An Argument to Legalize Murder

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Let me preface my position with a wonderful 8 part video series on YouTube that touches on math and morality. In summary to the point of my proposal, this series shows that population will be reduced, either by conscious choice or by nature's intervention - and that nature is already intervening.

We already have an overpopulation problem, although we are not feeling a bad sting from it yet. It is also obvious that a segment of the population that tends to produce offspring that become more of a drain on society than offspring who become big positive contributors are producing more offspring than other segments of society. It is also noteworthy that the greats of society do come from all levels of society, and many types of maladaptive personalities come just as easily from "upper crust" society as any other segment. As someone who went to various private schools as well as a couple of public schools, I can attest that the "spoiled brat" personality is predominant amongst offspring of "upper crust" adults and their sense of entitlement seems stronger to me than the sense of entitlement amongst the poor - who are most often accused of this trait. Therefore, the elimination or even targeting of one class of society is not the path to keeping the best while eliminating the worst in whatever form of population control that occurs.

I have noted that justice does not always prevail in the court system, and in fact, it could be debated that currently justice fails more often than it succeeds. I have noted that American society has produced quite a few intolerable attitudes. I have noted that I am not the only person, by far, who believes that something very different needs to be done to improve society.

Legalizing murder committed by people age 27 or older might be the best solution. True, some people's feelings of injustice might be exaggerated, leading to unjust killing - but if murder were legal, such people themselves would soon be dead. Reasonable people would not jump to the murder solution quickly, knowing that they would in turn be looked at as possible targets. Some people would just go on killing sprees, figuring they wouldn't get caught (not that this doesn't happen already anyway) but with everyone armed at all times, their victims would have a better chance at survival than currently.

I also suspect that if murder were legalized, and everyone were armed at all times, this would suddenly become a MUCH more polite society.

I selected the age of 27 because the human brain does not finish developing until the age of 25, but I'm arbitrarily adding 2 years to allow for slower developing brains. Murder should be strongly weighed with a clear and developed mind before completed, and underdeveloped brains may more quickly jump to the murder conclusion. Adults with less than rational minds could also jump to the murder conclusion too quickly, but such adults would soon be culled from the population. A youth with a developing mind would have more of a chance of erring due to underdevelopment rather than due to a permanent fault in development, and I want to give children a chance to develop before subjecting themselves to fatal retaliation. Children can not consider consequences as completely as an adult mind can.

(as a side note, my internet access is still limited so I may be slow to respond, but I will come back to this thread)

[Steven Coyle]

how to access 180 IQ...

before after flush

I do believe I have solved the riddle of a possum's wrath

[guest_of_logic]

Well, that was unexpected, Eliz: from advocate of world peace to advocate of legalised murder. They seem pretty incongruous, but I understand where you're coming from with population control. I honestly don't think that being able to randomly shoot people in the head is the answer, but it's an interesting proposal: back to the days of the Wild West without a sheriff.

[Dan Rowden]

My "crazy idea" alarm is going off....

[Kelly Jones]

It's an extreme idea suited for a crisis. That type of crisis indicates a majority of irrational people, therefore, it's contradictory to expect a rational solution. So it won't happen. Many governments around the world are already trying to reduce private gun ownership and access to weaponry, because of their expectations of people running amok.

If or when religion is replaced with rational attitudes, then people globally are more likely to participate in population control measures voluntarily and by their own initiative, by having less than two children or none at all. It's the belief in a soul that tends to get in the way of the rational.

It's far better to promote rationality, and overwhelm the religious escapism, than offer new laws that will only be abused by our majority insane.

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[Ataraxia]

It's an extreme idea suited for a crisis. That type of crisis indicates a majority of irrational people, therefore, it's contradictory to expect a rational solution.
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It's not a rational solution in any way shape or form.

For it to be rational it would mean that you value life that you know already exists lower than you value life that may(or may not) exist in the future. How is that rational?

[Kelly Jones]

Well, I wasn't saying it was a rational solution to overpopulation, since it is the same a-rational grisly culling as "rats in a granary".

