Who would you kill?
 

Someone posted this on another forum that I frequent, and I found it fairly interesting. The question is this:

If god came to you one day and offered you a gun and said "Take this weapon, and with this weapon you may strike down any one person, past, or present. Without any spiritual, or legal reprocussions. But you would have to live with you own conscience." would you use the gun god gave you? If so, then who would you, and why? And if not, then why not?



For myself, without spiritual repercussions, I'd off myself. That'd mean I could technically get into heaven, despite the sucide. And without emotional repercussions, my family and friends wouldn't be bothered. Without legal repercussions... ? Well, that wouldn't matter, would it?

(This assumes, of course, that both a supernatural and afterlife exist.)

I'd kill God... Nietsche would love me for that.... ;)

But really... I can hardly live with my conscience if I kill a fly... I wouldn't off anybody... I'd maybe get God to offer a certificate or something and sell it on the black market... do you know how much money I could make? :D

I don't think I'd kill anybody. How can you possibly hope to foresee the consequences of this one act? There's the old story about the man who went back in time and accidentally killed a butterfly, and when he returned to his own time things had altered radically. If you killed, say, Hitler, who's to say what might have arisen in his place? Or Gavril Princip, or Atilla the Hun, or Alexander the Great, or Jesus, or Pontius Pilate, or some random guy in a field in medieval France.

No, thank you.

Lurkette's on the right track here... Better the evil you know.

I'd kill the Devil.

If Satan is considered a "person" then i would kill him. If not him then probably wouldn't want to kill another human. Although killing Abrahams first son probabably would be tempting.

And then we'd be fighting with militant Confucians or something instead of Islamists.

I have to admit....the urge to get rid of someone obviously evil is very great, however...like lurkette said...who knows what would happen, even if you did...a butterfly flapping its' wings on one side of the earth can, amazingly effect change on things...just as a pebble thrown in the "cosmic pool" can change others....

I guess this really boils down to where you believe thoses changes lie...are they predetermined? (i.e. if someone killed Hitler, WWII would not ahve happened, the world would be a better place as millions would not ahve died) or (i.e. if someone killed Hitler, WWII, in this sense would not have happened, however, WWII(b) would have...and the repurcussions of which are unknown...)

To answer the question...I dont think I would kill anyone as doing so would create an anomaly in space/time that might ultimately bring more disgusting and evil acts into the present.

...interesting qestion...

(BTW...the removal of the other boards has really made me realise what a great bunch of other boards there are on this server....a forum that makes me think...it has been a long time ;) )

I'd kill Hitler. That would have saved the lives of thousands of people.

I would have killed no body. Simply becuase I would not want to abstract the cycle of life and its plan.

Sounds like we have a bunch of fatalists here. At least in a sense... in the "better the evil you know" crowd, and the "don't want to alter history" sense.

What if, as a hypothetical situation, someone had already done so? Say Billy the Kid should've been elected as president of the US, but someone shot him before he could get around to it? Or some other random unknown? Would it really be so bad? If it were so bad, would you know? Would you care? Would it matter?



A mild point of amusement for me... what if you killed all of Hitler's opponents? I mean, if you killed the other world leaders and key players of the time before they'd risen to power? Would Hitler still have become what he became?

It's an interesting thought experiment, but a little pointless unless you have a personal vendetta against an individual, or want to speculate about how the world would be different due to a particular person's absence, and I don't think I have the kind of historical knowledge to speculate intelligently, particularly given the ripple effect. I mean, come on. Everyone's going to pick Hitler, anyhow, aren't they?

:p

Ever play Command and Conquer: Red Alert? A similar situation arises, except that Hitler is killed (by Einstein of all people! :lol: ), and Stalin comes to power, interesting idea. There is also a book, which I haven't read, but is supposed to to be very good called "What if", which puts forwards "fictional histories" according to various "what-ifs".

Anyway, on a more serious not, I would claim that chaos theory comes into play. That altering the past in ANY way, no matter how tiny could end up having massive, and completely unpredictable consequences. Even consequences that would appear to be, completely ilogical.
I think its fair to say that the "non-linearity" (i.e. the "chaoticness") of the world is pretty large! So even trying to guess what the consequences of any specific event would be just as unaccurate as any attempt to predict the future from now.

EDIT: And I am definately not a fatalist. And I really don't think that anyone in this thread is. Quite the opposite in fact.

Heh... yeah, I played that game and hated it, because it uses the Westwood RTS interface. Horribly ugly. I've always preferred the Blizzard interface, myself. :P



In any case, you've definitely got a good point. (I'm studying, on my own with secondhand textbooks, to try to understand what Chaos theory is on a mathematical level.) If any one factor changes even a TINY bit, everything could (and probably would) be entirely different. Even your mere presence in the past, where you shouldn't have been, could distort the world as we know it. The presence of a bullet... anything changing would alter the airflow, slightly, and hell... maybe someone'd bump into you on your way to off whatever bugger you'd off, and they'd fall into the moving traffic. Anything could happen, from then on, and the later on (in time) that you got, the more things would have changed.

