[pcwalton]

I'm happy calling initiating a completely preventable conflict that nobody wanted that has resulted in the deaths of 137, 17 of whom are Ukrainian civilians, and 316 wounded evil. There's no meaningful moral difference between what Putin did and outright murdering 17 people. He knew innocent Ukrainians (and, for that matter, innocent Russians) would die and didn't care.

[rayiner]

Well that’s not how anything works. E.g. how many babies might be saved by Russian economic development from having access to the sea through Ukraine? At this scale the moral calculus isn’t easy.

[jacquesm]

Of all the disgusting comments this really takes the cake.

Russian economic development through war doesn't save Russian babies, it will kill them.

[rayiner]

War has led to plenty of development through history, and development saves babies. Do you think Italy or Germany would have been better off as bickering principalities, without Giribaldi or Bismarck? Do you think China would have been better off as a bunch of warring states?

[euroclydon]

So we got it wrong with the sanctions then. We should actually be providing economic stimulus to Russia right now

[rayiner]

We shouldn’t be economically sanctioning countries that aren’t threatening us directly. It causes tremendous suffering and death, e.g. in Iran: https://mcgillbusinessreview.com/articles/the-human-cost-of-...

[euroclydon]

I agree on Iran but this is different. We could have sold steel and fuel to the Germans and Japanese in WW2, but we didn’t because they were engaged in something evil.