Your point doesn't make much sense. I think Elizabeth's underlying idea is sustainable life for as long as possible. I don't think she thought of culling as means for future population explosions. Sustainability is just eliminating "pollution" by making waste products deliberately useable (and used).

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[Kelly Jones]

Kelly: It's far better to promote rationality, and overwhelm the religious escapism, than offer new laws that will only be abused by our majority insane.

dejavu: The problem with rationality is that for this "majority insane", it culminates in fear. Love, for all its irrationality, is open to ideals whilst not being blinding to reality necessarily.

So promote love of rationality.

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[Ataraxia]

Your point doesn't make much sense.

Well then perhaps you haven't thought this as deeply as you could, either. Because the point is rather obvious.

I think Elizabeth's underlying idea is sustainable life for as long as possible.

Right. But she is advocating that it may be rational to kill extant people now to make the world more 'sustainable' for future people; people who may, or may not be. This is different to advocating people extant now live more sustainable lives by personally using less resources - which hopefully, most of us agree is a good idea.

So my question is why should we (people extant now)value peoples lives in the future above our very own and our fellow man? How is that rational?

[Beingof1]

Life has value

[Kelly Jones]

I think Elizabeth's underlying idea is sustainable life for as long as possible.

Right. But she is advocating that it may be rational to kill extant people now to make the world more 'sustainable' for future people; people who may, or may not be. This is different to advocating people extant now live more sustainable lives by personally using less resources - which hopefully, most of us agree is a good idea.

So my question is why should we (people extant now)value peoples lives in the future above our very own and our fellow man? How is that rational?

I think she was probably misguided in the basic mechanism she chose to express sustainability, but the idea, presumably, was that the kind of life that was able to reduce its numbers to a sustainable amount was more valuable than the kind of life that could or would not. That's rational enough.

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[Kelly Jones]

live more sustainable lives by personally using less resources

That's part of it, but there's also eliminating pollution, which is producing waste, instead of an ingredient in a biocycle. Not cradle-to-grave, but cradle-to-cradle. So, for instance, instead of burying corpses in sealed coffins, they were cremated, sterilised, and added to soil fertilisers (along with treated humanure).

I think Elizabeth's aim is perhaps not really about population control, but about the arbitrariness of morals, even murder. Murder is a classification issue, it's clearly about forbidding threats to oneself, or one's values. So, if one values sustainable life, then anything that threatens that may be "murdered". It's not called murder there, it's called "removing threats". Murder is only towards oneself, obviously. ;-)

Anyway, rather than advocating mass murder, I still think we should advocate becoming as conscious as possible, so that people are voluntarily celibate. Unfortunately, consciousness seems to increase after choosing celibacy, not before.

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[Ryan Rudolph]

legalizing murder is not practicable, or desirable. There would be unintentional consequences that you cannot conceive of. For instance: democracies around the world might begin to crumble, as alpha-males starving for power would attempt to assassinate leaders in order to take control. If there were no consequences, the worst traits in humans would come to the surface more often, which may threaten the survival of the species as a whole, rather than just lower the population. We could slip into a period of darkness, from which rationality might never return.

I'm optimistic. According to population experts, the world population is expected to peak out at 9 billion, and then start declining. The spread of rationality and new technologies will hopefully take pressure off the biological systems keeping us alive, long enough for the system to recover a little, and long enough for us to create regenerative technologies that can repair the damage caused by the industrial revolution.

For instance: the genome of endangered species could be stored in order to bring them back later. And the discovery of cheap energy will make it economically feasible to convert salt water to drinking water, among other discoveries.

[Talking Ass]

I'm with Elizabeth on this one. You've had it too good for too long. Time to shake things up. When my 'crazy idea' meter went off, I crushed it with my hoof and that was that.

'Practicable, desirable'---tell that to the asteroid plowing through space at this very moment intent on destroying life on this planet!

Help Us!

[Anders Schlander]

I think this is incomplete at atleast one point; older 27+ olds can kill people, even younger people that can't fight back? obviously there should be a law against older 27+y. olds killing younger people.

Just saying, i need more time to look at the idea before i can make a decision, not that this makes sense in denmark, because we're not in overpopulation trouble atm.



edit:

The main idea is that un-rational people will end up killing eachother. Or, by limiting couples to 2 children in reasonably populated countries, and 1 child in un-reasonably countries, with a law, we could solve it aswell.

