Edit: I intentionally put “bad people” in the title in order to provoke. 😊
If you don’t know what I’m talking about:
Black Mirror - Hated in the Nation
I’m not sure how to limit the scope of this discussion, since it touches upon so many areas of morale:
- the value of life
- the right to kill
- vengeance/revenge
- crime
- good and evil
So I encourage you to be articulate and to follow some structure: “what(thesis) - why(evidence) - what (thesis)”. Other easy to follow variations, such as “why(background + evidence) - what(thesis)” or “what - why - what - by the way(discussion)” or just a simple “what” are of course good too. I’m not trying exclude comments, and I won’t, just encouraging an easy to read discussion. As for me:
I would not kill using a Death Note, unless for some utterly personal vendetta. I would also not kill those that did, if we were talking about some sort of society wide phenomenon. I believe that taking action against human life on the macro scale, such as a nation state against another or such as one confined justice system against one of its subjects (state versus an individual, for instance) or in the fictive case of the above mentioned media, is wrong. This is because I don’t believe it right to through politics or legislation qualify or quantify the value of a human life, such as is done in jurisdictions that allow capital punishment. While I’m against such “marco actions” on human life, I for some reason have less of a problem empathizing with the individual victims involved, which is to say, I don’t think I’d rage against, say, a grieving mother avenging her murdered child by killing the murderer. But then again, not all individuals have the ability or the capacity to exact revenge and maybe they have to rely on their nation state for some kind of restitution? My opinion is probably logical mess, full of contradictions, but there it is. Feel free to poke holes, in a kind manner!
I would use it. But I wouldn’t use it against regular people who are in jail, they are serving their time for their actions.
I would use it against those who have the resources to avoid jail time.
There are many people who contribute or cause people’s deaths who should have their ability to cause harm removed from society, but who continue to roam free as a result of their disproportionate influence and the corruption of the system (which they often contribute to). Given the lack of alternate means, I would choose to remove them in the most expedient way possible while also minimizing the opportunity for recidivism. I view this as the most utilitarian approach to maximize life, liberty, or even general happiness.
Then I would use you to kill my business rivals by publicizing convincing but fabricated evidence against them and making it look like they boight their way out of consequences when courts rightly shot the case down.
(For what it’s worth, I feel the same and would probably make the same call. Just for the philosophy of it, there are reasonable arguments against the stance.)
Why would you need to fabricate evidence? Make them actually do bad shit before they die.
I’m saying in the scenario where I don’t have the death note but live in a world where the corrupt powerful keep dropping dead when their corruption is publicized, that a person with good intentions can be tricked into doing bad things.
There are reasonable philosophies that would say something like, “Even a court shouldn’t decide who should die because of the gravity of making a mistake.” Then that’s compounded for an individual, added to the problem that they weren’t accountable to anyone else in the society on where the line is in the first place.
That said, it’s a hell of an opportunity to pass up, and I thunk it might be more evil to pass on the chance than to fuck up along the way. That said, I’d decide the set I needed to write in advance, then the last name would be my own with instructions to deliver a public confession and apology, because that’s just the kind of gravity we’re dealing with and the only way to accept accountability.
Hell… I’d have to very seriously consider just writing the name of EVERY legacy economic or political powerhouse everywhere, wipe whole bloodlines off the map so the money doesn’t have anywhere to go but back into the nation, and see if society can heal with the reset. That seems well into obvious supervillain territory, and I don’t think my life would be nearly enough to atone for it, but it’d be cathartic as fuck.
I know of some powerful people I would want to write the name of. I’m not sure if it will end the wars and suffering they’ve caused, but I believe the world would be a better place without them.
Oh yes, I’d probably end up with carpal tunnel syndrome from using it too much. Politicians, billionaires, CEOs, celebrities and that guys that parks his huge ass truck in a way that the hood is intruding on the sidewalk.
Also I’d try to do it in funny ways while they are on live-TV when possible, like the priest that got hit by the falling cross.
to get rid of all the earths billionaires you’d only have to wrote about 3500 names
I think we can expand it to shave down some of the upper multi-millionaire population as well.
People often forget that the Death Note lets you control the person near their death. Have them release a list to the public of their trusted coconspirators.
I agree, full confessions livestreamed and recorded, then literal melting.
Have them list their inheritors. Have them say their wealth is cursed and anyone who keeps even a cent will die.
Then write the names of everyone on the list for the next round unless they give up all their wealth.
I would absolutely use it. Billionaires, war criminals, fascists, they’d all be targets.
Once handed the death note, I’d give it a test run on a singular target, with very specific means of death. Just to make sure I’m not wasting my time.
