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I don't know if ending another human's life leaves any possibility of redemption for a person, but reading this I still empathize with the sense of loss and pow

I don't know if ending another human's life leaves any possibility of redemption for a person, but reading this I still empathize with the sense of loss and powerlessness that emanate from this letter.

iaw 3y ago
I suspect many are aware of this but for those uninformed: Reiser committed premeditated murder of his (ex?)wife Nina around 2006 and hid her body so well they could not find her. He made his children think either that their mother abandoned them. He had thought without a body he could not be charged and convicted. I believe he waited until it was apparent he would lose the trial and then plead down so that they could recover her body. I want to believe redemption is possible, especially given how eloquent he is, but his demonstration of calculation over emotion in her murder makes me strongly question his change.
- JadeNB 3y ago
  > I want to believe redemption is possible, especially given how eloquent he is, but his demonstration of calculation over emotion in her murder makes me strongly question his change. I think it would be ridiculous for me to presume that I can possibly have any view into whether or not someone has sincerely changed, but why should the fact that someone was calculating once affect whether they have changed? I could see doubting the apparent demonstration of change, because they might have calculated the appropriate words to say, but I don't see any reason that a calculating person is less able sincerely to change than any other.
  - iaw 3y ago
    I consider it a Bayesian approach to understanding potential internal drivers. Someone who is not cold and calculating likely has less capacity to completely present the appearance of redemption whereas someone who is calculating has that capacity. So, someone who is demonstrated to be calculating has higher odds of faking a behavior if it is beneficial to them (e.g. leaving prison). It's for him to know, but I don't think it's ridiculous for me to question.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      I'm with you on that one. I read the whole thing closely and my conclusion is that some of what's there is playing to an invisible audience. And some of the rest of what's there feels like 'the real Hans' shining through because he hasn't really changed, but is actively trying to change how he is perceived. I could try to enumerate those bits but it doesn't matter all that much, it's just the feeling that I get from reading the text.
      - okwhateverdude 3y ago
        Same. Pretty much any instance where he mentions prison groups or classes, it is very specific and emphasizes strongly that they have changed him. And he knows his mail will be read by the prison staff anyhow. The only benefit of the doubt I have here is maybe the groups/classes promote discussing topics like this precisely because they know a parole board gives them consideration. In which case, he'd be an idiot to not play along if he's angling for parole. (And if that is the case, it wouldn't surprise me if the prison system is being duplicitous in telling prisoners that so they can be demoralized when denied, ie. "I followed the rules and did what you tell me, but you still won't let me go?")
      - fl7305 3y ago
        > my conclusion is that some of what's there is playing to an invisible audience My impression was that he got an assignment in class to write a letter where he reflects on bad interactions in the past, apologize, and try to put them behind him. I also got the impression that he really wants people to write/call him and discuss computer stuff, so this might be part of the motivation for writing it. But I don't know him, so who knows what's going on in his head?
        bombcar 3y ago
        I've not done it, so I don't know, but I suspect you can never fully get to "I completely regret what I did because it was wrong" without having somewhat of "I completely regret what I did because I got caught". I do think we wants to discuss computer stuff; he seemed entirely unaware of SSDs and how that has (and should) change filesystems, and still thinks Slashdot is a place to post things.
- dale_glass 3y ago
  He was far less of a mastermind than he fancied himself at the time. If I recall, he bought a book on murder investigations and a socket set after his wife's disappearance (which was easily tracked back to him), removed car seats (blood) from his car, and willingly testified in court that it was his manly dream to sleep in the car, or something along these lines. He could have likely gotten away with it if he kept his mouth shut. Luckily he had the arrogance of believing he had actually come up with a convincing story.
  - starkparker 3y ago
    For those interested in the trial, the SF Chronicle's Henry K. Lee ran a very detailed blog on it: https://web.archive.org/web/20080501184401/http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/blogs/localnews/category?blogid=37&cat=1428 https://web.archive.org/web/20080501184401/http://www.sfgate...
    - RajT88 3y ago
      I go back periodically and read the Wired article about it. It is totally bananas: https://archive.is/BcMRF https://archive.is/BcMRF The wildest part was the friend who had an affair with his wife who blurted out unprompted on the stand that he had killed 7 people. They let that guy go!
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        The 'weird nerds' defending Reiser brought this up time and again during the trial. But Reiser showed them all up by leading the authorities to where he had buried the body afterwards so I guess that that particular angle is now settled.
        RajT88 3y ago