Perhaps you could demand that the females are checked every 3 months to check if they are pregnant, if the amount of children exceeds two or one depending on country, she has to have an abortion. The male contributer is allowed 1 or 2 seeds, depending on country, and each new child is checked for the father aswell.

when the population starts dropping too low u can stop enforcing that.

But, if everybody thought this was reasonable, etc. They wouldn't need the law, they wouldn't overpopulate in the first place. I doubt people would be onboard with it.

[Tomas]

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-Anders Schlander-
Perhaps you could demand that the females are checked every 3 months to check if they are pregnant, if the amount of children exceeds two or one depending on country, she has to have an abortion.

-tomas-
Makes more sense to haul in the boys and cut their nuts off.


-Anders-
The male contributer is allowed 1 or 2 seeds, depending on country, and each new child is checked for the father as well.

-tomas-
I say, kill off the native male Danes and import more male Muslims to your country.


-Anders-
when the population starts dropping too low you can stop enforcing that.

-tomas-
Naw, then you just bring in the Chinese males and have at it with the remaining female Dane girls.


-Anders-
But, if everybody thought this was reasonable, etc.

-tomas-
Oh yeah, the all-encompassing "everybody." Where's a Hitler when Denmark really needs an ethnic cleansing..


-Anders-
They wouldn't need the law, they wouldn't overpopulate in the first place.

-tomas-
No doubt. I motion for the remaining Danish population be transported to Australia.


-Anders-
I doubt people would be onboard with it.

-tomas-
Too late, you were already disposed of at the newly-improved Auschwitz ;-)

Just for you, my sweetheart Anders >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWU7FxQIsoM

PS - Shut up and drink the kool-aid [zyklon-b].

[Anders Schlander]

theres easier ways to sterilize people, + it wouldn't be a good idea if you suddenly needed to populate. duh?

+ nothing against muslims, the point was that it's simply enough to figure out a way to deal with overpop. if you wanna be reasonable

[Talking Ass]

Anders wrote: "Just saying, i need more time to look at the idea before i can make a decision, not that this makes sense in denmark, because we're not in overpopulation trouble atm."

Yeah, but that's only half of it. Elizabeth's proposal has more to do with getting even with assholes through elimination and creating a nice, polite society. I think we all agree that people would suddenly get a whoooooole lot more polite, and quickly, under our plan.

What's your asshole rate up there in Denmark anyway? In America we're up to 75 per 1000 and it seems to be climbing, not going down, despite No-drama Obama. Of course I am talking about strict assholes with few or no redeeming features. Our jerk-rate is running upwards of 250/1000 and that's a modest estimate. I'd put shmuck at 400/1000.

[Anders Schlander]

eh, well, people in Denmark talk alot less to eachother, more than in America. They are still very deluded, they are 'conscious' enough not to be following any new Hitlers anytime soon, that is, they are not really conscious, but they all say the same thing; we dont want dictators. Im just not sure they will recognize one when they see one. Your jerk-standard is not one I usually use, but I'd say most people are evil. Heh.

[Talking Ass]

Well, come to think of it, you probably couldn't get the guns in Denmark to carry out any successful 'ops against assholes' for the betterment of society. You'd have to learn some kind of deadly karate where you just take someone out with one carefully placed chop. Thwack! And the sad truth is people don't have the patience to learn advanced karate. They'd really rather just sit at home and watch TV or whatnot. Go out for icecream.

You do bring up an interesting point though: talkativeness, the issue of of proximity, that tends to produce social conflicts. More 'talking', more ridiculous scenes that lead, inevitably, to conflict and strife. We can avoid it, you seem to say, if we'd only shut up! If people just don't ever SAY anything and walk on by...that's a win-win situation right there.

I hadn't really thought of it like that: gregariousness as the root of social strife and, by extension, murder.

[Anders Schlander]

that's a good point yes; from all i've heard, and from the culture in america, people are much more connected in america, they might speak to people on the street, i've heard, which is unheard of in denmark almost.

