I also found that picture very interesting. The juxtaposition of technology is striking.
It is generous to call an improvised set of rocket tubes "targeted" and the small conventional explosive payloads of those rockets falls far below the bar for "mass destruction."
Technology is fundamentally neutral. Higher technology means better tools. Better tools are greater multipliers of people power. It's up the person to decide how to use the tools.
Sometimes we are responsible for death via technology transfer. America's support to the Afghan Mujaheddin against the Soviet Union is a great example. There's no question that Soviet helicopters blew up as a direct result of American-supplied stingers. That particular case was a clear action by the US, and in the end a very effective one (US clearly won that round of the Cold War).
The real tragedy here is that the Galaxy S3 is civilian technology. The tragedy is that part of the world conceived, designed, built and deployed that gadget to millions of people to make their lives better. Another part of the world has been thrown down to a lower level of civilization by a horrible war. They're not building the S3, they're not even using it to check their email at a coffee shop. They're bolting it onto a hobby shop of explosives to kill their fellow countrymen.
If there is a moral obligation here, it's a geopolitical one, not a technological one.
It is generous to call an improvised set of rocket tubes "targeted" and the small conventional explosive payloads of those rockets falls far below the bar for "mass destruction."
Technology is fundamentally neutral. Higher technology means better tools. Better tools are greater multipliers of people power. It's up the person to decide how to use the tools.
Sometimes we are responsible for death via technology transfer. America's support to the Afghan Mujaheddin against the Soviet Union is a great example. There's no question that Soviet helicopters blew up as a direct result of American-supplied stingers. That particular case was a clear action by the US, and in the end a very effective one (US clearly won that round of the Cold War).
The real tragedy here is that the Galaxy S3 is civilian technology. The tragedy is that part of the world conceived, designed, built and deployed that gadget to millions of people to make their lives better. Another part of the world has been thrown down to a lower level of civilization by a horrible war. They're not building the S3, they're not even using it to check their email at a coffee shop. They're bolting it onto a hobby shop of explosives to kill their fellow countrymen.
If there is a moral obligation here, it's a geopolitical one, not a technological one.