        Yeah, some follow-up reporting found that the guy was lying for some weird reason. He said as much. I forget the reason.
- naikrovek 3y ago
  High levels of calculation in times when high levels of calculation are required to keep you out of prison are not a sign of anything. Humans are amazing at compartmentalizing things like this away, even while they are happening. It is impossible to know from this single datapoint if he is remorseful or not, but it is not at all outside of the realm of possibility. As a child I merely punched my brother and I tried to kill myself afterwards because of the guilt. In the moment I could not have been more prescient about what I was about to do and what I was doing. I recalled how I had observed him fighting others, how he threw punches, how he swung his arm based on how angry he was, and I planned an arc that took advantage of his habits and clocked him. Knocked him out in one punch. The instant he hit the floor I felt remorse like I had never felt before. Who the hell am I to take an action like that?! Anyway, how someone feels while doing something like that does not necessarily reflect how they feel at any other time in their lives. It also may reflect how they are at all times, or anywhere in between. There is no foolproof way to know.
- Arch-TK 3y ago
  Source on premeditated? Everything I saw made it look like it was spontaneous (and then he put a lot of work and some poor planning into trying to hide it). I could obviously be wrong, I didn't really spend that much time on it. (Note: I know he was initially found guilty of first degree murder but it appears that first degree murder doesn't necessarily require premeditation.)
  - bena 3y ago
    Yeah, I don't think the murder itself was premeditated, but he did treat the event with a sort of self-serving callousness that gave the perception that he did not care about Nina's life beyond how it affected his.
    - EasyMark 3y ago
      that's not what premeditated murder is though. That's trying to cover up the murder which is also a crime, but a far cry from premeditated murder which is one of the most heinous crimes recognized by the legal system.
      - bena 3y ago
        Which is why I said I don't believe the murder was premeditated. He was able to plea to second degree in exchange for the location of the body and essentially a confession. They convicted him of first degree because without the body, there was no evidence that he didn't plan on the murder as well. Ironic in a way. He hid the body to try and hide the evidence that she was dead, but turns out that only made things worse for him. If he had called the authorities and copped to it as an "accident of passion", he'd probably be out by now.
    - pcthrowaway 3y ago
      Elsewhere in this thread (or maybe it was another thread I followed on it), didn't someone mention he suspiciously left his phone at home the day he committed the murder, whereas he would normally have the phone with him? Seems like it was probably premeditated to me if so
Aloha 3y ago
Speaking in general terms, not to the specifics of Hans Reiser's crimes - I dont see why it wouldn't allow for redemption, people do stupid things and get blinded easily.
- themerone 3y ago
  Drunk driving is a stupid thing people do. Murder is an act of evil.
  - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
    Only if you believe in evil. I'm not christian so I don't see the world like that. He killed his s/o, like what 15 years ago now? People change and deserves a second chance.
    - themerone 3y ago
      Evil is not a religious concept.
      - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
        Dude. Good & evil is such a central concept in Christianity it is practically ingrained in your society if you live in a christian country even if you are secular.
        lupusreal 3y ago
        Christianity also features the premise of marriage, so does that mean no secular conception of marriage can exist? Most people think otherwise. Christianity doesn't own "good and evil", even though it features it, and nor are these premises even owned by religion generally.
        skissane 3y ago
        The English words for good and evil are pre-Christian in origin. So are their cognates in other European languages. Greek philosophers were debating “good and evil” centuries before Jesus of Nazareth was born. So there is nothing inherently Christian about those words, or the concepts they describe.
throwaway365980 3y ago
[flagged]
- gertop 3y ago
  Why do you think that her being a mail order bride makes it less bad? If anything it just shows that he wanted to buy another human that he could control and, when it turned out not to be the case, he decided to kill her.
  - deleted 3y ago
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  - deleted 3y ago
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- iaw 3y ago
  I am not going to touch on your other points as you clearly have decided your mind. > why a mistake he committed in personal life would make his file system a taboo to touch. He is no longer here to fix bugs or improve the file system, it is not that it's Taboo to touch per se. The benefits of ReiserFS are no longer clear compared to alternatives, there's a cost to including ReiserFS (which Reiser acknowledges), no other FS is associated with the name of a premeditated murderer.
  - account42 3y ago
    > premeditated murderer This is an opinion and not something backed by any known facts.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      Before entering a post-verdict deal for a reduced charge to give up the location of his victim’s body, Reiser was convicted by the jury of first-degree (specifically premeditated, even though there alternative ways to get that charge in California) murder, meaning that the trial jury found that the evidence presented at trial eatablished that beyond a reasonable doubt. The facts supporting that conclusion are public. It may be possible to reasonably disagree with the jury’s conclusion, but it is beyond silly to describe it as opinion supported by no known facts.