But america is meant to be a pilgrimage to gods country, a land of freedom and hope, the other side of the coin, is that people do horrible things for their freedom, and horrible things, when the hope of sucess fails. In denmark people simply aren't that concerned with immidiate sucess and material wealth. People mind their own business, less wealthy people have alot of options, and for the most part, it's a less narcissistic country that doesn't portray themselves as patriotic and as God's land, you could also call denmark less proud, but narcissistic is really fine imo.

We're also less concerned with sweet sixteens, proms, high-school sweethearts, poor-family sports-people making the american dream, cars, guns. Some places in denmark put more concern on all this narcissistic crap, though. We want to see winners, not losers, we want people to dance and have fun, we want people to have a great education, soldiers fighting for the land, boy/girl-friends, just 'not' quite as much as America, who's really almost mentally ill with this sort of attitude. If the country becomes this insane, then no doubt, all the insanity will create alot of hatred, suffering, and lunacy which will manifest as evil, rather than 'innocent'

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Do we want politeness out of fear? Only politeness from individual nature is really politeness.

Politeness, IMO, is just a social lubricant. I could agree that only kindness done from the heart is true kindness.

You might have more success looking into legalizing some less final things.

Nudity perhaps? Drugs that can't kill us, eg. magic mushrooms.

Not sure how a less final solution to overpopulation would help. As it is, I don't see legalizing murder as a permanent solution to overpopulation.

back to the days of the Wild West without a sheriff.

That's pretty much the idea. I'm not sure how to get accurate statistics on that, but I get the general impression that there was less crime back then.

...more later....

My "crazy idea" alarm is going off....

Bloody Aussies and their anti-gun sentiments. Would you like to make a counter argument for plague, pestilence, or maybe some mass starvation as a better alternative to selecting who should die with at least some degree of consciousness?

Yeah, I know - the likelihood of getting a law like that passed right now is not too likely - but if enough people get on enough other people's nerves, which will happen increasingly as overpopulation begins to sting, the chance of passing such a law increases. I'm just proposing it a bit early.

It's an extreme idea suited for a crisis.

and if you watched the youtube vids, you understand that we are in a crisis, but just generally too ignorant to see it.

That type of crisis indicates a majority of irrational people, therefore, it's contradictory to expect a rational solution.

On the surface, that appears true; however, as illustrated in the book The Wisdom of Crowds,given a large enough group of people who a generally clueless about a subject, the average of their opinions will actually reflect a great deal of accuracy. Based on the research that went into that book, I expect that although some people who don't deserve to die would be eliminated, on the whole, humanity would be left with people who we would want to represent humanity in the gene pool.

If or when religion is replaced with rational attitudes, then people globally are more likely to participate in population control measures voluntarily and by their own initiative, by having less than two children or none at all.

That's kind of what we have now, but the problem is that in general, only the rational people are abstaining from procreation, and the less socially conscious are procreating like bunnies. The effect is over-representation of the socially unconscious and under-representation of the socially conscious in the human gene pool. That seems to be counterproductive to promoting consciousness.

It's not a rational solution in any way shape or form.

For it to be rational it would mean that you value life that you know already exists lower than you value life that may(or may not) exist in the future. How is that rational?

Are you predicting that suddenly all humans will become infertile? What would you base such a prediction on? Cause and effect has shown us that people engage in activities resulting in procreation, and it looks to me like this pattern will continue. There may be some infertility due to pollution, and that would contribute to curbing the overpopulation problem - but overpopulation is contributing to the cause of pollution, so any infertility resulting from that would be part of the unconscious solution.

Reducing population through conscious means would make it less likely for all humans to become infertile. Also, the law legalizing murder could be repealed at any time. It would be much harder to undo mass infertility due to pollution.

So my question is why should we (people extant now)value peoples lives in the future above our very own and our fellow man? How is that rational?

We are still valuing lives of people now, but we are using judgment of which lives we value more. If a father discovered that his small child had been molested, I bet he would value the life of the pedophile far less than the life of the doctor who repaired his child's torn anus. I doubt anyone would blame him for judging the pedophile suitable for extermination - especially knowing that pedophiles simply have a very hard time controlling themselves, making it likely that given the opportunity the pedophile would strike again. The resources that would otherwise have gone to the pedophile would now go to non-pedophiles.

