Comment by abvdasker

This is like a thief saying that they steal something because otherwise another thief would steal it. What the parent is suggesting is that engineers around the world should agree to not make such systems similar to how doctors have the hippocratic oath. It may seem naive and can probably never prevent such systems from being built but I think it's worth a try. We have to collectively agree on systems we should not build.

isn't this somewhat fallacious logic?

I took computer ethics 101 about 20 years ago (that was the only ethics class on my math/cs degree plans). I learned that the ethical thing to do when a system kills unintentionally/accidentally, you stop it and redesign from the ground up from first principles evolved beyond the principles used to design the killing version.

This needs to be applied to nation-states & so much more we're engineering.

I'd love to see a design methodology grounded in accounting for all nondual needs of humans. This idea usually comes with complaints of that being an impossible task, without really understanding the issue.

Lots of us are IEEE members bound to ethical standards: https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html

There are also numerous other organisations with such standards.

No, the "other option" is to realize that keeping people in what is effectively little more than a concentration camp with no hope of perspective or solution can only end in violence. Especially if you also start shooting the peaceful protestors like they did a few years ago. And then the government goes in to bed with the most extreme of extreme religious Zionists who quite literally support ethnic cleansing and murder.

That is not a justification or a moral judgement, it's just a fact that this will happen. This is what has always happened throughout history. To deny it is to deny reality.

Something Oct-7 shaped was bound to happen. You can't kick people in the face for 50 years, give no perspective for improvement, kick them harder in the face when they object, and expect all of them to forever turn the other cheek and have carefully nuanced opinions on the matter. That's just not how people work.

Current actions are not just killing Palestinians, it's also killing (future) Israeli. A new Oct-7 shaped event is bound to happen again if the current course is followed.

None of this is rocket science. None of this is a novel insight. People have been saying this for decades (have we forgotten the previous events like the intifada, the wide-spread protests 5 years ago, etc. etc.)? Some people were seemingly born on the morning of Oct 7 or something.

> The other option here is carpet bomb a la Drezden

Right. Because there are always just two options when you're designing a strategy.

> Why is it barbarism?

Because the civilian death toll far outweighs the militant casualties?

> The other option here is carpet bomb a la Drezden

As if that is the only other option.

How has Israel succeeded in rescuing hostages so far? With the exception of one, the answer is negotiation.

As for the removing Hamas part, could you share an example of a terrorist organisation being bombed out of existence?

More targeted with half a million dead? Sounds like you forgot to take your not crazy pills.

That isn't that calculus that a moral people run. We operate in the present, with the tools we have now with compassion. Unless you are the people working on these AI targeting tools, how do you know what they understand.

Not to be combative with the response here, but the density of destruction in Gaza is on par with the likes of Dresden. It's not really exaggeration to say that Gaza is one of the most bombed places since Vietnam, and you don't have to take anyone's word for it. You can go to companies like Maxor and purchase satellite images on the open market and see for yourself.

And now they know they were wrong?

Turns out one of your associates has been identified as a terrorist.

So sorry.