So basically, your mere presence in the Garden of Eden, provided that the place existed in the first place, could have changed something and made your birth impossible. Hell, you might've even saved Abel... :P

i'd kill the snake in the garden...

All of you interested in Chaos Theory should check out a book written by James Gleick...named, aptly enough Chaos

Anyway, it is an amzing book...delves into the physical and mathematical portions of Chaos without going too far over the head of the reader...

Anyone else know of any good Chaos Theory books?

The snake in the garden (or the devil before he did that, assuming you believe the biblical history) is a good one. The question is though.. if you killed the snake.. and it resulted in your birth/existance/everything you knew being non-existent, would you do it? The good part would be that the people that WERE alive would be in paradise. Bad part would be that you wouldn't be there to enjoy it :).

Of course, killing the snake/satan might not help. Some could argue that man is inherently (sp?) full of flaws, and that Adam and Eve would end up disobeying/angering God in some other way, causing us to be kicked out of paradise anyways, making your attempt all for null.

As for the Hitler stuff, I agree with most of the others.. who knows what would happen, who would take over? It's another situation where your own existence may be removed... a gamble you'd have to take if you think it's for the greater good.

I find it funny how no one has really said anything about their conscience. The fact that you're killing someone evil still means you're killing someone. May not be as easy as you think.

I've never killed anyone (good or evil), so I don't know :)

No, I don't know of any other ones, but I've got two copies of Gleick's Chaos. :P



A point against killing Hitler. Why would you kill him, unless you were an Anti-Zionist? The nation of Israel was re-founded as a result of the targeting of the Jews by the Nazis during WWII, as the world sentiment at the way was that they had put up with enough so should at least have a little bit of land to call their own. If the holocaust never happened, would that mean the Jews would have... nowhere?

Remember, although you may have saved a good many lives, many more would have been lost in constant lynch mobbing. The anti-semetic tendencies of the era, and of those before it, would probably be repeating themselves if something drastic didn't happen.

St. Augustine of Hippo -- the Christian theologian who most successfully pushed the idea that humans were innately sinful and degraded, and that's why God had to sacrifice his sons to save our miserable ungrateful selves (this idea was _not_ dominant in Christianity 1.0). So whenever someone's yammering at you to be saved and threatening you with damnation if you don't go along, think about pumping one into St. Augustine's liver.

The pope, just to see the look on gods face.

Killing Hitler may have saved millions... but realize this.

Millions more were born as a result of the war - the Baby Boom after the war gave birth probably to your very own parents or maybe even now grandparents. WIthout them, your very self might not be alive.

Not to mention no World War 2 and our technology would be very far back - WW2 actually advanced technology greatly.

Its just something to think about - kill Hitler and no Baby Boom, no real end to Depressoin - your very own parents may not have been born and with that you wouldn't.

That's assuming that the existence of the State of Israel is a higher good than (presumably) sparing the lives of 6 million Jews.

Quote:

Remember, although you may have saved a good many lives, many more would have been lost in constant lynch mobbing. The anti-semetic tendencies of the era, and of those before it, would probably be repeating themselves if something drastic didn't happen.

An interesting point. But as some have pointed out, if it wasn't Hitler it probably would have been Stalin, and pogroms instead of concentration camps. And it was 6 million people. I have a hard time believing that even frequent lynch mobbing would have been able to kill as many people as the systematic murder carried out by the Nazis. And the Zionist movement was already underway by WWII, the war just gave it urgency. Perhaps if the war hadn't made people hurry so quickly to find a homeland for the Jews they may have been able to take some time and negotiate a better solution than the 1946 partition.

Ok, let's go back to killing the devil.
Why? (and i'm not being sarcastic or disparaging here, i really would like to no what you think)
Ok, granted he's one evil guy, but 1) how do you kill a methaphor? Or if he is real, than he's immortal and how do you kill him then? and 2) If you kill him with the sole purpose of eradicating evil in the world, how exaclty would that work? does the evil dissappear when the devil dies?

I think the devil is like god - if he didn't exist it would be necessary to invent him. If we kill the devil all we have left to demonize is each other. We need a scapegoat (ever wonder why the devil has the hind legs of a goat in many renderings?) for our baser thoughts and desires, and this metaphor is a good repository that allows us to distance ourself from our own instincts. Lust after your neighbor's wife? "It's not me - it's Satan! I swear" :D

I'd kill my mother. Let's see God get around that paradox!

(PS - I love my mom, it's just an excercise in abstract thought...)

[QUOTE]Originally posted by RelaX
I'd kill God...


nicely done

Good points. However, what other consequences could killing Hitler have? Just as a hypothetical situation, of course...

Sure, the Zionist movement was underway already, but it was meeting alot of resistance on most fronts. There were consistant lynch mobbings and pogroms, as you mentioned, and many Jews had ALREADY died... if the Zionist movement hadn't gained momentum soon enough, eventually the Jews would have been silently erradicated. (Speculation, of course, but is it so far fetched?)

