Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How We Learned to Kill

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 154 posts

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#61

Post by [deleted] »

lucio wrote: post #28
krschultz wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked as a mechanical engineer at a company that had 3x as many engineers as that number in one building. We all did a lot of calculations involving explosions, designing systems to survive explosions, etc. I bet if you polled every single one of them, it would be a unanimous agreement that airplanes caused the damage on 9/11. Also note, architects are not the right people to be quoting for this. When we hired arc…

The thing that never ceased to amaze me is the collapse of WT7. I can't explain it.

[deleted]

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#62

Post by meric »

krschultz wrote: post #22
entrop13 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that as society progresses it off loads the killing work onto fewer people - executioners, soldiers, drones, etc. These killings are presumably justified by the will of the larger society otherwise these men wouldn't be paid to do this. So a smaller part of the population does an increasing porportion of the killing, but does the overall number of people killed decrease?

We are certainly living in the most peaceful period since the start of the 20th century. For example, look what was happening exactly 100 years ago today: http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/firstworldwar/index... When was the last time there was a battle with thousands of causalities anywhere on earth? War hasn't gone away, but it has definitely declined. Surely it would be better if it were gone completely, bu…

When was the last time there was a battle with thousands of causalities anywhere on earth?

2400 killed, 600 wounded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Battle_of_Fallujah

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#63

Post by littletimmy »

Life as an Afghani farmer:

> Be farming your land in peace

> Some Saudis blow up shit

> US attacks Afghanistan

> Try to keep out of trouble

> See clear skies one night and want to irrigate land

> Carry tools in a package, start digging

> Get shot by highly trained killer cuz you are potentially a terrorist

> WTF.gif

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#64

Post by DanBC »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #55
[deleted] wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Watch your cat carefully the next time it catches an insect. The cat will eat it, eventually. But not after playing with it for a good few minutes. Cats are cruel. They bring their prey to the brink of death, then release it only to catch it few moments later and repeat the process. Source: I have two cats.

A cat's jaw is delicate. The prey a cat normally choses has beaks or teeth or claws that can damage that jaw, causing infection. That could easily kill a cat. One possible reason that a cat "plays" with the prey is to minimise the risk of an injury near the jaw by wearing out the prey to the point that a killing bite can be given.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#65

Post by TeMPOraL »

BariumBlue wrote: post #59
[deleted] wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

The point of the Trolley 'problem' (dilemma) as I think of it is to distinguish the moral difference between actively killing someone and letting someone get killed. From a utilitarian standpoint, all you look at are the possible actions and the possible results. From a moral standpoint, actively killing someone is much worse than letting someone get killed. -------- > I would shoot only if shot upon, not because its…

> From a utilitarian standpoint, all you look at are the possible actions and the possible results. From a moral standpoint, actively killing someone is much worse than letting someone get killed.

I disagree. What the trolley problem shows is that it's better to save many lives than just one, thus most people decide to pull the lever. As for why in real world you don't go and kill people for the greater good, is that our brains run on a corrupted hardware. "The end justifies the means" is a valid line of reasoning, but not for humans - because we predictably end up doing more bad than good when we follow it.

Here's a good analysis of the topic: http://lesswrong.com/lw/uv/ends_dont_justify_means_among_hum....

> Would you be willing to let everything and everyone you love perish?

If you put it that way, then killing one person to avoid this outcome is just like pulling the lever in the trolley problem.

>> I would shoot only if shot upon, not because its moral, but because I'd feel like a coward idiot to do otherwise.

This is a complex topic. I bet GP would shoot back when shot upon just because survival instinct kicks in. But barring that, social pressure is indeed a strong factor. I recall stories of Jehovah's Witnesses (die-hard pacifists) who got conscripted during First World War, back before the movement developed the idea that going to prison for your beliefs is a Right Thing; those soldiers would keep intentionally missing when shooting, in order to follow the "do not kill" commandement while avoiding getting imprisoned/executed for refusing to fight.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#66

Post by throwmeunder »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #56
methodover wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if we did have incapacitating weapons that could be used in a wartime situation?

That would be uber cool. Unfortunately, we don't have any that rival the effectiveness of lethal ones, thus if one were to use stun weaponry, one would lose to an enemy that decided not to.

To add on to that the complexity of developing such weapons grows considerably when you take into account the uniqueness of each target - various resistances, adrenaline, different body composition, hit area and so on. If you fail to incapacitate the target they might retaliate lethally.