I think she was probably misguided in the basic mechanism she chose to express sustainability

I agree that I have let my skills of expressing an idea slide by not posting enough here ( thereby incurring honest critical response). That is why I posted the thread here - to subject my writing to the kind of jousting that will get me back on my toes.

the kind of life that was able to reduce its numbers to a sustainable amount was more valuable than the kind of life that could or would not.

Yes, that's the idea.

I think Elizabeth's aim is perhaps not really about population control, but about the arbitrariness of morals, even murder.

It's both - when there weren't a lot of people, it was immoral to kill under certain circumstances - thus killing under those circumstances was called murder. The reason it was immoral was because enough humans had to procreate to keep the human population going, provide enough diversity to support a healthy gene pool (they didn't use that term then, but since the time of domestication of farm animals, people understood what inbreeding did - and the inbreeding of royalty proved that such horrible side effects happened in human inbreeding, too).

Now, I propose, it is immoral to support such a large population that we collapse our ability to support the human race. I also propose that we have to accept the reality that some humans are more valuable to the cause of wisdom than others, and that if we want wisdom to survive, we must be selective amongst all socio-economic strata to find and protect those people valuable to wisdom by eliminating those who are counter-productive or destructive to wisdom.

from advocate of world peace to advocate of legalised murder.

The end result would be peace, and it would be peace based on wisdom. Sometimes one must kill some weeds in order to give the vegetable garden a chance to produce vegetables.

democracies around the world might begin to crumble

What? You're the one that I thought would go all John Wayne and note that American democracy grew out of such a culture.

as alpha-males starving for power would attempt to assassinate leaders in order to take control.

That would be expected, and those alpha-males with more testosterone than brain cells would be quickly eliminated.

the worst traits in humans would come to the surface more often

making such traits easier to spot and therefore easier to eliminate the humans expressing such undesirable traits...

If there were no consequences

See above - there would be consequences - fatal consequences for showing yourself to be the kind of human that people just don't want to tolerate.

According to population experts, the world population is expected to peak out at 9 billion, and then start declining.

Yep - do you want it to decline from mostly conscious choices, or plague, mass starvation, and other unconscious causes?

According to population experts, the world population is expected to peak out at 9 billion, and then start declining. The spread of rationality and new technologies will hopefully take pressure off the biological systems keeping us alive, long enough for the system to recover a little, and long enough for us to create regenerative technologies that can repair the damage caused by the industrial revolution.

Ah - you seem to prefer the conscious option - you don't thin that just being wise will magically make the problems go away, do you? Wisdom is evidenced by wise decisions. I'm proposing a wise option based on the reality of mostly unwise humans.

For instance: the genome of endangered species could be stored in order to bring them back later. And the discovery of cheap energy will make it economically feasible to convert salt water to drinking water, among other discoveries.

That sounds lovely. How does that address the overpopulation problem though?

older 27+ olds can kill people, even younger people that can't fight back? obviously there should be a law against older 27+y. olds killing younger people.

I disagree. If someone kills a kid that they should not have killed, that person is likely to be killed themselves - hence eliminating a person with bad judgment from the gene pool. People over 27 should realize that is a possible consequence unless a kid is really, really bad - and even then there are probably people who would eliminate the perpetrator just out of a feeling of unfairness to the kid. A kid would probably have to be a real monster before someone would kill them anyway.

Perhaps you could demand that the females are checked every 3 months to check if they are pregnant, if the amount of children exceeds two or one depending on country, she has to have an abortion. The male contributer is allowed 1 or 2 seeds, depending on country, and each new child is checked for the father aswell.

What if someone is producing wise children? Would you really eliminate that just because some dimwits have not had their chance to contribute 2 seeds? Not that mentally dull parents can't have a wise offspring - some really bright kids have come from some really challenged parents, but that's rare. Still, I wouldn't want to base this on numbers, but on evidence that the individulal presents themselves.

