Thank you for taking the time to write this response!
I’m not exactly sure what premise downvoters are reading from my question. To be clear, I think the war is a horrible idea and it’s important to punish defection in a negative-sum way (aka impose sanctions on countries in violation of international laws).
The main point I wanted to entertain was: it’s sad when we have to impose sanctions on countries; lots of people will suffer. In the same way it’s sad when a war is fought, and lots of people suffer. We should be careful not to treat economic punishment as qualitatively different or intrinsically superior to direct violence; its a question of how much net utility different responses produce for the world.
Thanks for clarifying—fwiw I didn’t think you’re ill-intentioned… and at its core your question re: innocent Russians suffering due to sanctions is a valid one—as you say, all suffering counts equally independent of who suffers (and Russians will definitely suffer much more so than most people who are living a relatively affluent life in the west). But because Ukrainians are currently disproportionately suffering much more than Russian, the question might have struck some people as tone-deaf or inappropriate. Even taking aside the terrible direct humanitarian impact of the war, just consider Russia’s GDP per capita being $10k, while Ukraine’s being $3k before the war and it’ll have a much bigger hit to the economy.
Thank you for taking the time to write this response!
I’m not exactly sure what premise downvoters are reading from my question. To be clear, I think the war is a horrible idea and it’s important to punish defection in a negative-sum way (aka impose sanctions on countries in violation of international laws).
The main point I wanted to entertain was: it’s sad when we have to impose sanctions on countries; lots of people will suffer. In the same way it’s sad when a war is fought, and lots of people suffer. We should be careful not to treat economic punishment as qualitatively different or intrinsically superior to direct violence; its a question of how much net utility different responses produce for the world.
Thanks for clarifying—fwiw I didn’t think you’re ill-intentioned… and at its core your question re: innocent Russians suffering due to sanctions is a valid one—as you say, all suffering counts equally independent of who suffers (and Russians will definitely suffer much more so than most people who are living a relatively affluent life in the west). But because Ukrainians are currently disproportionately suffering much more than Russian, the question might have struck some people as tone-deaf or inappropriate. Even taking aside the terrible direct humanitarian impact of the war, just consider Russia’s GDP per capita being $10k, while Ukraine’s being $3k before the war and it’ll have a much bigger hit to the economy.