Once it’s confirmed as functional, I’d set a date roughly six months in advance. Then I’d hop on Tor and do fuck loads of research for about 5 months, setting the date of death for those billionaires, war criminals, fascists, all for the same day. I’d try to make sure it’s a global thing, not just centered within “western” countries.
The world would go into a bit of a panick, as fuck loads of very powerful people would overnight be gone. The status quo of the world wouldn’t change too much I wouldn’t think, but the rich and powerful would have a wake up call. Some of them would be missed, some of them would have estates going to children. I wouldn’t target minors, but adult children who retain that lovecraftian wealth would themselves become targets for round two.
Round two would be significantly harder to implement. The rich and powerful that slipped through the cracks in the first round would be taking big steps to hide their presence. The research to find these traitors of humanity would get significantly harder. But just as before I’d set a date about 6 months out, and do 5 months of adding names with the date.
I’d like to hope that the second round would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and gets the currently rising tide of fascism to stop, wealth to become unwanted, etc. It will have hopefully established a pattern which makes those with the opportunity to become billionaires, war criminals, or prominent fascists to not go down that path.
Twice a year every year the process would continue, and every year it would get harder and harder to discover targets. But I think it would be the safest way for an individual to use the death note to move the world to the right track.
Why not add a clause that they donate their vast wealth and assets to public causes.
IIRC the means of death has to be something they would conceivable do, and in a very short time span of a few minutes.
So you can’t have the targets say messages with information they didn’t know, or have them take actions that would be too out of character, or long in duration.
And the process of having a billionaire give away all their wealth is a long process. At best it would take days, if not weeks for all their stocks, art, assets, money to be donated/sold/etc. It would get even worse with round two, because there would be far less willingness to take ownership of those wealth vehicles, knowing that there may be a risk of your own head being on the chopping block.
The closest would be having war criminals recant their actions, but that just takes up more space on the page, and more carpel tunnel.
While I obviously disagree with your views, your writing is THE BOMB. Please make this a short story or novel - preferably in gory naturalistic style - and post it!
Thank you, I appreciate it.
I’ve been toying with the idea ever since I watched the show. It is in effect, political fantasy masturbation.
But it is fun to jack off sometimes.
I could see myself making a short story on it. Definitely not a novel.
You might enjoy the comic The Day All Billionaires Died
Killing is the morally correct thing to do in acts of self defense
Billionaires, just by hoarding the wealth that they have and using it to run this system, are an everyday threat to the lives of the most vulnerable people in society
They are above the law. Nothing will happen to them if I don’t do something. That’s who I would go for without hesitation
None of that ego bullshit, no Kira nonsense. Just do what has to be done in whatever accidental or coincidental method
I usually go with:
Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement.
– Gandalf when asked about killing Gollum
yeah but he stays strangely silent on sauron.
Being a maia, Sauron cannot be killed, so Gandalf was categorically not talking about Sauron.
wait! so what happened after the ring was destroyed??? Is sauron still alive! Will he kill me for not capitilizing his name!!!
Very much so. In fact, I’m not even sure you’re you anymore. Who’s typing those words?
I’m guessing he lost his ability to take physical form ever again, but I’m unsure.
That thing would be full in like, a few hours
From a strict utilitarian perspective, it’s easy to look at this as a trolley problem. I can easily think of a few monsters at the very top whose deaths would definitely save far more lives in exchange.
But the harder question I’d struggle with is, where to stop? I can start with the most obvious targets and feel no remorse, but how long do I keep going down the list for? What would really keep me up at night is wondering what’s worse: using it too much or not using it enough?
If you asked me this years ago I would have said no. Today though it would seem like such an opportunity to mitigate the effects of climate change and pollution and greed.
I’d make Thanos look like a pacifist.
I’d simply write 1 entry:
- Every billionaire. Spontaneous combustion.
I also read that comic.
The comic was pretty decent, a fun little fantasy. So is this one; Billionaires get a little hell as a treat before they go to actual* hell
No. I’m against death penalty and I extend that to also apply to the people I don’t like.
I’m not even going to read the other responses but I’ll make an educated guess that this is a minority view here.
I oppose the death penalty because once someone has been caught and sentenced by the justice system, killing them should not be necessary. If they’re a violent threat, they can be safely imprisoned. Or if they’re only dangerous because of the power they wield, strip them of that power.
But the real question being asked here is about the kinds of people who seem to be above the law and may never be brought to justice through any other means, and are continuing to do active harm for as long as they are free. I would prefer to imprison them or strip them of power nonviolently, but if that’s not going to happen…
Just out of curiosity, do you believe self defense can warrant killing? And what’s your take on social murder?
