re: #11 The Shadow Do

It would seem to argue that a nuclear war would be a bad thing. Go figure.

There’s more to it than just “bad thing”. We already know that war, any war, means many people dying, much treasure squandered, and directly or indirectly, as a result, many more deaths.

Why, then, does war even exist? Because there are other bad things. Tyranny, aggression, etc. etc. Sometimes, every choice is bad, and sometimes, war isn’t as bad as the others.

But now we’re into comparisons. When we compare, we must size up just how bad the war figures to be. This must be done soberly, and with an eye to war’s tendency to get out of hand.

Once these kinds of costs are taken into account, war between nuclear powers, or war that may draw in nuclear powers, can be seen in a clearer light. The human costs associated with the immediate destruction are, however great they may be, almost irrelevant. They’re rounding errors compared to the secondary toll from famine.