[extropy-chat] the challenges of photojournalism

[Hal Finney]

Amara Graps writes:
> There was a major story in the blog sphere recently when Kevin Sites
> filmed the killing of a man in a Falluja mosque who was injured and
> seemed to be no threat to the marines that entered and to the marine
> who killed him.

The problem with this kind of story is that we don't have all of the
information necessary to know how to put it into context.   Imagine if
we did have something like Brin's "transparent society".  All skirmishes
and military actions would be available for anyone to see.  No doubt
actions like the one Sites filmed, killing an unarmed man, happen more
often than just that one time, where a cameraman happened to be filming.
Likewise, no doubt there are many circumstances where failing to kill an
(apparently) unarmed man causes death to the merciful soldiers because
it is a trap.  And of course there are undoubted incidents where the
other side kills unarmed hostages and other innocents.  With access to
a full database of images of all these kinds of actions, we would have
a better sense of how this fits into the whole enterprise (or horror,
if you prefer) of war.

Likewise we would ideally have access to similar information about other
engagements, around the world, and in the past as well.  World War II is
often seen as a just war; but no doubt these kinds of actions happened
there just as they do today.

War is Hell, as the saying goes.  Yet people choose to engage in war.
This may be a rational choice; but is it fully informed?  I can't help
wondering how differently people would perceive the decision to go to
war, and how they would react to news of events which occur during the
war, if they had access to full information.  Perhaps someday this will
be possible.

Hal