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Since we've recently learned that the value of a lost life is inversely proportional to the population of the country, we need a way to concisely and conveniently discuss tragedies and their relative values. Using 9/11 as the defining constant, we define one (1) Bush as the death of 3000/285,000,000 ≈ 0.00105% of a nation's population. Perhaps easier to remember, 1 kB (kiloBush) is approximately equal to the death of 1% of the population.

Some examples for reference:

  • 9/11 is 1 Bush (of course)
  • total annihilation of a countries population is 100 kiloBushes (the largest value possible under relativistic models)
  • 1 man in Vatican City choking to death on a hotdog is approx. 124 Bushes.

These changes will be voted on in the 2024 General Conference on Weights and Measures and are expected to pass unanimously.

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[-] MF_COOM@hexbear.net 32 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I know this is a bit but honestly I genuinely like this idea. Yes at the moment Israel is using proportional deaths as a cudgel, but generally in is very useful to look and rhetorically powerful to look at this metric and gives the savagery of US invasions of Korea, Vietnam etc a unique potency.

It's not the only useful lens for comparing tragedy, but to say that The Korean War inflicted 20 kBu is an extremely damning statistic.

this post was submitted on 15 Oct 2023
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