Which is actually possible with lethal weapons too - people don't always die from a shot or two and not always instantly. So to ensure the threat is defused the weapons must be very effective and the best way to ensure that is by making them as lethal as possible.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#67

Post by TeMPOraL »

mrottenkolber wrote: post #25

He ordered the killing of humans because of an assumption? What the shit. Just walk over there and ask the bloke what he's doing, or investigate after they left, or throw in a flash grenade and disable, shoot the legs not the heads. Anything but kill. What are they thinking? That their chances of survival are higher if they kill the enemy combatants before they can kill them? Is this really what it boils down to? Thi…

Replying to the edit of your edit - yes, seriously. HN is a place of discussion, not monologue. We all learn from one another. Just because you were wrong (IMO) about things (especially about cats), doesn't mean that I didn't seriously consider your arguments. I evaluated them, learned from them and decided to reply - even if to express disagreement. You should do the same. Deleting good comments (as in, civil, on-topic) is not the way to go - it hinders other readers' ability to understand the discussion and reach their own conclusions. You're of course free to not reply to comments - but please, for other people's sake, don't retroactively delete your comments.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#68

Post by TeMPOraL »

DanBC wrote: post #64
TeMPOraL wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch your cat carefully the next time it catches an insect. The cat will eat it, eventually. But not after playing with it for a good few minutes. Cats are cruel. They bring their prey to the brink of death, then release it only to catch it few moments later and repeat the process. Source: I have two cats.

A cat's jaw is delicate. The prey a cat normally choses has beaks or teeth or claws that can damage that jaw, causing infection. That could easily kill a cat. One possible reason that a cat "plays" with the prey is to minimise the risk of an injury near the jaw by wearing out the prey to the point that a killing bite can be given.

An interesting explanation I have never heard before. Thanks!

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#69

Post by vinceguidry »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #37

A very good and honest article. Here's one gem I noticed, right at the end: > I don’t blame Presidents George W. Bush or Barack Obama for these wars. Our elected leaders, after all, are just following orders, no different from the Marine who asks if he can kill a man digging by the side of the road. Exactly. Some people seem to think that the President is the one with the most power, and that he can wield it arbitrar…

> I suspect that, in a way, the office of President is one of the least real power in actual politics.

Being a part of a corporation has taught me an awful lot about what cooperation looks like in that kind of setting. At my job, we hired a new VP of e-commerce last year, I didn't really understand what that meant for me for months. At first I kind of saw him as a threat, after awhile I realized that having a tech-savvy executive at that level means that the CEO is wanting to grow our department's role in the company and that I should stick around because it could be a huge opportunity for me in a few years.

The main thing about settings where there is a great deal of power flying around is that everything you do matters. You can't not make a decision, not making a decision is making a decision by not taking action. Everybody with power understands this and so learns how to read into these actions / inactions. Even if there's no real conflict, there's just not enough time to have copious amounts of discussion concerning intentions. You just figure it out and adjust your own goals and actions accordingly.

When you have change at the top, the entire executive structure under the new leader adapts to suit the guy at the top's sensibilities. You don't really see the multitudes of little changes or how they add up unless you know what to look for and have been watching it over multiple leaders. These things filter out to the public mostly unnoticed, but can be quite dramatic in their effect.

The biggest change with Obama is that he's an introvert and doesn't feel the need to pander to Congress. It's made a lot of waves and contributed majorly to the gridlock he's had to deal with in trying to push his agenda. Clinton was way more personable and much more pragmatic.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#70

Post by TeMPOraL »

vinceguidry wrote: post #58
[deleted] wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

You seem to be operating on some strange principles and are being inconsistent with your assertions. When humans kill it's abhorrent but when cats do it it's okay because it's 'exercise'? Ants fight pitched wars over territory with other ants. These battles are immensely brutal. The ecosystem of your backyard puts our battlegrounds to shame. You don't see the warfare, but that doesn't mean it's not happening. Plants…

> The ecosystem of your backyard puts our battlegrounds to shame. You don't see the warfare, but that doesn't mean it's not happening.

It reminds me of a thing I learned when I explored the possibility of joining the OpenWorm project[0]. It seems that, as fungi wage war with bacteria, one side learned to secrete enzymes that make C. elegans worms more aggressive at eating the other, thus using them as weapons.

[0] - http://www.openworm.org/

Post reply on HN