deleted 3y ago
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bachmeier 3y ago
"Ending another human's life" covers a wide range of cases. My recollection of this event, which is now long in the past, is that he was cold, calculating, did not value human life, and was quite comfortable with his kids moving on without their mother. He didn't just do something to her. He permanently damaged his kids, her family, and all of her friends. He made his decision knowing all of this. Redemption? Possible I suppose, but don't make the mistake of looking at this from your perspective, because he's not like the rest of us.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  > because he's not like the rest of us I don't think we can know this, and there's no point speculating. I would say that the letter doesn't read as someone who's imperfectly simulating regret.
  - ryandvm 3y ago
    Of course - this entire thread is nothing but speculation. That said, the premeditated murder of someone, let alone your wife and children's mother, is not something that the average person is capable of. It is entirely different than the crimes one may commit out of rage, fear, or passion (i.e. when your amygdala is driving). I don't believe in capital punishment or lesser forms of punitive justice, but I have a hard time believing that psychopaths can ever be meaningfully rehabilitated. They are just humans that shipped with a fucked up firmware and that's all there is to that.
    - ako 3y ago
      The letter reads like Reiser thinks the firmware bug is fixable, and it’s more a case of nurture over nature. Don’t know if that’s true, but it’s not unthinkable.
      - timschmidt 3y ago
        I've certainly encountered the opposite - folks who probably would have lived healthy productive lives, but were subject to some terrible event during some formative time and negatively impacted by it.
silisili 3y ago
I'm always wary of how manipulating some people can be. To be clear, I'm not declaring this letter or Reiser is that way necessarily, just how people have that capability. That said, to me, some of the specific phrases used felt that they were for a parole board rather than the broader audience, or charitably, both. But perhaps I've become too jaded.
- riversflow 3y ago
  > too jaded I don’t think you are. The number of times the person inferring I’m jaded is later found out to be a manipulator is very high. Calling people who are perceptive of lies, “jaded”, “negative”, “pessimistic”, etc is seemingly a common tactic employed by sociopaths to socially empower themselves while simultaneously weakening those that might call them out.
eatbitseveryday 3y ago
> ending another human's life leaves any possibility of redemption for a person You realize the volunteer soldiers that enter a battle to kill other humans also fall under this scope? Yet in many countries we celebrate their return and service, despite what they may have done. I agree these are not quite the same thing, in how a deed is carried out, but the end result is in fact the same.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  Context matters
- jacquesm 3y ago
  It's called the department of defense for a reason, even if in plenty of cases the military is used offensively. Volunteer soldiers that go abroad to try to annex another country at the behest of their local overlord are looked at differently then volunteer soldiers that defend their country from annexation. It's not that the 'end result is in fact the same', it's that circumstances matter. In some cases killing another person is acceptable, in most others it is not. That's why we have so many very specific terms to describe the different situations in which one person kills another, and which of those applies is a big factor in whether we see the killer as having acted justifiably or not. Reiser is on the extreme side of that scale in terms of not having acted justifiably, then he compounded that by his stance during the subsequent trial.
  - account42 3y ago
    > Volunteer soldiers that go abroad to try to annex another country at the behest of their local overlord are looked at differently then volunteer soldiers that defend their country from annexation. Are they? Americans seem to think very highly of their veterans ... who all fought in distant wars in countries that were not an serious immediate threat to the US.
- scotty79 3y ago
  > You realize the volunteer soldiers that enter a battle to kill other humans also fall under this scope? Yes. And I strongly believe there's something wrong with their brains. Not so wrong as with the brains of murderers. But to let someone's words override your innate blocks against killing is some weaknes of the brain, easily exploitable with disastrous consequences for humanity. It makes wars feasible.
rokkitmensch 3y ago
Good thing the lizards who pass the US throne back and forth don't have souls that need redemption!
qingcharles 3y ago
I spent 10 years in jail. For a large part of that I socialized mainly with those who had committed murder. Some had committed more than one. Most of the murderers I met are some of the nicest people I ever met (if you can temporarily disregard their crime). People are not defined by their worst mistake. I am in very regular contact with many of them as they work their way through the system. Some of them have life sentences without parole, which is a hard pill to swallow. I think my autobiography will be titled "All my friends are murderers."
- etc-hosts 3y ago
  I hope you make friends with a non murderer one day.

