How many Iraqi civilian casualties are acceptable?

[Dauphin]

There is a discount effect, people living today care more about their generation than the next. Look at baby boomers.

[Riesstiu IV]

Baby Boomers are worse than AIDS.

[KrazyHorse]

I'm not claiming that other people don't discount the value of future generations. I'm simply unwilling to accept it as moral.

[KrazyHorse]

Note that I consider discounting acceptable when it comes to (even inflation-adjusted) dollar amounts, due both to intertemporal differences in marginal monetary utility as well as to the real return on present resources.

[Ramo]

If you really believe that you there is no discount rate on human life but there is on money, you can't impose a monetary value on life, which would make any kind of ethical calculus ridiculous.

[KrazyHorse]

Utterly wrong, Ramo. Think it through...

EDIT: take as an analogy the futures price of a commodity with no storage costs or convenience yield...human lives are not fungible, so there's no equivalent arbitrage argument available, but it shows that as a principle it's not inconsistent

[dannubis]

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


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.

"Hmmm, if it takes 3000 US citizens to make the world a better place I am ok with that". Where have we heard and seen this before...

[KrazyHorse]

Do you really think that blind moral relativism is anything less than completely retarded?

[Heraclitus]

Do you really think that blind moral relativism is anything less than completely retarded?

You do realize what this implies about most college educated people right?

[David Floyd]

You can't put a number on this. My point would be, as long as militant Muslims continue camping out masquerading as "innocent civilians", we should continue killing them.

[Felch]

"Hmmm, if it takes 3000 US citizens to make the world a better place I am ok with that". Where have we heard and seen this before...

I'm not saying that I'm a moral paragon, but here's something to think about.

Over the years we all accumulate wealth. We have our bank accounts, retirement accounts, homes, cars, etc. If someone came up to you and made the following offer, what would be your response?

I will save the lives of two million Iraqis, if you quit your job, liquidate all of your assets, and give the cash to me. This is guaranteed to work, but no one will know you're responsible, so they're not going to reward you.

It's simple, and it's not going to hurt you physically, but I'm not necessarily going to do it. In the end, Iraq might as well not exist. I only know about it from books and TV and the Internet and friends who've been there. I've never gone to Iraq to pick up groceries, or for a football game, or to see my friends. It's just some place that doesn't really matter to me. If two million Iraqis disappeared tomorrow, I wouldn't know until somebody told me.

I'd have a different attitude about other places. I live in Maryland, so I care very much about what goes on here. I have friends across the country, so I don't want bad things to happen in California or Georgia or wherever. Western Europe is where my ancestors are from, so I feel some connection there. But Iraq is nothing to me.

[David Floyd]

Absolutely. I wouldn't give $20 to save every starving crippled Down's Syndrome baby in Baghdad (****, or the Bronx, for that matter). I just don't give a ****.

[DaShi]

You can't put a number on this. My point would be, as long as militant Muslims continue camping out masquerading as "innocent civilians", we should continue killing them.

Now that they are masquerading as US soldiers, should we start killing them too?

[David Floyd]

Yep, if they're militant Muslims.

[DaShi]

So you're saying nothing here then.