thomblake comments on Open Thread: March 2010, part 2 - Less Wrong

4 Post author: RobinZ 11 March 2010 05:25PM

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Comment author: cousin_it 12 March 2010 07:42:10PM *  1 point [-]

This is ironic. I wrote:

It's some kind of crazy ethical blindness that most Americans seem to have for some reason, where "our guys" are human beings, but arbitrarily chosen foreigners deserve whatever they get...

Then you wrote:

...an obvious way to make things better for everyone involved. Fewer American casualties because we're using robots, and fewer civilian casualties because the robots are better at not shooting at civilians.

This happens to pixel-perfectly demonstrate my point about ethical blindness. Reread my quote again, then your quote, then mine, then yours again. Notice anything wrong? Anything missing?

You see, you omitted one pretty important group: everyone America calls "enemy combatants". If you think all of them are bad people and deserve to die, then you obviously don't get it. Repeat after me: America Starts Aggressive Wars. Then say it again because it's true and truth won't suffer from repetition. Say it as many times as you need to make it sink in, then come back and we will resume this discussion.

Comment author: thomblake 12 March 2010 07:50:30PM 4 points [-]

everyone America calls "enemy combatants"

America will be killing those people with or without robots. We already have ways of wiping all of the enemy combatants off the map if we want to (for example nukes). Military technology is primarily about finding ways to 1) kill fewer of our own soldiers and 2) kill fewer people who aren't enemy combatants.

Comment author: jimrandomh 12 March 2010 08:05:44PM 5 points [-]

America will be killing those people with or without robots

Not necessarily. All else equal, the less it costs to wage a war (in money, American lives, and good will), the more more likely leaders are to actually start one.

Comment author: FAWS 12 March 2010 07:59:42PM *  2 points [-]

Ignoring the question whether that's desirable or not (politics is the mindkiller) reducing the cost of killing those people will lead to more of those people killed in marginal situations where such considerations matter.

Comment author: thomblake 12 March 2010 08:03:41PM 1 point [-]

Yes, that's one of the good arguments against robot soliders I mentioned above. We're more likely to not care about the fate of our robot soliders, and so would be less hesitant to send them into battle. Though it's still an open question whether that effect would trump any increased monetary cost per soldier (if any) and whether the other benefits outweigh such concerns.

Human soldiers perform horribly in terms of following the rules of war, and above that do absolutely horrible things sometimes.

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