A Simple Question on Permanence

[u r a person 2]

I think I would be even more against the death penalty if everyone was immortal

If you execute a wrongly convicted man with 40 years left on his life, that's a lesser injustice than if he had a million years left on his life

and we would need new, better methods of rehabilitation, but even that doesn't mean everyone could be rehabilitated

some people would need locking up for a very long time.

[u r a person 2]

Does it need justifying? Life is valuable. More life is more valuable. Intuitively, is it not more of a tragedy when a child dies than when an old man dies?

We prioritize rescuing children over old people "Women and children first"

Also women, but that's old fashioned chivalry (sexism)

[u r a person 2]

We prioritize rescuing children over old people "Women and children first"

Also women, but that's old fashioned chivalry (sexism)

By biology, men were more expendable, hence this.

Not trying to hijack the convo

[u r a person 2]

Can you think of any other scenario where stealing a lesser amount of something creates the same sense of loss as stealing a greater amount of that same something?

If I steal half the money in your bank account, I've done less harm then if I steal all the money.

If I ruin half of your day, that's less egregious than if I were to ruin all of your day.

If I burn down half of your house, it will cost less to repair than if the whole thing is reduced to ash.

There are some instances where taking a part of something makes the entire thing worthless. For instance, if I were to remove from your possession half of your private key for your crypto that would render the entire amount useless. But even in this case, I've effectively removed all of it from your possession.

[u r a person 2]

How about do no harm and not try to quantify the amount the amount of harm you are doing.

I'm not looking to do anyone harm. It's all hypotheticals. Your forest fire point is not bad, but I think it's a lot more like grooming than damage. I cut my toenails. If I didn't, I might get a hangnail or an ingrown nail. But I would never call cutting my toenails self-harm.

The rest of your post, while a fun read, is beyond what I'm interested in discussing right this second. If you want to discuss the point you originally asked me to explain, I would be happy to join you. Otherwise, I wish you luck in finding someone to discuss your ideas with.

[u r a person 2]

Ah, well then I don't understand your first sentence. In a discussion about how to deal with crime (read: damage by one person to another person's property/body/etc), is there a point to discussing how doing no harm is better than doing harm? I agree that crime is bad.

[u r a person 2]

And I congratulate you on your attempt! But I'm not going to discuss and evaluate all of the many assumptions you've made in order to get to the next stage of the discussion.

Now, I take what you're saying to mean that life is in a category all it's own, and that there is no way to differentiate the value of one life over another

But killing a fly is legal regardless of your motives. Killing a dog is illegal if your motives are sadistic, but legal for reasons of population control, to prevent the animal's suffering, and in self defense. Killing a human is only legal in self defense.

So clearly, as a society we have found a way to differentiate the value of different lives. I don't think it's a large leap from here to differentiating between different human lives. I'm not using this as an argument to justify greater harm against any human being. Let me remind you of my motivation for the argument. I think it would be more of an injustice to wrongly execute a man with a million years left in his life than a man with a far shorter life expectancy. Both are injustices. I'm against the death penalty for mortals. I'm more against the death penalty for immortals.

[u r a person 2]

what would the population growth look like for a group of 1 man and 50 women?

[u r a person 2]

i propose an experiment




seriously tho i think it would be pretty similar for a while and then a lack of genetic diversity might kill the village

[u r a person 2]

if there are other villages, then surely the one with more men and less women would just steal women from the group with more women and less men

duh