How many Iraqi civilian casualties are acceptable?

[Dr Strangelove]

Since the original reason for the invasion was bogus I voted zero.

[Snotty]

How many do the citizens of iraq consider acceptable?

[dannubis]

I find the willingness to sacrifice lives of those that are not your family of friends strange. The question is Sloww, would you sacrifice your daughter for the higher good ?

[loinburger]

I find the willingness to sacrifice lives of those that are not your family of friends strange. The question is Sloww, would you sacrifice your daughter for the higher good ?

That's different, it's more difficult for him to casually dismiss his daughter as a terrorist or terrorist sympathizer. In contrast, he and his ilk believe that Iraqi "civilians" are sub-human.

[Dauphin]

Is this how many civilians Americans kill, or just get killed in general? Most of the civilian casualties were killed by Iraqis.

Are "Americans" responsible if the civilians wouldn't have been killed but for the invasion?

[Kuciwalker]

What is the relevant discount factor for the time value of human life (that is, what relative value is a good life in 20 years compared to a good life today)?

Why can't you just use the risk-free interest rate?

[Kuciwalker]

Since the original reason for the invasion was bogus I voted zero.

People like DrS sound nominally smarter than Slowwhand, but after a moment's thought you have to conclude that they aren't.

[KrazyHorse]

It took you a moment?

[Kuciwalker]

This shouldn't be too hard to compute, with a few assumptions and some statistics I don't have available. Assume the counterfactual is indefinite continuation of a regime similar to Saddam Hussein's*, specify e.g. linear improvement between the time of invasion and 2022, fix the economic prosperity in 2022 exactly (70% of 2002 US GDP/capita?), assume constant GDP growth matching the historical average for developed countries, fix the monetary value of a life, etc. and you can easily find the difference in present value between the two.

*at least far enough into the future that the discount factor renders anything afterward negligible.

[KrazyHorse]

I don't accept a discount rate greater than 0 on true human welfare.

[Dauphin]

fix the monetary value of a life,

[Kuciwalker]

It's reasonable to introduce if only to attempt to represent the (unquantifiable) uncertainty in the model.

xpost

[KrazyHorse]

fix the monetary value of a life,

[KrazyHorse]

It's reasonable to introduce if only to attempt to represent the (unquantifiable) uncertainty in the model.

xpost

I don't disagree with you on the mathematical utility of such a model. Conceptually, however, you need to specify that it comes from uncertainty rather than discounting.

[Felch]

I find the willingness to sacrifice lives of those that are not your family of friends strange.

It's actually perfectly rational, it's just not "sacrifice".

This reminds me of an argument from middle school. Back when I played Magic the Gathering, the guy I was up against tried to sacrifice one of my critters. I told him that was against the rules, and he challenged me to find where in the rules it stipulates that a sacrifice must be one of your own cards. I couldn't find it, but it's pretty fundamental to the definition.

Personally I don't care about Iraqis. If two million of them must die to makes the world better for the other six billion, I'm okay with that. I'd certainly have a different attitude about it if I were Iraqi though.