Why Are Chemical Weapons Worse?

okay let's have a quick conversation about chemical weapons it seems completely logical right that killing people and killing people is the same doesn't matter how you're killing them if you're killing them then that's wrong but that's not how international law actually works uh you're allowed as a leader of a government to kill your own people so it's okay you know to drop a cluster bomb on a neighborhood that's housing Rebels but it's not okay to drop chemical weapons there why so first the actual objective non-abstract reasons one it's extremely painful two it kills entirely indiscriminately three it is way too convenient because you kill only the living things and none you know don't destroy any of the infrastructure and that that's just too powerful a weapon but here's the big uh nonobjective reason which I think is just as important we tend to think of things that existed when we were born as the norm when guns were first introduced to Japan Japanese soldiers refused to use them because they saw them as inhumane and crazy and like it was okay to slice someone's abdomen open with a sword but to shoot them from you know 100 feet away and just watch them fall over that was seen as completely immoral so what happened is that the world got together and started to make worldwide laws at a time when chemical weapons were not yet the norm now if this had happened after chemical weapons had been the norm they probably would be okay which would be a worse world to be clear but because they were new and they were unusual and also particularly terrible and also to be clear because we could because they're different enough that we can say this is what a chemical weapon is and we can ban the use of that the big fear was when biological and nuclear and chemical weapons were introduced these things that we call weapons of mass destruction not that they are any more destructive or can't like they can be or sometimes they don't necessarily have to be we knew how to strategize around guns and tanks and missiles and bombs we didn't know how to strategize around chemical and biological and nuclear warfare that changed the situation so dramatically that all of the Big World governments that were in power could say no let's not do that let's never ever do that because that will change the B has the potential to change the balance of power in ways that would be really volatile for everyone especially the people in power now I'm not saying that because the powerful people did this somewhat in self-interest it means that it's a bad thing it's not it is wonderful and beautiful that our world in general has decided that indeed it is not okay to use these weapons that is a great step in the right direction and when that Norm as they call it because they don't want to call it a law because there are lots of international laws some of which the United States regularly breaks like attacking a sovereign state all the time in the Middle East to you know extract Usama Bin Laden to upset Al-Qaeda terrorist cells like we do we break international law pretty regularly just owning chemical weapons is against international law but the international Norm is against using them and when that Norm is violated as it was in Syria that needs to be taken very seriously and if that sounded like a pun I apologize seriously oh man oh God end the video now I said what I came to say