Your logic here is sound, sure. But don't tell me you can be so naive as to believe that the U.S. military is a defensive mechanism
I am not. Every country is corrupt, and war makes a lot of money for powerful people, but does it justify sabotaging your own existence?
‘Sabotaging your own existence’ is a magic sentence that can justify everything. Israel can kill children more than any other nation in the world, and justify it by ‘not sabotaging their own existence’
Anyone can do anything with this perspective. This is the exact point gere. Pull yourself back, if you are about to ‘not sabotage your own existence’ by simply killing innocent civilians because you believe a computer algorithm told you in about 15 years they or their children might do something harmful.
Not really. Not unless one is thinking in absolutes, at which point one is by definition an extremist.
The rational dialogue that emerges is the proper size of a military for defensive—but not continuous offensive—purposes. I’d guess, for America, that is half its current size at most. (The wrong answers are zero and $1.4tn.)
But I think that is a question that anyone would rather not consider.
The issue is that if you don't consider that question, and jump into discussion or actions, in general just have an "outrage", then it would be very hard to take you seriously.
What would your response be? What is the value of `x` at which you will approve of the pre-emptive attack?
Just curious.
What is your percentage to say no lets do not take actions. Because again; with this perspective every single action is legitimate. There is a chance for everything. If there is a weapon that can kill every human on the planet, every country will race to invent it because every country will try to invent it. Every action is valid. Every weapon development is okey, because if you dont, others will. You can kill everyone, because everyone might eventually try to kill you, there is always a chance.
We both know that it is not true. Because by this logic, you wouldn't fire a weapon at someone who is about to stab your wife or child. Because there is a small chance that they will die of a heart attack before they can do it. So it is some value that is < 100%, but apparently that is not good enough for you.
On top of that, while you are pulling some hypothetical scenarios, the reality is exactly as I described. Governments, especially us gov, kept invading, bombing and killing people based on some subjective percentages and this is still ongoing.
Although you did not like my ‘prefer to die instead of kill’ idea, you still did not solve ‘you can kill everyone since there is a chance anyone can kill you’ problem. And reality is closer to latter, unfortunately.
Your example seems to validate my point of view: warmongers disguise their subjectivity by basing their actions on “objective” models.
It does not have anything to do with objectivity. I thought it to be futile to discuss that since, as you implied, predicting future can't be 100% objective, and thus decisions to avert a bad future outcome always need to be based on subjective decisions.
So this is another question where I want to ask you how you would make a subjective call.
Make your call.
Or childrens died because of invasion is more objective?
Which one?