Even if the Zionist movement had eventually succeeded without the sympathy generated from the Holocaust (which, in this hypothetical case, didn't happen), would they really have been able to get what they wanted? After all, they were pushing for the area of land which they actually got (and later took over more), and without the worldwide tear jerking, they'd probably not have been able to get so much without some MASSIVE armtwisting or some other massive genocidal act.

the story lurkette was talking about (Ray Bradburys A Sound Of Thunder, very good read for a short story) explained it really well. He killed a butterfly and the society he came back to was more "barbaric" just from the abscence of that butterfly.
Saying that, Id have to kill someone here in the present. Itd probably someone I know personally.

I have to agree with Jaron, suicide in this case would be a get into heaven free card. Also, I'm just curious as to how many other people know who lurkette was talking about when she said Gavril Princip?
I do.

I'd most definately use the gun... I'd "use" it by unloading the gun... Same thing I'd do if the devil game me a gun.

And since this IS the philosophy forum... wouldn't it be more likely that it was the devil calling himself God... to fool you? And for those of you who aren't realizing it... Satan is extremely beautiful, so he just might be able to convince someone.

Which, by the end of the 20th Century, we've pretty much come to. We used to create witches, now we create mental patients. (Yes, I stole that line, but I cannot remember from whom.)

On the subject of killing Hitler - another possible consequence is having WWII with someone sane in charge of Germany. You get to avoid the Holocaust, but Germany could end up winning the war. I have the "What If?" book that CSfilm mentioned. I haven't read the whole thing, but there are a couple essays in there that claim if Germany had attacked Russia through the Middle East rather than with the Barbarossa plan they could have won the war.

Of course, that could in turn have lead to atomic bombing of Europe by America, which would seem to have a fair chance of killing more people than the Holocaust.

Marshall Wegner

I would save it and kill someone that I felt was harming others. I don't have much repercussions unless I can see any direct negative effect to doing the deed.

Killing Hitler is one of the biggest mistakes one could make in choosing someone to kill. As people have mentioned before, the Jews could be in a real fix, Europe might have faced nuclear bombardment, Russia might have become more powerful, a better German leader might have led them to victory (Germany was damn close to winning until they got screwed in Russia), or WW2 never happened, the world economy dies, no technological boom, no baby boomers and the first atomic bomb is made by people that would have been in the Nazi movement (Germany tried to get atomic bombs too) and a different world war begins with nuclear fallout.

I personally would shoot at God and see what happens. If he dies, he isn't a god because he died. If he doesn't die, his magic gun doesn't work and he isn't a god because his gun didn't work. If he punishes me somehow for shooting at him, he is unjust because there was no rule stating that I couldn't shoot him. I am pretty sure there is no statement in the Bible or any other religious text that says you can't kill God or shoot him.

Haven't you ever wondered if it is possible that God is evil? It is something I thought about a long time ago.

Adam or Eve. Doesn't matter which one. Human history would then never be formed, making the universe a better place.

I would shoot the gunner on the grassy knoll

i would shoot george lucas the second after ROTJ was released :D. He shouldnt have fucked with the trilogy.

Who would I kill in order of importance:
1. Osama bin dickhead
2. Hitler
3. Saddam Hussein
4. Pol Pot
5. Barney

I think Osama would be my first choice to off because it has the most direct and dramatic impact on my life. It also has the most impact on most American's lives currently living, save the death of John F. Kennedy, or other tragedies.

If he were dead, it does make you ponder the reprocussions......
Would Bush still have his vendetta against terrorism? Would we have gone to war to eradicate weapons of mass destruction? Would we be continuing to lose American lives overseas because of one Islamic Fundamentalist? One wacky one at that? Would Saddam be plotting his next attack due to the untimely deaths of his 2 fucked up sons?

Good question!

george dubya bush

Whoever was most pivotal in getting christianity recognized (jesus himself if nobody else fits that description). Christianity caused a whole bunch of problems. Not to say that other religions have peachy histories, but Christianity has destroyed more of humanity than anything else I can think of (in the West at least). It contributed to the fall of Rome. All the developments of western civilization up to that time were essentially lost, and the church tried to make sure they wouldn't come back. They strongly discouraged any kind of non-religious scholarship, and caused people to devote their lives to trying to "save themselves," instead of trying to contribute something useful to society or themselves. Then there were the Crusades and the Inquisition, the forced conversions in the new world and elsewhere, etc.

What did Christianity give the world in return for all of that? The basic morals were similar to many other religions, but somewhat more pacifistic. So instead of thinking something is bad, and killing over it, people were required to be told that an omniscient god thought something was worth killing for (in practice). Human nature is still there, but Christianity took away the guilt and second-guessing. So I don't think we gained much of anything.

The present world would be unrecognizeable without Christianity, but I doubt a replacement could mess up things as much.