Live data from Hacker News

AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

theguardian.com

131–140 of 427 posts

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#131
post #113
post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Missing the forest for the trees, are you? Wars of aggression are against UN rules, and US is in the wrong regardless of what it hit. Feels like we're talking here about whether rapist should have known that the rapee was a child or an adult, and they had a good reason to believe it was an adult person (there was mother of the girl standing next to it, so, hard to distinguish...), so yeah, obviously a tragedy they ra…

Iran has been waging war since the Islamic Revolution and the US claims that there was a threat of attack on US bases and US interests and therefore the attack was in self defense. The body that decides is the UNSC and given the US has veto powers it's not going to obviously declare the US attack illegal. From Israel's perspective there's an even stronger self defense argument given the amount of missiles aimed at Is…

> the US claims that there was a threat of attack

What the US claims is really not a strong source of anything, and I'm saying that as an American. The most compelling reasoning is that Israel was going to do something so US decision makers decided joining was the best worst decision, and I'm being very bend over backwards generous with that. Anything else is just excuses trying to cover it up. It seems obvious now that there was no stopping Israel from their strike on Iranian leadership. It was too ripe of a target, they have been emboldened by current US admin, so at that point it was in for a penny, in for a pound mentality.

If the US thought an Iranian retaliation from an Israeli strike would be to attack US assets, then the world would possibly have some sympathy. No rational person could condone an outright first strike just because we thought something was going to happen. Yet the fact that in the "we think they will do something" spit balling never suggested shutting the down the strait seems very suspect as well.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#132
post #23

"Three clicks convert a data point on the map into a formal detection and move it into a targeting pipeline. These targets then move through columns representing different decision-making processes and rules of engagement. The system recommends how to strike each target – which aircraft, drone or missile to use, which weapon to pair with it – what the military calls a “course of action”. The officer selects from the…

I recommend looking closely at the New York Times analysis. There were factors that might have mitigated this as a strike target, but it also really did look like a part of the compound (and it originally was!). Yes, with hindsight, we can definitively know, and with sufficient time each target could probably have been positively ID'd, but there was precisely one mis-strike in 1000s of sorties, so this already is a l…

I'm sure it's a comfort to the parents and families of 150 dead kids that this is actually a very low error rate.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. This isnt an invasion, just a bombing campaign. 2. Of course it would be better to not kill any kids, but thats just not how war works. Mistakes will be made, that doesnt mean eliminating the number one funder of terror in the world isnt worth it. Even if the next regime hates the US/israel just as much they will likely spend much less supporting terror groups because they know theyll just get bombed again. 3. Of…

We literally just deployed 5000 troops to Iran after weeks of bombing. We are boots on the ground and our belligerent president literally calls it a war . It is disingenuous to bicker over whether we can call our attack an invasion. If it was happening to us we certainly would call it one. Hand wavy “that’s war for ya” nonsense isn’t appropriate for a serious discussion of ethics. Especially when discussing bombing a…

> Hand wavy “that’s war for ya” nonsense isn’t appropriate for a serious discussion of ethics.

I was responding to whether the "invasion" could have been accomplished without killing the kids. I dont think that's realistic.

The separate question of whether it's worth it morally to topple the regime given kids will die I think is pretty simply yes. Iran's funding of terrorism kills and will continue to kill far more kids than died in this strike. Iran's funding of Hamas has been partially responsible for the terrible conditions Gazans are subject to. Even if Israel is mostly responsible for that I think conditions will improve if Iran cuts Hamas off. Same with Yemen, if Iranian funding is cut off conditions for the 15 million children there will improve. So yea for me personally Ive got no problem with a bombing campaign that will undoubtedly accidentally kill some civilians if it means the Iranian regime is toppled.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Accidentally killing a bunch of kids would likely be worth it, morally speaking, if it led to the destruction of the Iranian regime. It most absolutely is not and I struggle to believe you can build a valid argument that links bombing school children as necessary for the fall of Iran’s government. How you win a war, especially one as lopsided as this invasion is, is as important as winning. I cannot so easily sleep…

Some children being killed is an inevitable part of war. Do you agree with the statement "No war has ever been worth the results."? If yes, then okay end of conversation. But if not then we need to talk about acceptable mistake rates and where this falls, because zero mistakes is not possible. Note that I am not defending the strike here, I'm saying that the criticism needs more depth.

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#137
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like an intellectual god to have been gifted the brain power to recognize that 150 kids being killed is a awful tragedy, and that converting a building on a military base to a school is recklessly stupid and borderline purposely done as a trap. It's like letting your child play in the road at night, and then being upset when a drunk driver hits them. Anyone can look at the satellite images from the bombing and…

"I understand that the officer killed your unarmed teen son. But you have to understand, in the dark, he appeared to be reaching for a weapon, and the officer feared for his life." "It's a tragedy that she was raped. But you have to understand, the way she was dressed, she clearly wanted it, she was sending mixed signals, you see." Anyway. Here's a preschool right next to a military base, it took me about 3 minutes o…

And it's clearly labeled as such, right on google maps.

The Navy even provides a map for people potentially targeting to know what is and isn't on base.

https://www.nepa.navy.mil/portals/20/Figure%201%20Letter.png

I'm sure you'll link to where Iran publicly shares the information about the base that was struck, right?

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#138
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The us has over 150 elementary schools on military bases. If you use a more colloquial definition of military base, many many national guard armories are on the same block as elementary schools or even right next to them. Can you cite anything that says all iranian military bases are next to elementary schools? If they are on ALL bases, that makes hitting an elementary school on base less forgivable, not more, becaus…

[deleted]

Re: AI got the blame for the Iran school bombing. The truth is more worrying

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why I said I dont think it would be immoral for Iran to launch a bunch of rockets at the US or israel to force regime changes.

But they can’t and don’t lob missiles at the US so to act as if they are is ridiculous. This is not a fight between equal weight classes.

First, this is completely untrue. Hamas and Hezbollah have been launching missiles at Israel literally nonstop for 20 years. The houithis have and will continue to launch missiles at US assets along the Bab al-Mandab Strait. All of these missiles came directly from the iranian regime. Those groups are an arm of the Iranian government

Thats not the point though. There is no reason for either party to respond proportionally in a war. Going to war against an equal weight class as idiocy, sun tzu figured that one out forever ago.

Post reply on HN