= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
DanArmak comments on A brief history of ethically concerned scientists - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (150)
That is rather begging the question. As a result of WW1 there have been agreements in place - the Geneva Protocol - not to develop or use chemical weapons, and so fewer people have been killed by them than might have otherwise.
Well, it seems somewhat unfair to judge the decision on information not available for decision-maker, however, I fail to see how is that an 'implicit premise'.
I didn't think Geneva convention was that old, and, actually updating on it makes Immerwahr decision score worse, due to lower expected amount of saved lives (through lower chance of having chemical weapons used).
Hopefully, roleplaying this update made me understand that in some value systems it's worth it. Most likely, E(\Delta victims to Haber's war efforts) > 1.
Here's what I meant by saying you were begging the question: you were assuming the outcome (few people would be killed by chemical warfare after WW1) did not depend on the protests against chemical weapons.
You said originally that protesting against chemical warfare (CW) during WW1 was not worth the sacrifice involved, because few people were killed by CW after WW1.
But the reason few people were killed is that CW was not used often. And one contributing factor to its not being used was that people had protested its use in WW1, and created the Geneva Convention.
People who protested CW achieved their goal in reducing the use of CW. So the fact CW was not used much and killed few people, is not evidence that the protest was in vain - to the contrary, it's exactly what you would expect to see if the protest was effective.