• BussyCat@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    The argument the person was saying is that we already have big bombs that do catastrophic damage, the R&D is how do you make those bombs more targeted so they have less collateral damage.

    Now whether that will actually lead to less deaths or will just cause the bombs to be used in places they otherwise wouldn’t be used with the same amount of collateral damage is unknown.

    But it brings up a bit of a utilitarian dilemma of “is it ethical to work on weapons if it leads to an overall reduction of collateral damage to civilians”

    It doesn’t have a necessarily correct answer

    • valtia@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Have advancements in precision bombing technology ever led to an overall reduction in collateral damage to civilians? Is that even an argument defense contractors make, or are you just making it up?

      Or has every study shown the exact opposite, that “precision” bombs actually cause more civilian deaths?

      • BussyCat@lemmy.world
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        13 hours ago

        Yep, in world war 2 without precision bombing we fire bombed entire cities to the ground and one of them was so bad it caused a fire tornado that literally suck people into it! World war 2 had such a problem with imprecise bombing that they are still finding bombs today