In America we're up to 75 per 1000

You mean 75 per 100? I don't think it's quite that high, but it's higher than 75 per 1,000.

Our jerk-rate is running upwards of 250/1000 and that's a modest estimate.

That sounds right.

I'd put shmuck at 400/1000.

A little conservative, but okay.

talkativeness, the issue of of proximity, that tends to produce social conflicts.

And the more of us that there are tripping over each other, the more proximity that can't be avoided.

[Anders Schlander]

Yes, limiting offspring in such a way also limits wise parents. But there aren't an awful lot amount of those. So we would minimize the amount of new children that are likely not to be wise anyway, and provide more room for the worlds population to 'breath', If the population started diving towards half of what it was. A system where qualified people can judge whether people are fit enough to procreate is also possible, those who doesn't fit in would be allowed children, they would eventually be weeded out. But you would then need a standard of which to judge whether a parent is parent-material as well.

your argument entails that, gradually, people will develop their morals of which to live by, to avoid dying, and un-wanted people will not be welcome. But if people today are anything to go by, their morals will involve really stupid things, and the deluded majority, would have different morals than rational people, and rational people would be in trouble. Ofcourse the irrational people *could* just wipe each-other out, but they could also settle into their own morals within small groups or cults, where people would remain irrational.

What's to stop the irrational people from becoming the majority, and staying that way, by forming differnet tribes/groups, alliances, and so on?

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

What's to stop the irrational people from becoming the majority, and staying that way, by forming differnet tribes/groups, alliances, and so on?

Irrational people already are the majority, so there's no "becoming" to worry about. Again, I reference the studies in The Wisdom of Crowds and infer that overall, those killed will mostly be those that the vast majority would have wanted killed.

To be my own detractor, I think that the biggest problem with legalizing murder as a solution to overpopulation is that not enough people will be killed to do much good.

In order to really pare down the population, something more severe like breaking the population down into groups, and vote for particular people out of that group to survive or die, and you have to choose no more than 2 to survive, must choose at least 1 to die, and the rest to be placed in another vote group until the population is down to a sustainable amount. I just don't see the human psyche as being able to pull that off without all the survivors either having sociopathic tendencies or having PTSD from putting all those people to death.

[Talking Ass]

Anders wrote: "We're also less concerned with sweet sixteens, proms, high-school sweethearts, poor-family sports-people making the american dream, cars, guns. Some places in denmark put more concern on all this narcissistic crap, though. We want to see winners, not losers, we want people to dance and have fun, we want people to have a great education, soldiers fighting for the land, boy/girl-friends, just 'not' quite as much as America, who's really almost mentally ill with this sort of attitude. If the country becomes this insane, then no doubt, all the insanity will create alot of hatred, suffering, and lunacy which will manifest as evil, rather than 'innocent' "

I came across this quote today by Gustave Flaubert:

"The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletariat to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeoisie".

It is peculiar: all this madness ('mentally ill' as you say) is both the strength and the weakness of the American Hyper-Republic. America's center of gravity is about 2-1/2 feet above the ground. We have taken so much 'mass' of the world in and, unfortunately, we don't ever really seem to DO MUCH with them. If we had a strong educational system---say like France---where real demands were made on people, we might spit out the other end a 'useful product' (useful to the Republic). But, the strategy is to allow them access and let the general culture do with them what it will.

The thing is, most everywhere, and I mean by that in the 'outer darkness' of the so-called Third World (developing world), the measure of life is really in things, what you have (or don't have). It is possible you don't have a clear sense of what this means. I live near neighborhoods (I live in the Latin America but am American) where people will go to any length to divest you of the shoes you are right now wearing! Given the opportunity, they would ransack your neighborhood, your house---and your nation---just to get what you 'have'. Only the threat of death and injury keeps them from it. Peculiar, eh?

I would say maybe 7/10ths of the world 'narcissitically' wants a specific set of certain things. Not having them, they are frustrated and sad. Oddly enough (I know, I know, I feel the same way) Consumerism has done for these people what no other Ism has done before! Pacification of unruly sectors? (in the world economy): throw products at them and watch them shut up and settle down.

Isn't the World Process right now 'raising the proletariat to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeoisie'?