[ExI] Death follows European contact (Mirco Romanato)

[John Clark]

On Sun, Apr 13, 2014 at 2:09 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> It seems obvious that since WW1 and WW2, nuclear weapons have stopped
> large nations fighting all-out wars against each other
>

Yes.

> thus leading to a reduction in wartime deaths.


Yes.

> What has replaced it is large nations picking fights with small nations
> with small fighting forces, thus leading to many small wars but with fewer
> deaths.


Yes.

> Is permanent war against terrorism 'better'?
>

Do you really need to ask that question? The answer is not just yes but
HELL YES! The bloodiest day in the terrorism war (911) killed 2977 people.
The non nuclear firebombing of Tokyo on March 9 1945 during a non-terrorist
war killed at least 125,000 people, probably the bloodiest 6 hours in human
history.

I know it's very unfashionable nowadays but I am a member of that small
minority of people who believes that when the stakes are particularly high,
like in matters of life and death, logic becomes more important not less;
and there is nothing more logical than arithmetic. Consequently all other
things being equal I believe that killing 2 people is twice as bad as
killing 1 and killing 4 is twice as bad as killing 2.

 John K Clark
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