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Comment by lelanthran | Hacker News Reader

> No, "killed" still includes intention of the killer.

Not as I understand it.

If I lost control of my car and ran you down, I would have killed you, but not murdered you.

If I step on a landmine, it is grammatically correct to say "I was killed by a landmine", even though a landmine cannot have intention.

Murder requires intention. Kill does not. The article, written by (presumably) a professional writer and edited at a professional publisher, almost certainly wanted to achieve the sleight-of-hand effect that they have achieved with you - to make it seem as if those deaths were intentional.

This is partly why I am skeptical about the narrative they are selling.

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Hi, instead of trying to discredit the idea that people are being murdered for defending the environment from exploitation, by pointing out the ambiguity in the word "killed" as used in a Yale e360 article about a report on investigations by Global Witness, why don't you go to the source and do a good faith attempt to understand what is going on?

Here's a link to get you started, where they unambiguously use the word "murder": https://www.globalwitness.org/en/campaigns/environmental-act...

There is a lot of evidence about what is going on, beyond just Global Witness, so how about engaging with something more substantive than word play in a third party article? I know it makes people uncomfortable to acknowledge it, but it should be acknowledged.

> I know it makes people uncomfortable to acknowledge it, but it should be acknowledged.

Is this just something you consider a moral imperative?

Or is there a measurable benefit from acknowledging it?

> Is this just something you consider a moral imperative? Or is there a measurable benefit from acknowledging it?

Do you ask those questions about other facts? Yes, there is a moral imperative and a measurable benefit about not being in denial about reality.

Where do they talk about the benefit? I'm just curious what the effect is.

When they say “defender” or “environmental activist” - what does that mean? I’m struggling to understand how you qualify for those titles. Am I a defender if I say I want to protect land or do I have to go further and do something more agressive?

> Hi, instead of trying to discredit the idea that people are being murdered for defending the environment from exploitation, by pointing out the ambiguity in the word "killed" as used in a Yale e360 article about a report on investigations by Global Witness

That was not my intention. My intention was to discredit a study that provides statistics with no baseline.

Statistics with no baseline to compare with are almost always misleading statistics.

Your argument is that murdering people is ok, as long as you're not killing more people this year than you did last year? I don't see why the base rate should matter in this situation.

> Your argument is that murdering people is ok, as long as you're not killing more people this year than you did last year?

No.

The base rate is "The killing of non-activists".

Have you ever actually done any sort of controlled study? Read any sort of clinical trial?

"This medicine cured 10 people" is not acceptable as any indication of that medications efficacy. There's always "the non-medicated group had $X cures per person and the medicated group had $Y cures per person".

IOW, the only time you see a statistic without a baseline is when the person handing you that statistic is trying to mislead you.

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