iaw 3y ago

I suspect many are aware of this but for those uninformed: Reiser committed premeditated murder of his (ex?)wife Nina around 2006 and hid her body so well they could not find her. He made his children think either that their mother abandoned them. He had thought without a body he could not be charged and convicted. I believe he waited until it was apparent he would lose the trial and then plead down so that they could recover her body. I want to believe redemption is possible, especially given how eloquent he is, but his demonstration of calculation over emotion in her murder makes me strongly question his change.

JadeNB 3y ago
> I want to believe redemption is possible, especially given how eloquent he is, but his demonstration of calculation over emotion in her murder makes me strongly question his change. I think it would be ridiculous for me to presume that I can possibly have any view into whether or not someone has sincerely changed, but why should the fact that someone was calculating once affect whether they have changed? I could see doubting the apparent demonstration of change, because they might have calculated the appropriate words to say, but I don't see any reason that a calculating person is less able sincerely to change than any other.
- iaw 3y ago
  I consider it a Bayesian approach to understanding potential internal drivers. Someone who is not cold and calculating likely has less capacity to completely present the appearance of redemption whereas someone who is calculating has that capacity. So, someone who is demonstrated to be calculating has higher odds of faking a behavior if it is beneficial to them (e.g. leaving prison). It's for him to know, but I don't think it's ridiculous for me to question.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    I'm with you on that one. I read the whole thing closely and my conclusion is that some of what's there is playing to an invisible audience. And some of the rest of what's there feels like 'the real Hans' shining through because he hasn't really changed, but is actively trying to change how he is perceived. I could try to enumerate those bits but it doesn't matter all that much, it's just the feeling that I get from reading the text.
    - okwhateverdude 3y ago
      Same. Pretty much any instance where he mentions prison groups or classes, it is very specific and emphasizes strongly that they have changed him. And he knows his mail will be read by the prison staff anyhow. The only benefit of the doubt I have here is maybe the groups/classes promote discussing topics like this precisely because they know a parole board gives them consideration. In which case, he'd be an idiot to not play along if he's angling for parole. (And if that is the case, it wouldn't surprise me if the prison system is being duplicitous in telling prisoners that so they can be demoralized when denied, ie. "I followed the rules and did what you tell me, but you still won't let me go?")
    - fl7305 3y ago
      > my conclusion is that some of what's there is playing to an invisible audience My impression was that he got an assignment in class to write a letter where he reflects on bad interactions in the past, apologize, and try to put them behind him. I also got the impression that he really wants people to write/call him and discuss computer stuff, so this might be part of the motivation for writing it. But I don't know him, so who knows what's going on in his head?
      - bombcar 3y ago
        I've not done it, so I don't know, but I suspect you can never fully get to "I completely regret what I did because it was wrong" without having somewhat of "I completely regret what I did because I got caught". I do think we wants to discuss computer stuff; he seemed entirely unaware of SSDs and how that has (and should) change filesystems, and still thinks Slashdot is a place to post things.
dale_glass 3y ago
He was far less of a mastermind than he fancied himself at the time. If I recall, he bought a book on murder investigations and a socket set after his wife's disappearance (which was easily tracked back to him), removed car seats (blood) from his car, and willingly testified in court that it was his manly dream to sleep in the car, or something along these lines. He could have likely gotten away with it if he kept his mouth shut. Luckily he had the arrogance of believing he had actually come up with a convincing story.
- starkparker 3y ago
  For those interested in the trial, the SF Chronicle's Henry K. Lee ran a very detailed blog on it: https://web.archive.org/web/20080501184401/http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/blogs/localnews/category?blogid=37&cat=1428 https://web.archive.org/web/20080501184401/http://www.sfgate...
  - RajT88 3y ago
    I go back periodically and read the Wired article about it. It is totally bananas: https://archive.is/BcMRF https://archive.is/BcMRF The wildest part was the friend who had an affair with his wife who blurted out unprompted on the stand that he had killed 7 people. They let that guy go!
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      The 'weird nerds' defending Reiser brought this up time and again during the trial. But Reiser showed them all up by leading the authorities to where he had buried the body afterwards so I guess that that particular angle is now settled.
      - RajT88 3y ago
        Yeah, some follow-up reporting found that the guy was lying for some weird reason. He said as much. I forget the reason.
naikrovek 3y ago
High levels of calculation in times when high levels of calculation are required to keep you out of prison are not a sign of anything. Humans are amazing at compartmentalizing things like this away, even while they are happening. It is impossible to know from this single datapoint if he is remorseful or not, but it is not at all outside of the realm of possibility. As a child I merely punched my brother and I tried to kill myself afterwards because of the guilt. In the moment I could not have been more prescient about what I was about to do and what I was doing. I recalled how I had observed him fighting others, how he threw punches, how he swung his arm based on how angry he was, and I planned an arc that took advantage of his habits and clocked him. Knocked him out in one punch. The instant he hit the floor I felt remorse like I had never felt before. Who the hell am I to take an action like that?! Anyway, how someone feels while doing something like that does not necessarily reflect how they feel at any other time in their lives. It also may reflect how they are at all times, or anywhere in between. There is no foolproof way to know.
Arch-TK 3y ago
Source on premeditated? Everything I saw made it look like it was spontaneous (and then he put a lot of work and some poor planning into trying to hide it). I could obviously be wrong, I didn't really spend that much time on it. (Note: I know he was initially found guilty of first degree murder but it appears that first degree murder doesn't necessarily require premeditation.)
- bena 3y ago
  Yeah, I don't think the murder itself was premeditated, but he did treat the event with a sort of self-serving callousness that gave the perception that he did not care about Nina's life beyond how it affected his.
  - EasyMark 3y ago
    that's not what premeditated murder is though. That's trying to cover up the murder which is also a crime, but a far cry from premeditated murder which is one of the most heinous crimes recognized by the legal system.
    - bena 3y ago
      Which is why I said I don't believe the murder was premeditated. He was able to plea to second degree in exchange for the location of the body and essentially a confession. They convicted him of first degree because without the body, there was no evidence that he didn't plan on the murder as well. Ironic in a way. He hid the body to try and hide the evidence that she was dead, but turns out that only made things worse for him. If he had called the authorities and copped to it as an "accident of passion", he'd probably be out by now.
  - pcthrowaway 3y ago
    Elsewhere in this thread (or maybe it was another thread I followed on it), didn't someone mention he suspiciously left his phone at home the day he committed the murder, whereas he would normally have the phone with him? Seems like it was probably premeditated to me if so

