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Comment by Terr_ | Hacker News Reader

> Conducting a military operation that has a fully predictable rate of civilian casualties is morally equivalent to targeting those civilians.

By that logic only the absolute number of (expected) civilian deaths matters... which can't be right.

If it were true, then exploding a city bus (1 soldier, 10 civilians) would be more moral than striking a military base (1,000 soldiers, 11 civilians.)

It would also suggest a kind of blame-shifting if one side decides to install their missile launchers in the playgrounds of elementary schools or whatever.

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You are simply incorrect. “Rate” is a ratio, not an absolute number.

But to your point, Israel’s ratio in Gaza was as high as 100 civilians to 1 soldier in the shopping mall (or more accurately, refugee family shelters).

> “Rate” is a ratio, not an absolute number.

No, you've cut off the crucial second half of the sentence, which says a military operation with known risks of civilian deaths "is morally equivalent to targeting those civilians."

The phrase "those civilians" refers to a countable quantity of them.

Perhaps you meant to write "morally equivalent to targeting that proportion of civilians"?

This isn't pedantry, but what are you arguing?

Assuming that's a plural "you", I would paraphrase the subthread like this:

_________

(1) zer0x4d: "Many people fail to see that morality depends on intent, there is a qualitative difference between deliberate and incidental collateral damage."

(2) abalone: "No, only people suffering from broken moral cores think there's a difference. An attack when they knew a predictable rate of collateral damage is morally the same as deliberately targeting those civilians who died."

(3) Terr_: "It's based on the number of civilians who die? That doesn't make sense. Consider these scenarios, where even though fewer civilians die, the intent/planning of the act makes us judge it as morally worse."

(4) abalone: "Incorrect, I said it was about comparing the two rates of death."

(5) Terr_: "Well, that's not quite what you wrote earlier, is this other version closer to what you meant to convey?"

(6) beedeebeedee: "What is being argued?"

(7) Terr_: [Error: Recursion depth exceeded]

Hi Terr, the "you" was singular (and in reference to you, in particular). You paraphrase the subthread well enough, but your first comment within it misinterpreted what Abalone said.

> > Conducting a military operation that has a fully predictable rate of civilian casualties is morally equivalent to targeting those civilians.

>By that logic only the absolute number of (expected) civilian deaths matters... which can't be right.

Abalone (as well as myself, many others, including the signers of the Geneva Convention) is concerned about the use of force against a civilian population where it is predictable that there will be a high rate of civilian death. Abalone says that is morally equivalent to targeting those civilians and Abalone is correct (it is, in fact, a war crime). It is not necessarily about absolute number of civilian deaths, so your counterexample does not succeed.

I think the argument boils down to "what does it mean to target civilians?"

if 100 die to get 1 soldier, that sounds like targeting civilians. If 1 dies to get 100 soldiers, that sounds like (to me and many others) a successful and targeted attack with minimal collateral damage.

The argument being made sounds like if you know there could be 1 death that you should not target the soldiers and that there is no difference in that case to the 100 civilians to 1 soldier and as such, if any civilian could have been estimated to be collateral damage then no military action should have been made.

I think that is supercilious and discounts reality. Civilians are going to get killed and war is terrible. There is a difference in targeted ratios.

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