It can be justifiable in certain cases. Defending oneself, their family or even country can make it the lesser of two bads. It’s still not good in any manner and the threat needs to be acute.
the threat needs to be acute.
Why? Why is an immediate, obvious threat worse than a slower, veiled one? Assuming both are equally dangerous and inevitable.
We have non lethal ways to deal with the other cases, imprisonment being the obvious, better alternative.
We do not. The billionaires pillage and kill with impunity. Cops and ice kill and pillage with impunity. You’re living in a fantasy if you think our system deals with the other cases. Look at the Epstein list.
Fixing problems by murdering the groups of people deemed responsible for them has been tried before, and the historical record is not kind to those who tried it. The results were mass atrocity, institutional collapse, and generations of damage rather than any durable solution.
Imprisonment, for all its flaws, at least keeps the process reversible and subject to evidence, appeals, and changing standards of proof. Treating death as the cleaner or more realistic option simply assumes that identifying, selecting, and eliminating “bad people” by the thousands can be done accurately and without creating new incentives for abuse. History suggests the opposite: once the standard becomes “we know who the bad ones are and can just remove them,” the definition of “bad” expands and the mechanisms for restraint disappear.
That is not a world anyone wants to live in.
That doesn’t address the fact that there are no functioning mechanisms to implement justice against those who harm us by hoarding pillaging and staking from us to amass incomprehensibly vast wealth.
I’d write down every wealthy persons name I could find
Kill all the billionaires. No exceptions.
killing the top 1% wealthiest would solve like 99% of issues
That’s 1-in-100 people worldwide, likely including you.
EDIT: Disregard most all of this as I got my numbers mixed up. I no longer stand by the point I was trying to make.
If they make less than $450k USD annually, then they’re not in the top 1% of just the US. In order to be part of the global top 1% then they’d need even more than that, likely quite a bit more.Not to make assumptions about someone I don’t know but I’d put it at about 1% odds that they make that much.
These were my numbers last time I took the test. Adding my wife’s income, and my zero income, we’re in the 8%. It take very little to land in the 1%.
You have it exactly backwards. Compare yourself against worldwide, as I said.
I apparently forgot to reply to this earlier, but I got my numbers mixed up and that’s where my misinterpretation came from.
I think my mistake came from thinking of the US top 1% as some 3.3 million ish slots on the list, then forgetting that by adding in the rest of the world wide population the number of slots for people who would qualify would expand out to some 80 million ish slots because that quantity is determined by a set percentage.
I played around with the numbers on that website and it seems like you need to make more than about $68,300 USD annually (after taxes) in order to be considered in the top 1% globally. I’ll also agree that (based on my experience where I live) that’s just a decent job and not a particularly good one. Because of that I would agree that this person’s filter of the top 1% globally easily could include they them-self.
I think I get the idea that they were going for by trying to include more people than the usual “all billionaires” I’ve seen in these comments, but yeah the specific number they chose seems like it would include tens of millions of people who I think likely would still prove a net benefit to society.
I was making $70K when I first saw that site which is why I remembered being in the top 1%. Marrying a Filipino really opened my eyes. Their min wage (varies a bit by occupation and state) is about $12 a day.
I’m RICH BEYOCH! (Well, not now. Haven’t had a decent job in 2 years, none now.)
What kind of mathematically illiterate nonsense is that. You think to be in the global 1% takes MORE MONEY than being in the US 1%???
You understand that requires the global average wealth to be HIGHER than the US right?
Besides the top 1% of the 1% (billionaire class) are a lot more problematic than someone who makes 450k/yr… That’s just a good doctor in the west. Plus Forbes publishes a billionaire list.
Thought I had posted a response about it earlier, butit was a mental mixup I had made. I think my mistake came from thinking of the top US 1% as some 3.3 ish million slots on some hypothetical leaderboard then forgetting that when you introduce the rest of the global population the top 1% is going to expand to some 80 million slots instead of remaining the now more exclusive 3.3 million slots at the top.
I’m also not the guy who claimed that offing the entire top 1% would solve most problems. I’d also agree with what you’re saying especially after seeing the global statistics in my comment’s other reply. If memory serves, according to that link 1 person would need to make more than $68,300 USD annually (after taxes) to be in the top 1% which I’ll also whole heatedly agree includes a lot of people who I think both earned that money fairly and are very positive net benefits to society.
I will say I think the intention of the 1% idea was the include more people than just billionaires as there are plenty of multi millionaires who are just as bad off as the billionaires but with less capital, but I also think a lot more thought should be put into any such hypothetical list rather than just looking at raw numbers for net worth, income, etc.
I have no idea what I would do, but I know it would destroy me, either from guilt due to inaction or guilt due to action.
