[steego]

You know what's worse than the instant obliteration of millions of people? The slow obliteration and starving of millions of people.

Imagine Venezuela, but much much worse.

Picture a society that doesn't know how to create institutions, conduct trade and collaborate with the people around them without the aid of a computers.

Now, I don't know if disabling their computers would result in an incredibly dysfunctional society that would starve, but it's not unthinkable. If it did, the suffering could be far beyond the instant obliteration of millions of people.

[yosito]

Who stands to benefit by destabilizing the western world to such a degree? Clearly some big players like Russia and China, as well as some smaller players can benefit from destabilizing the western world a little bit. But if they destroy it to the point where millions of people are suffering, they'll bring suffering on themselves as well. It seems to me that they're probably motivated to level the playing field and gain dominance more than completely destroying or starving people on a large scale.

[steego]

To be clear, I wasn't making the case for a motive or even suggesting this was a plausible scenario. My point was death from a nuclear weapon is not the worst form of death.

Modern history is littered with examples of millions of people starving or being slaughtered because societies collapsed economically or politically.

> Who stands to benefit by destabilizing the western world to such a degree?

Who's limiting the conversation to the western world? Let's think beyond ourselves for a second. Wouldn't it be just as tragic if cyber attacks were used to destabilize other places in the world? Imagine an African country that has become entirely dependent on some sort of mobile money transferring platform. Maybe their neighbor launches an attack on that platform to destabilize the country for whatever nefarious reasons.

[fjsolwmv]

There are thousandss of brilliant but poor people in the world...

[ythn]

> You know what's worse than the instant obliteration of millions of people? The slow obliteration and starving of millions of people

Yeah, I'm going to have to sort of disagree with you there. Once you are dead, you are dead. If you are starving, things can still change and you can still have free agency.

[steego]

To be clear, I'm not comparing death to starvation.

I'm comparing death by obliteration to death by starvation.

[vertexFarm]

Well it's about statistics rather than what an individual might possibly be able to accomplish.

Sure, maybe you'll find a way to survive a famine, but on average most will die because the math just doesn't add up. Not enough food for everyone. And it ends up killing far more than bombs and bullets, even nukes. Disease and famine are far worse than WMD when the numbers are in.

[fahdelm]

Well I don't think my dead self would mind being dead with it being dead and all. So I don't really see how any kind of suffering is better than death. In a way death doesn't really hurt you, since you stop living.

[ythn]

> So I don't really see how any kind of suffering is better than death.

So maybe we should round up all the poor people and gas them to put them out of their misery?

[spurcell93]

You joke, but from a certain perspective and within certain parameters, there are people who would find this acceptable, and even preferred. I recall the movie Solace (which wasn't great, but I digress) where the premise is that a serial killer has psychic powers that allow him to see others' futures. When he detects a future that is particularly horrible (disease, injury, etc) with no hope of survival, he makes sure their last moments are wildly happy and kills them painlessly with no warning.

If we were to regard the life of the average poverty stricken human as being _terrible_, then killing them painlessly and suddenly becomes less abhorrent. Of course, then we need to define criteria for whose lives are of sufficiently bad quality where sudden death is a superior option.

Some nihilists might say all humans satisfy that criteria. Even if you're a wealthy and generally happy person, you will become old and die. If you were suddenly dead at this second with no warning, you would not care - the only downside would be those who remained alive, who presumably would care. Let's recurse until no one cares.

And the universe moves along just the same.

I am not advocating for this at all, but I felt your comment justified some sort of explanation. And I have been thinking about these existential questions quite a bit recently.

[um_ya]

Actually, in a capitalist country it might be easier to survive such an attack. If there is demand for a product or service, people and businesses will find a way to meet that demand. Millions of people working independently to satisfy their local market demand. It would probably hurt centralized socialist or communist countries more since it severs their control, surveillance, and communication mechanisms.

[steego]

I agree that markets tend to buffer the effects significantly.

