You seem to misunderstand me. I don't make an argument for its "rightness".
Rather, war crimes will always occur in war. And the primitive instinct to stay alive, at almost any price, is programmed into us. When faced with existential threats to our loved ones, these ivory tower questions about the relative worths of lives (100:1? 10:1?) are exposed for the nonsense they always were. Our biological programming kicks in: "survive at any cost - protect your own – eradicate the threat". It is only subsequent generations, from upon high in their ivory towers and far removed from the threat, who are able to condemn the savagery of the survivors.
In other words, it is always best to not enter a war. Perhaps even if attacked. 9/11 and the U.S.'s insane and disastrous responses in Afghanistan and Iraq being the latest demonstrations.
You're engaging in pseudo-intellectual quantification that is meaningless and unbound by anything objective. But that's besides the point.
The point is, the U.S. was pulled into war by Japan and did not have had any obligation to lose even one more person to end the conflict. And yet the calculus was clear: the loss of life by the U.S. was going to significantly increase per unit of effort/victory as it approached mainland Japan.
> doesn't make those lives worthless
No one is arguing this. But when it comes to the life of my son or brother vs. the life of someone I don't know, I know what my choice will be every single time. And I would bet my entire net worth that 999 out of 1,000 people would choose similarly in that situation. The instinct to stay alive completely outstrips armchair intellectualism and 20/20 hindsight.
> you can't seriously be saying it's justified to kill 200k Japanese civilians to save a small handful of allied lives
I absolutely would argue in favor of this. In fact, I would argue that it would have been morally just to kill every last Japanese person, military or not, if Japan refused surrender (which was part of the Emperor’s plan for self preservation). Remember the context: 1) Japan attacked the U.S. to initiate hostilities and 2) Japanese resistance became more fierce, fanatical, and deadly (ex: suicide bombings by both military and civilians) as the U.S. approached mainland Japan.
> the military dictators of Japan did not plan to surrender
The U.S. was on solid ground in its conduct of any form of bombing up until a Japanese surrender-including massive conventional bombing campaigns and atomic bombings. Japan launched an unprovoked attack on the U.S. at Pear Harbor to initiate hostilities. Fighting, as the U.S. approached mainland Japan, became more fierce and costly. Any number of dead Japanese—military or civilian, was better than one more dead U.S. serviceman.
This is crazy. As far as I can tell, responsibility for payment/refund should fall to:
1) The entity ordering and accepting the work
2) The entity coordinating payment
In the case of 1), the work was performed and the output approved and received. So it seems pretty obvious that the money is owed by them to the freelancer.
In the case of 2), this entity bears responsibility for ensuring that payment is done properly. Things like, is the person paying the same as the card owner. (Btw, it sure seems like "paying with a card for an account that is not yours" is tantamount to fraud.)
In other words, either the client or Upwork should be on the hook, but DEFINITELY not the freelancer.
I suspect I do not agree with many of the political opinions of this writer. Yet, I find myself strongly agreeing with the general conclusions. Of course, specificity and implementation is probably where the civil war breaks out.
Rather, war crimes will always occur in war. And the primitive instinct to stay alive, at almost any price, is programmed into us. When faced with existential threats to our loved ones, these ivory tower questions about the relative worths of lives (100:1? 10:1?) are exposed for the nonsense they always were. Our biological programming kicks in: "survive at any cost - protect your own – eradicate the threat". It is only subsequent generations, from upon high in their ivory towers and far removed from the threat, who are able to condemn the savagery of the survivors.
In other words, it is always best to not enter a war. Perhaps even if attacked. 9/11 and the U.S.'s insane and disastrous responses in Afghanistan and Iraq being the latest demonstrations.