Military: 2,000 Dead an "Artificial Mark"

[Postman]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5369240,00.html

It's "artificial" to people who don't give a shit how many people die to continue a failed policy....

[Cha]

1. This is all tragic, especially when

we protested so not one unfortunate soul would die in an invasion based on bush lies.

Get Out Of Iraq, NOW!

[RC]

2. I thought the 2000 mark was artificial because

the real mark is something like 3 times that. But who's counting?

[SlipperySlope]

3. 2,000 is artificial

Because 1,999 is just as important as 2,001

[Igel]

4. I would have said arbitrary.

It's part of the cult of the 0 that seems to pervade western culture: when the zeroes line up, it's meaningful. We're almost too wedded to base 10.

100 000 miles is only one more than 99 999, but when the odometer flips to show that particular mile it seems so much more meaningful than when 99 998 flips over to 99 999.

And trying to disabuse people of the idea that 1/1/2000 was the start of a new millennium is both ludicrous and pointless.

And many continue to think that the final votes in an election are more important than the earlier votes: so Ohio people stress out over for 2004.

The person that died to flip the death count up to 2000 from 1999 is no more important than the one that flipped it from 1998 to 1999, or the one that'll flip it from 2000 to 2001. To assign the 2000th death special importance is to say that it's somehow more important. Couch things in base 9, and an earlier one is 'special'; put them in base 11, and we're not to 2000 yet.