Comment by wahern
1 day ago
Nobody in Ukraine is separated from the carnage, least of all the soldiers. The value in the points system is in communicating target priorities down the line. It's just another technological improvement in the vein of, say, the radio. All technological improvements will seem to have the effect of dehumanizing people. But war is fundamentally dehumanizing. In fact, for most soldiers dehumanizing the enemy is a necessity, because otherwise they can't pull the trigger. The dehumanization to be worried about is the dehumanization of people from the perspective of non-combatants, especially those isolated from the war, like Americans.
Where technology creates greater moral hazards in war is when it helps insulate the leadership and population from the consequences of war, and so lowers the sociological and political costs to violence. In that sense having a professional rather than conscripted army should be much more morally repugnant than e-points. Again, no one in Ukraine is isolated from consequences in any meaningful way.
The Ukraine War is the most televised war in history. Especially in the beginning I forced myself to watch the videos, just so I wouldn't get lost in abstraction. The human suffering is gut wrenching. You can watch men getting shredded down; soldiers embracing each other in fear and helplessness moments before they're killed or maimed. Debates over e-points, to me, reflect a failure to appreciate the reality, a reality which is only hidden from one's view by choice. (After a few videos that left me crying, I figured I saw enough to ensure I was dutifully more engaged with the reality than the typical non-veteran at a comfortable remove.)
If anything drones and the necessity of having to record a kill for "points" is arguably an improvement over traditional aerially bombardment. Being forced to watch people injured and killed comes with a greater cost, even for veteran soldiers. On HN we take for granted that, e.g., Facebook employees forced to sift through child porn continually pay a price no matter how long they've been at the job, yet seem to assume soldiers watching a drone video feed feel no different than playing a video game. That perspective betrays a certain callousness that is in some respect even more worrisome than these technological advancements on the battlefield.
Unfortunately I'm too tired to give a more thought out reply at this time of the night, but there were a few things I wanted to add.
To clarify at the outset, I full understand your view and partly agree with it.
I just had some thoughts, and was reminded of something while reading your comment.
> All technological improvements will seem to have the effect of dehumanizing people...
> Where technology creates greater moral hazards in war is when it helps insulate the leadership and population from the consequences of war, and so lowers the sociological and political costs to violence...
These were also the results of the invention of the gatlin gun.
A gun made by the creator to save lives.
Of course, if you now can shoot 100 times as many bullets, you don't use 1/100th as many men, you just shoot 100x bullets.
Which... yeah. I wish I had a solution, but I don't. And obviously no one's going to ramp down their own death causing machines™ when the enemy has no incentive to. (Nuclear proliferation was probably only sucessful mainly because of the high level of difficulty in both the processes as well as material sourcing.)
> Debates over e-points, to me, reflect a failure to appreciate the reality...
I don't think the debate (at least not from my side) is over e points; it's more "shit, war's already terrible, and this is even more dehumanising".
> ...yet seem to assume soldiers watching a drone video feed feel no different than playing a video game...
I never implied that in the slightest. My ire is primarily directed at the people making the system, which almost certainly are folks at higher ranks - not the average soldier. I fully understand humans are human(e).
> Especially in the beginning I forced myself to watch the videos, just so I wouldn't get lost in abstraction. The human suffering is gut wrenching. You can watch men getting shredded down; soldiers embracing each other in fear and helplessness moments before they're killed or maimed.
I have also watched many of these absolutely messed up videos; but I am absolutely not convinced that the e-points system reduces this suffering in any way. Psychological distance absolutely can make it "easier" to kill, and perhaps a man with a broken down tank was already effectively a "Hors de Combat" but if you shoot him you get 12 points, and...
...I think you see what I'm saying.
Also I just wanted to add - I'm nowhere claiming this is a cushy job for Ukrainian drone operators who won't get PTSD due to it being via a screen.
In my original comment, I had said
> this is way more similar to CoD or any other shooting game than it has ever been in human history, and by a significant amount.
I'm saying it's far closer to CoD. It's absolutely still fucked up, regardless of whether you're an operator or a family of someone on the frontline. But I'm not claiming it's identical to a game.