#I'm pretty sure this is banned by the geneva convention

[dwarvendiaries]

The swimming pool is finally finished.

So I set up pumps to remove water on the left. of course. The water will jump flow back in if not held back so the pool's a bit smaller. When something steps on the plate the hatch to the river in the bottom opens and...

The trainie swimmer is drenched in fresh river water up to their neck. This continues until someone steps off the pressure plate. No one has drowned yet and their swimming skills are improving!

[the-typing-dragon]

Ok but like why does every other class have relatively normal weaponry, the the Driller is over here speedrunning the Geneva Convention. Bro has flametrowers, ice throwers (which im sure would be banned if they were as powerful as the cryo cannon), sludge which I'm pretty sure counts as a bio weapon, literal microwaves to boil thing's internals, and repurposed mining equipment. Bro can cause frostbite and heatstroke at the same time and cause you to immolate on the spot.

[samueldays]

surely the laws of war are the agreements which states find it beneficial to participate in despite being actively at war. Thus the laws must be pretty cheap to follow (i.e. don't significant alter the course of the war). Ex. Gas weapons are banned because gas weapons aren't that good to begin with, compared to explosive weapons which also are an awful way to die, but are really effective.

"Don't significantly alter the course of war" is close to what I've been thinking of the substantive moral form of war crimes.

This being opposed to the legalist form of war crimes, for example the Geneva Convention Article 79:

In all cases the prisoners' representative must have the same nationality, language and customs as the prisoners of war whom he represents. Thus, prisoners of war distributed in different sections of a camp, according to their nationality, language or customs, shall have for each section their own prisoners' representative, in accordance with the foregoing paragraphs.

by typical American demographics, if you capture ten soldiers, you may be obliged to spot them five representatives, divided among the English-speakers, the Spanish-speakers, the Protestants, the Catholics, the Atheists, etc.

Unless there's an officer!

The above only goes for capturing rank and file. If you caught an officer among them, just declare him to be the Prisoners' Representative, done.

In camps for officers and persons of equivalent status or in mixed camps, the senior officer among the prisoners of war shall be recognized as the camp prisoners' representative.

At least that's how I read it, the article 79 could use some editing cleanup with its "In all places" ... "except where there are officers" ... "in all cases" conditions and requirements.

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ I continue to be annoyed by the low quality of such important documents, with ambiguous phrasing, and for article 79 this is compounded by my contempt for this definition of a "war crime". It smells of corruption/embezzlement, in the sense of some guy on the committee seeing an opportunity to smuggle his personal preference into a global law document. Having five representatives for ten soldiers is a luxury, the Convention itself says it's fine with one rep if he's an officer, having one rank-and-file rep for ten soldiers may be a hardship but it's far from an atrocity and shouldn't be a war crime.

I hammer on this because I want to emphasise that I'm not simply making up my own alternative on a whim, I think there is a genuinely valuable principle in the notion of "war crimes" and the Geneva Convention has somewhat diverged from it, the official specifications are wrong, the Geneva Convention is brute legalism and power talking, and that power is borrowing clout from truth.

Getting back to your original question, anon: there's an interesting connection between material and moral interests that this has drawn my attention to. With for example gas weapons being mostly ineffective, one might summarize: "A war crime is inflicting pointless suffering."

On the one hand, "pointless" adds extra weight to the condemnation, on the other hand, "pointless" is a limiting adjective, and implies there is such a thing as pointful suffering (explosive weapons also being an awful way to die, shrapnel and shredded limbs) which isn't a war crime.

This also points me towards a very odd implication, where I'm not willing to bite the bullet quite yet, and I'm reading books on Just War and thinking about where the hole in this reasoning might be: "if one side as a whole has no path to victory, all the suffering they inflict is pointless, so failing to surrender is a war crime"

possibly some verbal sleight of hand I've inflicted on myself, but it's an interesting thought to wrestle with! if you cannot significantly alter the course of the war, if defeat is inevitable, are you obliged to stop resisting? what do we mean by "significantly alter" here?

[gigglealongshiney-shadow-watcher]

I love this so much, actually. You mind if I mix a bit of this with my own drugs? Might solve the puzzling problem with my pretty powders and potions. Anddddd I've been meaning to take a swing at Ol' Johnny Boy. If I get my shit right, well, the Geneva Convention's gonna haveta ban some new things. I take my items very seriously, you know!

...who am I kidding, I'm doing this for funsies.

Marceggle laughed even harder. They sounded properly unhinged. Opal glanced across the room at them, but focused on her own issues instead of trying to get up.

"Of course! Do what you want with it! Do some testing though before you give me any. Not everyone here can regrow limbs. I'd sayyyy skip this for Johnny boy. It'll kill too quick. Unless you can figure out a teeny dosage that hits but doesn't knock out his brain. I'm sure you have other things muuuch more painful and torturous. If you can, snag a video for me? Hell I'll even give you a mini brewer if you want to get some of his dying pain into its own little flask."

They stopped smiling. "Opal wouldn't drink it, but I gladly would. I don't even really hate him in the fun way anymore. He almost killed her and left me stranded away from home for the rest of my life. She's the transport with portals. I'd rather be dead than banished from my Lord."

[mtf-alpha-7]

Today Dr. Graf decided to see how many cellphone charms ze could attach to zer cane at once and I'm pretty sure that thing is banned by the Geneva Convention.

[jcm4stream]

via Twitter https://twitter.com/pengonia

[jcm4stream]

I'm pretty sure the tables here are banned under the Geneva Conventions. They're torture devices that hold food.

I'm pretty sure the tables here are banned under the Geneva Conventions. They're torture devices that hold food. 2019-02-17T01:03:07.000Z