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OK since I posted it originally I'd better explain my reasoning.
1) No - it was involuntary and his right to life doesn't outweigh the rights of people not to be kidnapped and enslaved. That said I recognise that there's some hypocrisy in this - especially since in the next few questions I proceed to bump people off right, left and centre.
Personally i think the abortion metaphor is a bit stretched - with the exception of rape and a couple of other extreme cases most women know that sex can lead to pregnancy - so they're not being kidnapped and chained to a bed.
However thinking about it later I do think a better analogy is conscription (and as regular members know I'm ex-British army so perhaps I do tend to think too much in military metaphors). Generally I'm against conscription (partially cos I don't want the great unwashed wrecking the army), but also partially because I think people should have a choice in whether they want to serve or not. However some more hypocrisy comes in - because in certain circumstances (1916 and 1939 come to mind) I think the greater good comes in and we sacrifice our freedoms for society. Perhaps if he was a cancer specialist on the verge of a breakthrough, I'd have answered differently.
Questions 2, 3 and 4 - same answer - greater good. I've always been slightly cynical of people who claim the moral high ground, refuse to dirty their hands (or their consciences) and the result is other people die.
Its like if someone has planted a bomb in a rail station and he's sitting in the local police station, smirking knowing we don't know which one and we haven't enough policemen to evacuate them fully - would I attach electrodes to his knackers and switch on the current to find out where. Yeah, because my conscience and his bollocks aren't as important as the lives of those killed by his bomb.
If you're prepared to kill someone to save more lives it probably doesn't matter if you flick a switch, push them or plant dynamite up their arse while their howling for mercy. all that differs is that in one case you can try and distance yourself from the killing.
Now with question 4 I'd like to think that if it was just me and Big Jack his life wouldn't outweigh mine and I'd heroically sacrifice myself.
Which i guess leads me onto my penultimate point - that 2&3 you've less than seconds to decide - who knows what we'd do in that situation. sitting at home with my wife asking these questions to me I can take a sip of coffee and contemplate the answer. Real life I can't...
I would then add one final point - that sadly there are consequences. And the courts may well decide what I had done was murder - sometimes the cost of living in a civilised society is that civilisation needs to sacrifice its servants to show that its different from barbarism. I'm on the side of the Ballantynes and Jack Ledgerwoods (who if you haven't read the latest Flashman, and shame on you, is a young naval officer who dies a horrific death whilst chasing slavers), but I'm cynical enough to recognise that they are sometimes sacrificed for the greater good.
PS - I love these ethical debates too - which is why I posted it.
1) No. Tough shit maestro, if you want to make a deal we can negotiate but you had better have a shedload of stuff to offer me for my time and energy. I'd hear an ofer and if it wasn't good enough leave.
(p.s. some of you are assuming that your biological functioning isn't actually a part of you which is a little odd imho)
2) Do nothing. I don't owe anyone anything - 5 die, one dies so what? What do I care?
3) Same logic.
4) Big jack goes bye bye. If it's me or you, it's you.
GWST was the one who understood what I meant; the violonist analogy doesn't fit every case.
As for my replies, they were no, yes, no, no. Don't ask me for the reasons; I answered on impulse. If I figure out the reasons and the thread is still alive, I'll let you know.
Jeeeeeez.
I guess I can count on you to never cover my back in any situation, eh?
I will add the caveat that the examples I assumed strangers, if it was family or people I had chosen as friends I would pick differently.
But strangers, meh. People die every day and I don't blink twice, why would these goons bother me?
It seems to me that the "greater good" is one hell of a slippery slope.
Sacrifice anyone deemed too old to be productive to "society",for the greater good ?
Physically incapable ?
Mentally incapable ?
Ill health ?
Anyone not following the arbitrary rules ?
Everything is a slippery slope...
Its a slippery slope when you stand by and do nothing as well....
You mean you are not prepared to MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS ?
That`s what this man thought. Couldn`t "stand by and do nothing"/mind his own business.
Not sure of your point (or even if you had one).
But if we're throwing wiki at each other perhaps this will warn you of the problems of just sitting back and minding your own business
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...
No - but I accept they're may be times when it has to be opposed peacefully (by demonstrations, writing to your MP etc, etc) and times when it has to be violently overthrown. They're is also times when its the best thing there is and those who are trying to overthrow it need to be oppossed.
