. Prohibitions against it arose for a good reason and strong precedent of the practice from times where marching armies were more common and therefore systematic slaughter of this sort more convenient to those inclined. Accidentally or on purpose, giving smallpox via infected blankets to people forcibly removed from their land and marked across thousands of miles is just one variety. Cholera and other disease outbreaks are another. These too are not unobvious things to if you consider possible modes of death by or adjacent to military campaigns and they too are also not hard to find estimates for.

by watwut 8mo ago

ineedasername 8mo ago

I’m not counting only soldiers. I didn’t pull these estimates out of thin air they’re not hard to find so I’m not going to take my time. I’ll say this: the difference isn’t small around this general question, hospitals don’t get bombed every day, and if you’re going to disagree with something that would be commonly known among knowledge among people familiar with a topic if you pause for a moment to reflect then the habit of checking to see if your instinct or sense of a thing is actually correct is a useful habit. Analysis is both a profession for me as well as a habit so I’ll stipulate I could be wrong and would welcome discussion of anything I’ve missed. That said: things like bombing a hospital is now possible yes but destroying them has ever been so, or simply slaughtering their residents as you march through, and there were far fewer norms against that sort of thing. Much worse things done more often. Deliberate slaughter of non combatants isn’t new. Prohibitions against it arose for a good reason and strong precedent of the practice from times where marching armies were more common and therefore systematic slaughter of this sort more convenient to those inclined. Accidentally or on purpose, giving smallpox via infected blankets to people forcibly removed from their land and marked across thousands of miles is just one variety. Cholera and other disease outbreaks are another. These too are not unobvious things to if you consider possible modes of death by or adjacent to military campaigns and they too are also not hard to find estimates for.