One thing is for sure. The CIA could have killed him, could kill him now, if he truly posed a threat to national security. The fact that they don't indicates they don't feel he is a threat. I'm confident that whatever goal posts you claim Snowden set back, I can explain as ultimatley serving US interests. That's the barometer. Has he hurt US Interests? Seems US interests are doing fine to me. Would things be better if he has revealed nothing? Probably not. His revelations are great distractions.
No, they can't kill him now. They're not allowed to by one of only players on Earth they try not to push too hard: Putin, head of Superpower No 2. They weigh the risk against the fact that damage is already done and all they'd protect is further image problems. They're countering that seperately.
Re damage. Tens of billions to economy that military-industrial complex worked hard to get. Push-back against police state legislation. NSA ops and methods blown. Large uptake in products that reduce SIGINT. Businesses moving overseas. All with no benefits on the table for intelligence agencies.
Far as distractions, that's the media's job focing on mass shooters, North Korea, ISIS, etc instead of pending legislation and schemes by government.
At a certain point you're saving people so they can starve to death. That's the worst case. Best case: saving them speeds up how soon we run out of non-renewable resources. What's more merciful to mankind as a whole in the long run? I'd say it's keeping the planet in good shape, and I don't see how eradicating malaria can do anything but hurt that goal.
>>Probably the strain from chronic malaria is worse for an economy than any theoretical strain due to feeding a few million more people.
How about the strain on the planet's non-renewable resources?
One would think that the million more people would cause said resources to run out sooner than they otherwise would.
Perhaps we should focus on how to deal with the consequences of eliminating certain natural human population controls before we go through with it.
Those people, if they survived, would have gone on to cause far more ecological damage to the planet than they otherwise did. Until we figure out how to colonize other solar systems, endeavors to spare every human life from such naturally occurring population controls seems foolishly good-hearted.
Is it? A human that survives to reproduce that would have otherwise died from malaria uses more non-renewable resources than a human that dies from malaria over the course of their lifetime, and continues to do so after their death by way of their progeny.
In terms of how much time we have as a species before running out of non-renewables on earth, killing the mosquitos might cost more than our blue marble can afford.
Perhaps certain natural population controls ought not be tampered with.
The benefits of human population control through disease, isn't much of a benefit at all, as child mortality and fertility tends to be correlated. The less chance of your kids dying, the less kids you'll have, in general. This probably means that while we might see a population boom in an adjustment period, we'd probably soon see drops in fertility.
My understanding of the situation: the grandparent's comment provided little value, and could be reasonably applied to virtually any comment without adding much opportunity for the reader to educate themselves or to respond. nightfly apparently noticed that "any comment", of course, includes the comment itself.