The problem is in times of crisis, the appreciation of market dynamics and rule of law tend to wane. Even if those things are intact, the flow of goods and services can be undermined by well-intentioned but misguided politicians.

My point was simple. Despite the systems of trade, a catastrophic shock in trade or production systems could literally kill millions in a way that is more brutal and horrific than instant obliteration.

[bambataa]

I’m intrigued - how does that play out in your head? There’s a disaster causing social collapse but a free market for food remains. Demand outstrips supply so it becomes too expensive for many to buy. What do people do before they can go back to the land and sow their own food? What about areas with a lack of suitable available land (as referenced in a sister post by the potato famine)?

[steego]

I honestly didn't invest too much time playing out scenarios out in my head, rather I was mentally recalling events in modern history where we've simply allowed millions of people to starve. From a BBC article:

The scarcity, Mukherjee writes, was caused by large-scale exports of food from India for use in the war theatres and consumption in Britain - India exported more than 70,000 tonnes of rice between January and July 1943, even as the famine set in. This would have kept nearly 400,000 people alive for a full year. Mr Churchill turned down fervent pleas to export food to India citing a shortage of ships - this when shiploads of Australian wheat, for example, would pass by India to be stored for future consumption in Europe. As imports dropped, prices shot up and hoarders made a killing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/soutikbiswas/2010/10...

I guess if I was to assume a scenario that could lead to the starvation of millions, I'd imagine a poorer country making the mistake of relying too much on some sort of electronic platform to trade and save their money. Let's say this country/region also relied too much on exporting some agricultural commodity that was being affect by a change in climate.

A catastrophic attack on their banking platform could theoretically destroy the local populations confidence in the trading currency as well as scare away foreign lenders. It may create incentives where it's more advantageous to hoard food and sell it on the international markets rather than distribute it to local customers who can't pay.

Free markets tend to create the most value in the long run. In some situations, hoarding can create incentives to distribute to underserved areas. In scenarios where the underserved areas do not have a means of payment (monetary, barter, indentured servitude, etc.), free markets and hoarding can simply be horrifyingly cruel.

What are your thoughts?

[bambataa]

Should there be some catastrophic collapse in society, I would far prefer that the government requisitioned food and rationed it out. While it’s definitely open to abuse, I think it would do a better job in the short term of keeping people alive. A free market response to a national emergency sounds dreadful to me

[steego]

I don't disagree. Most times, I would prefer the decisions of how people get the things they need are made by a network of people with incentives to provide and profit rather than central planning. However, if the situation is dire and the incentives create a deadlock, I think thought-out, extraordinary measures to help people are warranted.

[Lionsion]

> My point was simple. Despite the systems of trade, a catastrophic shock in trade or production systems could literally kill millions in a way that is more brutal and horrific than instant obliteration.

Systems have trade have made the market economy of the US more vulnerable to many kinds of "a catastrophic shock[s] in trade or production systems." IIRC, there are only a few days of slack in the US food supply chain. That's down from a month or two during the cold war (where I think there were mandates for reserves).

[xfitm3]

Supply will be lower than what’s currently available. Prices could go up. If so, lower income households may not survive.

[mFixman]

So what happened during the Irish Potato Famine?

[petemc_]

The British.

[bambataa]

Laissez-faire in practice doesn’t seem so desirable

[vertexFarm]

Capitalist countries still centralize their control, surveillance, and communication into few hands with little diversity. The market forces you describe only apply to the early days of capitalism. Most capitalist societies are long past that, at a stage where the strong early players have re-written the rules and formed quasi-state monopolies.

Just look at how many communications companies the US has. And the government had to step in and break that up because there used to be just one. Even now they are quietly conglomerating back together, and there are no significantly different options available. It's still very vulnerable to an attack or flaw due to lack of diversity.

[_jal]

Not sure how much that really buffers anything. In a lot of mature markets, the fact that the whip-hand is held by another corporation doesn't make much practical difference - what happens if someone finds an attack that bricks every Caterpillar tractor and hauler?

It doesn't matter if C&C is corporate or state, they break the same way.