That comes after you have let it control your life, yes?
So you haven't stood up at the first hurdle - the violent domination of you are your families life. Course, it might be a bit difficult now it owns all the property i all directions and actively controls 80-90% of the economy I realise, but that's because they weren't opposed straight away.
You mean swap masters? No thanks we don't need any. The alternative to government isn't another government, it's no government.
That's stating the obvious isn't it? But in this alternative reality the chances are we're not all going to be skipping around, picking daisies, but a short life full of death and strong brutalising the weak. Thanks, but no thanks...
You've lost me here completely.
What facts are you basing this nonsense on?
The facts are the plenty of places which have had no Government have tended to be hell-holes of the highest order. You disagree - go and 'live' in some of them.
Alternatively why don't you suggest an example of where your suggestions have worked.
Bearing in mind that if you don't wish to appear hypocritical over religion you have to follow the same reasoning that you take with God, ie no evidence means that your theory is obviously untrue.
Can you name any? Do any of those places really have anything like the death toll that a government brings?
Tra lal la america springs to mind, before the income tax and so forth.
That's interesting...........
Plus you would get a 5x Combo bonus!!!
And a style bonus if you do it well.
Ethical Dilema solved!
And Aliens in the US because Zombies were too much for them... but ... it is OK to kill aliens?!
God help us if they ever land in the USA.
Well they are coming you know... Nah just kidding... who in his rigth mind if coming from a more evolved planet will come in such place... or maybe just like we go and visit the zoo or something...
I think you're misunderstanding my argument - not all Government is uniformly good. I wouldn't like to live in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia or Saddam's Iraq to name just a few. But countries with no Government have all been uniformly bad - whereas countries with Government range from hellholes to as a close to utopia as the human race is able to manage
The US introduced an income tax in 1862 http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005921.html
So what you're saying is that before 1862 the US had no Government and was a paradise ignoring the American Revolution, various wars with Indians (and going back before the creation of the US) Aztec human sacrifices, wars between various Indian tribes, wars between the Indian tribes and the French/British, wars between the French/British etc.
I must say its not a very convincing argument.
Which countries would these be?
The problem with comparing history is that totally different rules apply. When we think of a modern government, we think of troops that can be deployed in minutes or hours, motorised vehicles and all the rest of it. In all earlier times in the US there was no government or hardly any at all for most people because of their geographic remoteness and it's own inability to get hold of any of their wealth to use against them.
Even today, large sections of the US (and other large countries) are too remote to be worthwhile to the state. The places where there is a lot of government (cities) are of course as fucking awful as you would expect from anything government run.
Funnily enough, without a central coercive agency (this is what they were all running from, don't forget) they didn't mass murder each other. The civil war was created by competing governments seeking to imp[ose their opinions on everyone else through violence, not private citizens.
Now, if you were to make the argument that you had had a powerful bully beating everyone back to stop them learning natural conequance of actions, that fed some people and stole from others, made some stupid and others helpless and was more or less totally relied upon by a vast majority and then removed it overnight I would follow along and even agree that it would be a disaster.
If you look at the collapse of the soviest empire you can see what a disaster it is to make people dependant on violence and state agencies and then suddenly free them to fend for themselves. It's like shoving a bunch of 6 year olds into the snow. Just as when the state pension schemes collapse as they inevitably must do, there is going to be a disaster of the voluntarily helpless coming a cropper when it's time to stand on their own two feet again.
Western Europe, USA and Canada.
Compare these countries to Somalia, a country that has no Government and tell me which one you'd rather live in. You should be grateful for what ya got Klint.
Let's compare Somalia to total governments such as communist Russia or Nazi Germany. Would you rather live in Somalia or those places? Oh and don't forget that to get to where somalia is now, you have to embark on a state sponsored rampage of propoganda, massacre and pillage. Before the local government did what it did it was fine.
Some parts of Somalia have no order or organised way to settle disputes - the fact that it has no government is neither here no there. Customary law is still in effect in some regions and there is both no government AND law and order.
The problem with the rest of Somalia isn't that it has no government, but that it has several competing ones, all still struggling to get the top spot, from where they can and will steal, loot and pillage with minimal resistance just like other governments.
That'd be such a shit way for Humanity to end.
But probable. We are pointless and a bit... well... crap.