bilbo.niket@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU ("Niket K. Patwardhan") (01/03/86)
I suspect the real reason Orion died was the nuclear test ban treaty. It would have polluted the air just as much as the tests would have and then there would have been no logical reason for banning the tests...... As for how many deaths one would accept, a priori, to achieve a goal, the answer should be NONE! The only time you accept death as necessary is when you fight a war. But after the fact, when you evaluate whether a task was worth the effort, you can count the deaths and the benefits and say "Yes.. it was worth it" or "No, it wasn't".
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (01/05/86)
> As for how many deaths one would accept, a priori, to achieve a goal, the > answer should be NONE! The only time you accept death as necessary is when you > fight a war... Then there is virtually no acceptable human goal. Even building a large building involves a statistically-predictable number of deaths, from accidents in construction and in supporting industries. I don't know the death toll in workers involved in building facilities for Project Apollo, for example, but I'm sure it was non-trivial. Deaths are inevitable in any large-scale human activity. Private planning estimates often include estimates of the number of deaths involved, although for obvious reasons such numbers are seldom publicized! -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
space@ucbvax.UUCP (01/29/86)
This is a test to see if this gets to Niket P. please respond
space@ucbvax.UUCP (01/29/86)
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