Are you arguing that the thousands and millions of dead would not have died without warfare? Are they immortal apart from military conflict?
I am a veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan and have been considerably closer to war than, arguably, 99% of the collective posting on Hacker News. My point was not a moral position and most of you seem incapable of grasping the nettle of the original discussion thread.
The gist was the sum total economic impact. Moral, ethical and sentimental values do not matter and, like in most economical discussion, they are to be discarded.
At no point have I stated I agree with war (I do in certain circumstances) - the original question was does war create more wealth than it destroys?
Your emotional appeal about dead children is nothing to do with the original question. Without war however, we would still live under Feudal yokes or Patriarchal societies. War was required in many cases to establish the liberal democracy most of us exist in.
When you talk about moving the beads from one side to the other you look only at beads such as money, dead bodies, widespread crime and the gory side of conflict.
How about those conflicts that resulted in freeing slaves, securing indepdendence and democracy? What about the civil wars fought to ensure that men and women are treated fairly under the law and not at the whim of a Royal Family? Do you make any allowance for the benefits (however callous) to the reduction of the human population?
I expect the storm of downvotes but I attribute them to HN respondents being unable to separate the rational academic question from the emotional impact of warfare.