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How We Learned to Kill

nytimes.com

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Re: How We Learned to Kill

#21

Post by gus_massa »

entrop13 wrote: post #18
maxerickson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have not killed anyone. (This is probably more true for people alive today than it is for all humans that have ever lived)

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?

Currently, the drones are only supersized RC planes with weapons. Someone still has to pull the trigger.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#22

Post by krschultz »

entrop13 wrote: post #18
maxerickson wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have not killed anyone. (This is probably more true for people alive today than it is for all humans that have ever lived)

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, but things are moving in the right direction.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#24

Post by krschultz »

darkhorn wrote: post #8
ChrisClark wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many crazies regularly read Hacker News? Thought it would be less than average. Maybe darkhorn stumbled onto the wrong site. :)

I don't know how many crazy Hacker News readers are there but I know that there are at least 2330 architects and engineers who think like me. http://www.ae911truth.org/

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 architects, they did lots of design work, but never ended up on the calculation side of the process. Explosive loads are completely different from static loads, and architects don't learn that stuff. So I imagine you have a lot of architects that don't know what they are talking about in that 2330.

If you are arguing that it was a false flag operation that flew the planes, good luck with that, but it has nothing to do with science or engineering.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#25

Post by mrottenkolber »

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? This sort of behavior is not acceptable for a human being, heck its not acceptable for an animal being or a plant. Amazing how these "soldiers" are multiple magnitudes less civilized than any insect I can think of right now.

What kind of demented questions is "can we shoot them?" anyways. Don't shoot unless shot upon. No you can never just shoot somebody.

And that he has the balls to try to justify his mass murders after the fact is way beyond me.

Edit: Deleting my sub comments because the discussion has gone completely off topic. Guys write your own top level comment and describe your view in one coherent piece. This piecemeal snowball-fight leads nowhere and nobody can be asked to get into a pitiful mud fight with 100 different people at the same time. I realize its my own mistake I should never have replied to any of them, especially the sub-thread about cats. Seriously guys?

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#26

Post by dragonwriter »

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…

> We are certainly living in the most peaceful period since the start of the 20th century.

Well, no. We're living in a period with less frequent very-high-casualty battles than WWI, WWII, and the Chinese Civil War, to be sure, but that's true of all the parts of the 20th century before, between, and after those wars, as well.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#27

Post by BariumBlue »

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…

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

If you were in the situation above, what choice would you make? I'm legitimately curious, as I do not know many people that seem to think in moral absolutes.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#28

Post by lucio »

krschultz wrote: post #24
darkhorn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how many crazy Hacker News readers are there but I know that there are at least 2330 architects and engineers who think like me. http://www.ae911truth.org/

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.

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#29

Post by bjelkeman-again »

dragonwriter wrote: post #26
krschultz wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> We are certainly living in the most peaceful period since the start of the 20th century. Well, no. We're living in a period with less frequent very-high-casualty battles than WWI, WWII, and the Chinese Civil War, to be sure, but that's true of all the parts of the 20th century before, between, and after those wars, as well.

Some research shows that we live in an unusually non-violent time period.

"Violence has been in decline over long stretches of time", says Harvard professor Steven Pinker, "and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species' existence"

There are a bunch of nice graphs showing this here:

http://ourworldindata.org/VisualHistoryOf/Violence.html#/tit...

Re: How We Learned to Kill

#30

Post by [deleted] »

BariumBlue wrote: post #27
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…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem If you were in the situation above, what choice would you make? I'm legitimately curious, as I do not know many people that seem to think in moral absolutes.

[deleted]
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