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Honest question, why is putting someone in a box for the rest of their life more morally acceptable than killing them? I personally find life imprisonment to b

by eunoia 11y ago

Honest question, why is putting someone in a box for the rest of their life more morally acceptable than killing them? I personally find life imprisonment to be far more horrifying than death. I understand the concerns around the death penalty, namely the possibility of a wrongful conviction with the inability to appeal once the sentence is carried out. But just comparing the punishments, why is one morally better than the other?

Jach 11y ago
My price-sensitive futurist perspective would rather we pay the one time $30k price for a basic cryonics suspension than outright kill them or keep them locked up for life. (Caveats that it would then be seen as cruel not to suspend terminally ill patients, old people, and so on, so the sudden increase in cryonics demand would surely improve the methods and decrease the cost...) But in the Current Year and Current World locking them up for life is strictly better than just killing them, because I think that sometime within the next 50 years we have at bare minimum a decent shot at finding out how to drastically expand lifetimes (perhaps de facto immortality) and additionally alter a person's self in subtle ways that still constitutes a continuation of identity, and then we can directly rehabilitate. (Somewhat like Demolition Man, except done right. ;)) I also think the major powers can squeeze by and last that long, specifically no entering of a new dark age even if say the US split up or even if the several social order crises currently underway made some big dents. Without the possibility of living forever with a non-dangerous mind, I actually don't see much reason to prefer life in prison over death, I see a big reason (cost) to prefer death, and if I was sentenced any time prior to the early 1900s I'd ask for the guillotine instead.
noir_lord 11y ago
You can't un-execute someone. I do think there is an argument for offering someone who has a life/no parole sentence Euthanasia but that would be a massive can of worms to open.

by eunoia 11y ago

Jach 11y ago

My price-sensitive futurist perspective would rather we pay the one time $30k price for a basic cryonics suspension than outright kill them or keep them locked up for life. (Caveats that it would then be seen as cruel not to suspend terminally ill patients, old people, and so on, so the sudden increase in cryonics demand would surely improve the methods and decrease the cost...) But in the Current Year and Current World locking them up for life is strictly better than just killing them, because I think that sometime within the next 50 years we have at bare minimum a decent shot at finding out how to drastically expand lifetimes (perhaps de facto immortality) and additionally alter a person's self in subtle ways that still constitutes a continuation of identity, and then we can directly rehabilitate. (Somewhat like Demolition Man, except done right. ;)) I also think the major powers can squeeze by and last that long, specifically no entering of a new dark age even if say the US split up or even if the several social order crises currently underway made some big dents. Without the possibility of living forever with a non-dangerous mind, I actually don't see much reason to prefer life in prison over death, I see a big reason (cost) to prefer death, and if I was sentenced any time prior to the early 1900s I'd ask for the guillotine instead.

noir_lord 11y ago

You can't un-execute someone. I do think there is an argument for offering someone who has a life/no parole sentence Euthanasia but that would be a massive can of worms to open.