Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Tyrek 2783 days ago
Well, I'm sure that intent has an impact, but the question is one of magnitude. You can't exactly solve extremism by telling them all to stop being mad at the US because the missile that killed their families 'was just a miss whoops my bad'

I take issue with your stance that the burden of evidence lies with the 'let's not shoot missiles crowd', though. While we don't have specific evidence on the specific efficacy of individual drone strikes, I'd argue that the intelligence community's track record (or what's been declassified or widely known) does not inspire the greatest confidence in their ability to make nuanced, apolitical judgment.

1 comments

> I take issue with your stance that the burden of evidence lies with the 'let's not shoot missiles crowd', though. While we don't have specific evidence on the specific efficacy of individual drone strikes, I'd argue that the intelligence community's track record (or what's been declassified or widely known) does not inspire the greatest confidence in their ability to make nuanced, apolitical judgment.

Well, we've elected people (who've then appointed people) to make those judgments on our behalf. Someone has to make them. If you have evidence that they're being made poorly, then that's something worth hearing. But what is that evidence? If you don't have such evidence...then are you arguing that nobody should be making decisions like that at all, ever?