I agree strongly with everything in this video (HT - Andrew Sullivan).
Comment thread is open on this one. Remember when you accuse someone in the comments (or me!) of being indifferent to due process or human life due to their stance on drones, they might think the exact same thing of you.
I think a safe bet is that everyone commenting on this blog:
1. Deeply values due process and the rule of law, and
2. Deeply values human life.
I've seen no evidence in several years of operating the blog that either of these are untrue for anyone that comments here.
Friday, June 8, 2012
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What do you think of the idea that reduced collateral damage seems to encourage intensified usage of that weaponry, until the point where the amount of collateral damage is the same as before?
ReplyDeleteAfter all, the number of civilians killed in drone attacks in Pakistan is starting to equal the number of people killed in 9/11, having long passed 2000. I do feel that if the drone attacks were meant to prevent another 9/11, it is ineffective when they cause nearly as many deaths as 9/11 did.
I definitely think Perloff effects exist. Whether your statement above is true or not is an empirical question I can't really speak to. This seems like a very hard thing to nail down a counterfactual on. It also seems like it would be tough to agree on a definition of "collateral damage". Let's say al Qaeda, the Taliban, and assorted other jihadists regroup in the mountains and assert dominance over a region that we evacuate because it's become too costly to prosecute the war without drones...
Delete...are you counting the decades of brutality resulting from that on the other side of the ledger or not?
Counterfactuals are very hard.
Allow me conclude on a note that I don't think many people will disagree with: new technology is obviously no substitute for wise decisionmaking.
Well, it is very difficult to compare brutality suffered whilst being alive as opposed to freedom won at great cost to human life.
DeleteStill, has there been a situation where a mass of people suffered such misery, oppression, and tyranny that being dead was far more preferable for them? And more specifically, is the misery under Taliban so great that being dead is preferable?
I'm not sure I follow your logic, Prateek.
DeleteMy proposal is not to kill everyone that would have been under Taliban control were we to have withdrawn, say, a couple years ago when drone warfare really picked up.
Indeed, even in the most pessimistic version of my proposal (from a collateral damage perspective), my proposal doesn't even come close to that.
"I think a safe bet is that everyone commenting on this blog:
ReplyDelete1. Deeply values due process and the rule of law, and
2. Deeply values human life."
So egoist from Bob Murphy's blog has wandered over here yet?
:)
DeleteEh - I can't understand half of what that guy writes anyway, so he'd probably get a free pass.
"I deeply value due process, I just happen to think that due process in this case means I can execute him in his home, based on a secret trial, without hearing from him or explaining the charges. See, we're just having a legitimate difference of opinion about how precisely to get the due process thing right."
ReplyDelete"I deeply value the rule of law, I just think that growing wheat on your own land for your own consumption constitutes interstate commerce and whatever else I feel like regulating."
Btw, can you make a post about why (per the recent MR discussion) you don't think equal pay laws should be applied to the porn industry?
Regarding the MR post, I think you misread it. I never said equal pay laws should not be applied.
DeleteI doubt they could be applied - it's not comparable work. But insofar as they can be appropriately applied, of course they should be.
Oh, so you really do hold to the absurd implications of the position and don't see why it is absurd in the first place. Ignore my attempt to talk sense.
Delete