That is really interesting! Thank you for sharing, I learned something new :)

It is a bit ironic you have coffee beans as a background - true Soviet boys dont cultivate coffee, they cultivate potatos and other vegetables!

Am I the only one who thought of Morrowind when reading Mudcrab?

Hmm, I think your position is well-founded. I agree - shooting people usually created division and doesn’t solve the underlying problem. However, that doesn’t mean that it has to be like that in every case.

I personally propose to wait a few years before judging. It is very against the spirit of the Internet, but you raise a valid point - there is very good ground to suspect it will have negative consequences.

I disagree with you here. Many people already fought and pushed for the peaceful option in the last decades. Also just for clarification: this isn’t a struggle for wealth or glory - this is a fight about literal human life’s. And I will be honest with you, if one person who has committed terrible actions dies, but as a result many more people can live (see the Bluecross reversal), it is difficult for me to say that it is a cognitive dissonance to fight for the peaceful option and to accept that violence may be necessary here.

Rise and shine, and sign the petition!

This is a question I never ever thought about, but thank you for posting it - now I wonder about it as well

Same about Morrowind vs. the newer Elder Scrolls. In Morrowind, the main quest character literally told you “here, take 200 gold and explore the world. Join a guild, or find some freelancer work.” Vs. Oblivion, where a city is literally under siege and you MUST go there (ideally right now) to save it.

I would urge people to be careful how much we think disabled people (might) suffer. My mom is colorblind (she sees the whole world in shades of white or black), and her vision strength is 5% or lower. She is definitely disabled and receives a pension for not being able to work. Still, she managed to build up some form of existence: she managed to start an education and became a masseuse, and she gave birth to me and my brother. If my grandma would’ve known that my mom will not be able to live on her own, she maybe wouldn’t have proceeded with the pregnancy. Then I wouldn’t be here either.

My conclusion: what do you define by disability? If it is a chronic disease which means your child will be in pain their whole life, it is very different than having a child who isn’t able to “function” normally, but isn’t inherently in pain. Over my mom I met a lot of other disabled people, and most of them have built up an existence and lead a life. My mom wouldn’t agree that she is forced to suffer her whole life.

No one is forced to bear out a child. You are not morally responsible to bear out a child, in my opinion. But we shouldn’t assume we know how this person will grow and develop during their lives.

Donate. If you don’t need the money and all your and your family members needs are met, I think donating would be the right ethical thing to do.

I recognize Warband in the first picture… I think I need to fire it up again.

That is a very good point - thank you for bringing it up. You are right.

I hope this death was enough for the rich people to realize that they need to change, and that no more people will die. I presume that’s something we can agree upon.

Yes, I understand. It is really really gray and complicated here. I’m very conflicted here - on one hand, murder is always a death of a human being who could improve and also has good sides, see my parent comment. On the other hand, exactly as you write sometimes the death of a person means that others will survive.

My point is that no person deserves to die BECAUSE OF WHO THEY ARE - that’s exactly what the Nazis did. But I absolutely understand the ethical argument that people deserve to die for WHAT THEY DO. If you cannot stop a greedy CEO otherwise (because the judicial system is maybe a little tiny bit biased towards the rich), there really isn’t another choice for fulfilling your rights. And I can honestly respect your argument that in this case, murder may be an overall good thing. I don’t know where the line for me is, to be honest - but I acknowledge that is has to exist somewhere.

I hope you understand though why from my perspective the dragon metaphor is a bit too simple, because as our thread shows the topic isn’t easy at all :/

This doesn’t work here, because by death of the CEO the insurance of the USA probably won’t be switched to a public healthcare. The dragon will continue eating people, simply with a different head.

That is actually a very interesting take, thank you for sharing.

For me, it was always clear that actions do not define us as people. I never thought that people might see it differently.

I think it is important to distinguish the term value here. I hope we both agree that every person has dignity. I live in Germany, and the first sentence of our Constitution is “Human dignity shall be inviolable.” That means that I do not have the right to judge a persons value as a person - the Nazis were a famous example for doing that. That’s why in today’s judiciary system, at least in Germany, we e.g. do not lock people away forever: a person always has the chance to improve, work upon themselves, and get out of prison. The prison time can be extended into infinity, if a person poses a threat to society - but if they don’t, they can get free. Their value to society may be close to zero, perhaps negative - but they still possess value and dignity as a human.

This guy was subtracting value from society, and his value to you and me was probably negative. But it still is different than a humans internal value. To murder a person is to take their internal and external value, and to break their dignity. This is something which is not compatible with my consciousness.

Yes, good point. I agree. Maybe there’s also a difference in perception of these tales, because when a dragon is slain the people can regain their wealth. In this case though, the wealth of the CEO doesn’t get transferred to the people. Buuut one can argue that we have an inheritance tax, thus part of his hoarded money WILL get transferred to the people, in which case the murderer is actually returning the wealth to the people and the dragon metaphor isn’t that invalid after all. It gets very quickly very murky ethically. I presume that while the wealth is parked away in some off-shore, probably some of it at least will return to the State. A lot depends though on the tax rate, how exactly the taxing goes, who does it,…

Long story short - this guy was way too rich, no question asked. That’s for sure.

I agree with everything you say, up until the last sentence. Probably as a disclaimer, I study psychology and want to become a clinical psychotherapist. I deeply believe that no person wants to be bad. In fact, I am of the utmost conviction that every person has the potential to become a better person than they are right now. That does not absolve him of his crimes - in fact, it is quite the contrary: he chose to go down the path of evil and to condemn people to die. But that doesn’t mean that he cannot ever change to become better. It is a part of my life philosophy that every person can heal. Obviously many people won’t do so - this guy DEFINITELY would’ve had the chance to go to a psychotherapist himself, for sure. But that does not mean that he deserved to die. My argumentation is heavily based on Albert Ellis (one of the founders of cognitive-behavioural therapy) and REBT. In short, Ellis said that our actions do not determine us as whole human beings. The fact that we often act badly doesn’t make us bad human beings, nor does the fact that we act well makes us good. We are simply humans, and to judge us means putting yourself in the shoes of a God. We can and should judge our actions, by all means - but we are far, far more than actions. To judge a person as a whole is a position I do not want to take. And even though this guy wanted to see himself as a God, I personally want to stay human and recognize that he is and was a broken spirit and a human, just as you and I are. Even though he might have wanted to discard his humanity, he still is and stays human.

Tl;Dr - terrible actions, has committed countless crimes. But his actions don’t determine his worth as a human. Thus I do not want to say that he deserved to die, nor that he was evil as a human.

I disagree. Still thank you for replying - I appreciate it. It got me thinking about my personal position.

Thank you for letting me know about my phrasing. I disagree, and have corrected my post now. Thank you!

And many people do, I fear :/ I think I’ve read a few too many times “I’m okay with death penalties for [child rapists/ war criminals/ mass murderers/ insert group here]”.