This is reminiscent of a follow-on fanfic I read once to HPMOR, where Harry was considering eating a sandwich.
Driven by his binding magical oath not to destroy the world, he has to consider if the marginal addition to the price of wheat he caused by eating the sandwich could possibly lead to some far-off child not having enough to eat, and that starvation being the tipping point that leads said hypothetical child down a path to destroying the world.
I do agree that it would be useful and beneficial to have models of the actual costs of a given sanction, in dollars as well as lives.
Nothing is without cost, and we should (ideally) be weighing the costs and benefits to our decisions such as you suggest.
But as the above anecdote suggests, actually living in such a manner imposes a nigh-impossible computational burden.
Perhaps it might be more productive to analyze which regions are at risk of starvation, and then organize/fund food deliveries to those regions? I would support attempts to alleviate the burdens of the sanctions (and the instability created by food shortages) through such measures.
This is reminiscent of a follow-on fanfic I read once to HPMOR, where Harry was considering eating a sandwich.
Driven by his binding magical oath not to destroy the world, he has to consider if the marginal addition to the price of wheat he caused by eating the sandwich could possibly lead to some far-off child not having enough to eat, and that starvation being the tipping point that leads said hypothetical child down a path to destroying the world.
I do agree that it would be useful and beneficial to have models of the actual costs of a given sanction, in dollars as well as lives.
Nothing is without cost, and we should (ideally) be weighing the costs and benefits to our decisions such as you suggest.
But as the above anecdote suggests, actually living in such a manner imposes a nigh-impossible computational burden.
Perhaps it might be more productive to analyze which regions are at risk of starvation, and then organize/fund food deliveries to those regions? I would support attempts to alleviate the burdens of the sanctions (and the instability created by food shortages) through such measures.
Eating a sandwich does not raise global grain prices by 50%. It’s a whole different order of magnitude.