Aloha 3y ago

Speaking in general terms, not to the specifics of Hans Reiser's crimes - I dont see why it wouldn't allow for redemption, people do stupid things and get blinded easily.

themerone 3y ago
Drunk driving is a stupid thing people do. Murder is an act of evil.
- shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
  Only if you believe in evil. I'm not christian so I don't see the world like that. He killed his s/o, like what 15 years ago now? People change and deserves a second chance.
  - themerone 3y ago
    Evil is not a religious concept.
    - shzhdbi09gv8ioi 3y ago
      Dude. Good & evil is such a central concept in Christianity it is practically ingrained in your society if you live in a christian country even if you are secular.
      - lupusreal 3y ago
        Christianity also features the premise of marriage, so does that mean no secular conception of marriage can exist? Most people think otherwise. Christianity doesn't own "good and evil", even though it features it, and nor are these premises even owned by religion generally.
      - skissane 3y ago
        The English words for good and evil are pre-Christian in origin. So are their cognates in other European languages. Greek philosophers were debating “good and evil” centuries before Jesus of Nazareth was born. So there is nothing inherently Christian about those words, or the concepts they describe.

throwaway365980 3y ago

[flagged]

gertop 3y ago
Why do you think that her being a mail order bride makes it less bad? If anything it just shows that he wanted to buy another human that he could control and, when it turned out not to be the case, he decided to kill her.
- deleted 3y ago
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- deleted 3y ago
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iaw 3y ago
I am not going to touch on your other points as you clearly have decided your mind. > why a mistake he committed in personal life would make his file system a taboo to touch. He is no longer here to fix bugs or improve the file system, it is not that it's Taboo to touch per se. The benefits of ReiserFS are no longer clear compared to alternatives, there's a cost to including ReiserFS (which Reiser acknowledges), no other FS is associated with the name of a premeditated murderer.
- account42 3y ago
  > premeditated murderer This is an opinion and not something backed by any known facts.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    Before entering a post-verdict deal for a reduced charge to give up the location of his victim’s body, Reiser was convicted by the jury of first-degree (specifically premeditated, even though there alternative ways to get that charge in California) murder, meaning that the trial jury found that the evidence presented at trial eatablished that beyond a reasonable doubt. The facts supporting that conclusion are public. It may be possible to reasonably disagree with the jury’s conclusion, but it is beyond silly to describe it as opinion supported by no known facts.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

bachmeier 3y ago

"Ending another human's life" covers a wide range of cases. My recollection of this event, which is now long in the past, is that he was cold, calculating, did not value human life, and was quite comfortable with his kids moving on without their mother. He didn't just do something to her. He permanently damaged his kids, her family, and all of her friends. He made his decision knowing all of this. Redemption? Possible I suppose, but don't make the mistake of looking at this from your perspective, because he's not like the rest of us.

