2 ms·

So answer the question. How many innocent people do you find it reasonable to execute per year?

burfog 7y ago
5 that are innocent of everything and always were 10000 that are guilty of something else (example: they were not the shooter, but they helped) Compare with deaths by lightening, car crash, bath tub...
RHSeeger 7y ago
It depends on what we would get for doing so, honestly. I don't have a good answer. My thought offhand would be... 1. How many lives are we willing to end to save one life? 1:10? 1:100? 1:1,000,000? 1.1. Does it depend on the lives (if they are kept in jail and kill other inmates, is that better than if they get loose and kill non-inmates)? 2. What are the odds that one killer that is kept alive will kill more people? 3. Etc. There's a lot of questions to be answers, and some of them are opinion not math. However, I don't believe the correct answer is that it is never ok to end the life of another person.
- WAHa_06x36 7y ago
  I can't help but feel you are dancing around the question, and are not really comfortable with the direct outcome of your stance, which is: You are arguing that killing innocent people is OK sometimes. You don't really seem willing to examine that head-on. If you are uncomfortable with and unwilling to examine the consequences of your stances, consider that that may mean you know on some level that they do not hold up.
  - umanwizard 7y ago
    > I can't help but feel you are dancing around the question, and are not really comfortable with the direct outcome of your stance, which is: You are arguing that killing innocent people is OK sometimes. You don't really seem willing to examine that head-on. I have the totally opposite impression. That commentator is very explicitly making the point that yes, in fact, sometimes policies leading to the killing of innocent people have benefits that outweigh that cost. Where did you see any equivocation or "dancing around" ?
    - RHSeeger 7y ago
      That's exactly the case. I am arguing that it is ok to kill innocent people sometimes. To give a ridiculous example... The human race is going to end on Tuesday unless Bob is killed. Bob has done nothing wrong. However, he has a unique genetic condition that means, on Tuesday, he's going to come down with the plague, and it's going to spread and kill everyone. There is no way to stop it except to end his life before that happens. I would kill Bob in this situation. I might hate myself for it, I might even take my own life knowing I had killed someone (or maybe not, because of my religion; I wouldn't know until I was in the situation). That being said, I would kill Bob to save the rest of the human population.

5 that are innocent of everything and always were 10000 that are guilty of something else (example: they were not the shooter, but they helped) Compare with deaths by lightening, car crash, bath tub...

RHSeeger 7y ago

It depends on what we would get for doing so, honestly. I don't have a good answer. My thought offhand would be... 1. How many lives are we willing to end to save one life? 1:10? 1:100? 1:1,000,000? 1.1. Does it depend on the lives (if they are kept in jail and kill other inmates, is that better than if they get loose and kill non-inmates)? 2. What are the odds that one killer that is kept alive will kill more people? 3. Etc. There's a lot of questions to be answers, and some of them are opinion not math. However, I don't believe the correct answer is that it is never ok to end the life of another person.

WAHa_06x36 7y ago
I can't help but feel you are dancing around the question, and are not really comfortable with the direct outcome of your stance, which is: You are arguing that killing innocent people is OK sometimes. You don't really seem willing to examine that head-on. If you are uncomfortable with and unwilling to examine the consequences of your stances, consider that that may mean you know on some level that they do not hold up.
- umanwizard 7y ago
  > I can't help but feel you are dancing around the question, and are not really comfortable with the direct outcome of your stance, which is: You are arguing that killing innocent people is OK sometimes. You don't really seem willing to examine that head-on. I have the totally opposite impression. That commentator is very explicitly making the point that yes, in fact, sometimes policies leading to the killing of innocent people have benefits that outweigh that cost. Where did you see any equivocation or "dancing around" ?
  - RHSeeger 7y ago
    That's exactly the case. I am arguing that it is ok to kill innocent people sometimes. To give a ridiculous example... The human race is going to end on Tuesday unless Bob is killed. Bob has done nothing wrong. However, he has a unique genetic condition that means, on Tuesday, he's going to come down with the plague, and it's going to spread and kill everyone. There is no way to stop it except to end his life before that happens. I would kill Bob in this situation. I might hate myself for it, I might even take my own life knowing I had killed someone (or maybe not, because of my religion; I wouldn't know until I was in the situation). That being said, I would kill Bob to save the rest of the human population.