Competition for scarce and finite resources and space compounded by mans inability to manage his own numbers in a sustainable way? Genocide isnt evil, its just the end result of natural selection writ large. You can sugar coat it any way you prefer and people will always try to tack a justification onto it whether it be religious, racial or economic but at the end of the day the real reason will be because one side wants theirs and their own to be successful and if that comes at someone elses expense, so be it.
So basically, we're animals so fuck the world and everybody in it and let it come down to who can kill everyone else faster? Do you have any sense of empathy?
4001278
Nemmerle
October 26th, 2007 07:00 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrFancypants
Death that occurs close to you has obviously more of an impact, but that doesn't mean that the life of the people who died was more valuable or that they somehow earned your respect, it just means that they were closer to you.
If your best friend dies a thousand miles away you're still going to care more than if another person you don't know in the third world drops dead. One is a friend, the other is a statistic. You have assigned more value to one than to the other, indeed it is questionable whether you can really value people in the third world that much when you only know them as a number. We assign value to people for a lot of things: Physical proximity to ourselves, social proximity, their production as parts of society, our emotional knowledge of them. But these are all assigned rather than constant values, and the assigned value for people who don't exist within our society is rather low. I doubt it really keeps you awake at night thinking about all the people who die the world over, but someone valuable to you? That has a much higher chance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrFancypants
What do you mean with that? In most societies murder is considered morally wrong and sanctioned by law at the same time.
Murder is an unlawful killing, and in that much you are right, it is generally frowned upon by society. There are however many lawful killings that still involve the person dying being relatively innocent that are not frowned upon by society.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrFancypants
Even if you were right and abortion was morally wrong in every case that would only mean that people are inconsequent in their behaviour, which is still better than flat out accepting or even supporting murder.
I didn't say it was morally wrong, I just said it was killing another human being. And if you are inconsequent in that behavior then you are flat out accepting or even supporting the killing of a human being.
It may not be murder, since abortion is legal, but it's still human - and exterminating it is still socially accepted destruction of human life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrFancypants
Speak for yourself. In my experience people are able to control their destructive urges using basic moral concepts.
It is nothing new that people have the potential to do great harm, but that does not mean that using this potential is inevitable. If history shows us cases of people who comitted genocide then this only means that those people had a rather strange set of moral concepts. Just look at those parts of history where people managed to live together without devastating conflicts.
The people in these experiments and situations were normal people, college students and the like. They had basic moral concepts and almost without fail enviromental factors caused them to discard or over-ride those concepts very quickly.
4001280
Crazy Wolf
October 26th, 2007 07:02 PM
One may have a sense of empathy, but logic and empathy don't mix too well. Logically, RE makes an excellent point. A sensitive human being who loves dancing in the rain and flowers and puppies and rivers of chocolate would disagree with his facts, because they are "wrong"(read: mean)
4001323
Roaming East
October 26th, 2007 07:44 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chemix2
So basically, we're animals so fuck the world and everybody in it and let it come down to who can kill everyone else faster? Do you have any sense of empathy?
I lost my empathy years ago. Now its just varying degrees of suspicion and distrust of those empowered over me. If mankind wants to be elevated above animals then we should perhaps stop acting like them. Individually some people might not be shrill selfish hacks ready to screw their fellow man over for a slight monetary gain but as a group humanity has done a piss poor job of managing its affairs. So in the interim i shall raise my family to respect our fellow man and be courteous and forthright to everyone we meet, but always ready to put boot to ass when the inevitability of violence is occasioned towards us. I would think that if that particular model was followed a bit more widely, the world would have less problems in it. Live and let Live.
4001349
Chemix2
October 26th, 2007 08:12 PM
I realize that the majority of mankind is to some extent "evil", but we are all capable of evil, simply with different extents to which it can effect others. We've all done wrong, and we'll probably do wrong again, but giving people the benefit of the doubt/ second, third, so on chances, is what everyone needs, and wants. We all make mistakes
"Treat others and you would wish to be treated"
4001354
Nemmerle
October 26th, 2007 08:13 PM
I prefer: 'Do as you will be done by and do it first.'
4001623
homo sine domino
October 27th, 2007 02:08 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roaming East
Genocide isnt evil, its just the end result of natural selection writ large.
Natural selection is survival of the fittest, whereas genocide is more like "I may be dumb and unathletic, but I have a gun".
4001669
MrFancypants
October 27th, 2007 04:04 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazy Wolf
One may have a sense of empathy, but logic and empathy don't mix too well. Logically, RE makes an excellent point. A sensitive human being who loves dancing in the rain and flowers and puppies and rivers of chocolate would disagree with his facts, because they are "wrong"(read: mean)
There are logical ways to explain what you call empathic behaviour. Take the categorical imperative, for example.
You can be aware of the facts and still think that it's better to try to change them instead of behaving reactionary towards everything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nemmerle
If your best friend dies a thousand miles away you're still going to care more than if another person you don't know in the third world drops dead. One is a friend, the other is a statistic. You have assigned more value to one than to the other, indeed it is questionable whether you can really value people in the third world that much when you only know them as a number. We assign value to people for a lot of things: Physical proximity to ourselves, social proximity, their production as parts of society, our emotional knowledge of them. But these are all assigned rather than constant values, and the assigned value for people who don't exist within our society is rather low. I doubt it really keeps you awake at night thinking about all the people who die the world over, but someone valuable to you? That has a much higher chance.
With being "close" I didn't mean only the amount of space in between.
two people.
Just because people don't care about death of those they don't know doesn't mean that those people did not have any value, it just means that you don't realize that they have any value. Most likely those people are valued by their families and friends just as much as you value your family and friends.
Quote:
Murder is an unlawful killing, and in that much you are right, it is generally frowned upon by society. There are however many lawful killings that still involve the person dying being relatively innocent that are not frowned upon by society.
Such as?
Quote:
I didn't say it was morally wrong, I just said it was killing another human being. And if you are inconsequent in that behavior then you are flat out accepting or even supporting the killing of a human being.
It may not be murder, since abortion is legal, but it's still human - and exterminating it is still socially accepted destruction of human life.
It's killing a number of cells that have the potential to be human, so it is not the same as killing a human.
But even if people support or accept killing innocents in some cases that does not mean that you should go ahead and exterminate all those people who you think are a problem.
Quote:
The people in these experiments and situations were normal people, college students and the like. They had basic moral concepts and almost without fail enviromental factors caused them to discard or over-ride those concepts very quickly.
Which shows us that it is probably a good idea to avoid certain environmental factors.
Besides, those experiments do not necessarily show how people would really behave in a similar situation. Being aware that you are part of an experiment and that you can end this experiment if you want to usually changes results to some degree.
4002143
The Fat Controller
October 27th, 2007 11:58 AM
We could also, y'know, kill everyone including ourselves. Then there would be no more suffering or 'nuisance' populations to deal with.
4002640
Crazy Wolf
October 27th, 2007 06:16 PM
See? Fat Controller gets it. If you've got a headache, decapitation is an effective cure.
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