robertlagrant 3y ago
> because he's not like the rest of us I don't think we can know this, and there's no point speculating. I would say that the letter doesn't read as someone who's imperfectly simulating regret.
- ryandvm 3y ago
  Of course - this entire thread is nothing but speculation. That said, the premeditated murder of someone, let alone your wife and children's mother, is not something that the average person is capable of. It is entirely different than the crimes one may commit out of rage, fear, or passion (i.e. when your amygdala is driving). I don't believe in capital punishment or lesser forms of punitive justice, but I have a hard time believing that psychopaths can ever be meaningfully rehabilitated. They are just humans that shipped with a fucked up firmware and that's all there is to that.
  - ako 3y ago
    The letter reads like Reiser thinks the firmware bug is fixable, and it’s more a case of nurture over nature. Don’t know if that’s true, but it’s not unthinkable.
    - timschmidt 3y ago
      I've certainly encountered the opposite - folks who probably would have lived healthy productive lives, but were subject to some terrible event during some formative time and negatively impacted by it.

silisili 3y ago

I'm always wary of how manipulating some people can be. To be clear, I'm not declaring this letter or Reiser is that way necessarily, just how people have that capability. That said, to me, some of the specific phrases used felt that they were for a parole board rather than the broader audience, or charitably, both. But perhaps I've become too jaded.

riversflow 3y ago
> too jaded I don’t think you are. The number of times the person inferring I’m jaded is later found out to be a manipulator is very high. Calling people who are perceptive of lies, “jaded”, “negative”, “pessimistic”, etc is seemingly a common tactic employed by sociopaths to socially empower themselves while simultaneously weakening those that might call them out.

eatbitseveryday 3y ago

> ending another human's life leaves any possibility of redemption for a person You realize the volunteer soldiers that enter a battle to kill other humans also fall under this scope? Yet in many countries we celebrate their return and service, despite what they may have done. I agree these are not quite the same thing, in how a deed is carried out, but the end result is in fact the same.

edgyquant 3y ago
Context matters
jacquesm 3y ago
It's called the department of defense for a reason, even if in plenty of cases the military is used offensively. Volunteer soldiers that go abroad to try to annex another country at the behest of their local overlord are looked at differently then volunteer soldiers that defend their country from annexation. It's not that the 'end result is in fact the same', it's that circumstances matter. In some cases killing another person is acceptable, in most others it is not. That's why we have so many very specific terms to describe the different situations in which one person kills another, and which of those applies is a big factor in whether we see the killer as having acted justifiably or not. Reiser is on the extreme side of that scale in terms of not having acted justifiably, then he compounded that by his stance during the subsequent trial.
- account42 3y ago
  > Volunteer soldiers that go abroad to try to annex another country at the behest of their local overlord are looked at differently then volunteer soldiers that defend their country from annexation. Are they? Americans seem to think very highly of their veterans ... who all fought in distant wars in countries that were not an serious immediate threat to the US.
scotty79 3y ago
> You realize the volunteer soldiers that enter a battle to kill other humans also fall under this scope? Yes. And I strongly believe there's something wrong with their brains. Not so wrong as with the brains of murderers. But to let someone's words override your innate blocks against killing is some weaknes of the brain, easily exploitable with disastrous consequences for humanity. It makes wars feasible.

rokkitmensch 3y ago

Good thing the lizards who pass the US throne back and forth don't have souls that need redemption!

qingcharles 3y ago

I spent 10 years in jail. For a large part of that I socialized mainly with those who had committed murder. Some had committed more than one. Most of the murderers I met are some of the nicest people I ever met (if you can temporarily disregard their crime). People are not defined by their worst mistake. I am in very regular contact with many of them as they work their way through the system. Some of them have life sentences without parole, which is a hard pill to swallow. I think my autobiography will be titled "All my friends are murderers."

etc-hosts 3y ago
I hope you make friends with a non murderer one day.