wedrifid comments on Morality and International Humanitarian Law - Less Wrong

2 Post author: David_J_Balan 30 November 2009 03:27AM

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Comment author: wedrifid 01 December 2009 02:56:18AM *  0 points [-]

This will become more important as technology decreases the difficulty of building WMDs. Eventually, even a small nation like North Korea will be able to make nuclear missiles. By that time, the cost of allowing them to do as they please (and encouraging other nations to also do as they please) may be greater, in expected lives lost, than the cost of brutally killing a million North Korean civilians.

Naturally, the North Koreans will use similar reasoning just as hard as they can. How powerful do you need to be before you are promoted from 'pre-emptive strike' to 'cold-war'? (I support placing N. Korea in the former category for what it is worth.)

Comment author: CronoDAS 01 December 2009 03:06:13AM *  2 points [-]

I would put Pakistan in the "potential target for destruction" category before North Korea. I'm more scared of Islamists with nukes than North Korea with nukes. North Korea is essentially a country run by the Mafia; they're not going to nuke anything if there's no money in it and their power and wealth are not threatened. Islamists believe that if they get blown up by a nuclear weapon, they go to Paradise. They might very well prefer mutual annihilation to mutual coexistence.

What odds would you give on a nuclear weapon being detonated in Israel in the next fifty years?

Comment author: wedrifid 01 December 2009 12:20:35PM 1 point [-]

What odds would you give on a nuclear weapon being detonated in Israel in the next fifty years?

I only give odds if I think the person I'm betting with knows less than me (or bets irrationally).

Comment author: CronoDAS 01 December 2009 03:15:16AM *  0 points [-]

In the longer term, engineered viruses might be a bigger WMD threat than nuclear weapons. If you have the technology, you can make smallpox virus a lot more cheaply and with a lot less infrastructure than you can make enriched uranium or plutonium.

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