Well, you're not exactly the best example to go by. I mean nothing negative by that comment, just basing this on your past comments about your outlook on life and the lives of others, and this one, where you say "even if I were innocent".

Obviously POV on this will be different for different people and their situations - I direct this not just at you, but others who are taking a very firm stance on one or the other being more cruel. For example, a young healthy person who gets a life sentence in a prison that has enough freedom for one to make friends, read, pursue a hobby or two, would likely prefer to stick around a lot more than a 70 year old unhealthy person in a prison with extremely harsh living conditions.

My point with "even if I were innocent" was that I would prefer to be executed even if I thought there was a reasonable chance that my conviction would be overturned and I would be released after several years.

You are right that I have a more negative view of life than do most people, but I think the real reason most people say they would prefer life in prison is some combination of:

They don't realize how terrible a life in prison would be, or

They think there is a good chance they will be released while they still have a good number of years left (this is true, but it would not be if life sentences were true to the name).

I believe some of the convicted people "fighting to stay alive" don't really care about it all that much, but the system of automatic appeals and anti-death penalty organizations pushes them to fight, possibly by getting their hopes up that they will one day be released. I have heard of some people sentenced to death wanting to get it done as quickly as possible, and somehow it still takes years. I would bet that if all people convicted and sentenced to true life in prison (really only happens with multiple sentences) or to death were given a fairly painless suicide pill, many of them would take it right away, and many more would do so at some time before their appeals were exhausted.

The two parameters that swamp all others is the number of murders the death penalty deters, and the number of innocent people executed. If the second number was zero and the first number was not, all sane first-degree murderers should be executed. But of course, that is not the case. If the first number is smaller than the second number the death penalty should be disallowed since that would save innocent lives in the aggregate. If the first number is larger, then the death penalty being allowed would theoretically save lives. And that is probably the true state of affairs (although some say capital punishment deters no one.) But since it puts the government in the murdering innocents business in order to save lives yet to be killed (and may not actually be killed at the projected rate) being against it has some justification.

Profundly disagree. As with torture, we shouldn't allow executions even if it does work.

I think you are subconsciously counting the deaths. If by executing 1000 who have been convicted of murder, you reduce future victims by 50 while executing 20 who are actually innocent, you don't want to call that saving 30, but rather killing 950.

I assume as a cold rationalist, you would be applying the same logic if you were one of the 20. Just variance, I guess.

I'm really not.

It's a morality thing and like you its makes no difference whether I personally get to win or lose.

If I chose to live in country A rather than B because the smaller combined chances of being murdered or unjustly executed, I might wish I had chosen B if I found myself about to be killed. But I wouldn't start thinking that I had made the wrong decision unless I thought my original statistical assumptions was wrong.

Obviously the above only applies if all circumstances and people involved are random.

You should write a book about the power of assuming conclusions.

The subject strays into the arguments about ends justifying means, sins of omission vs commission and whether flipping a coin where heads means 100 die is worse than 45 people dying. If you don't agree with someone on these things it is likely it will spill over into a disagreement about capital punishment.

(By the way, I am completely against it even though my posts are leading some people to think otherwise)

oh lord what I have I done?

If there were any justice in America, Ted Bundy would still be alive.

Well if you catch them in the act then you can shoot and kill them to save someone else. But after the fact you just gotta let them go, maybe have a little therapy with psychologists, no psychiatrists and no drugs though.

It's kind of one of those things where you have to live and let live, don't you? That's how people treat pit bulls when they maul people to death, they say the dog shouldn't be put down, so why do we value dogs lives more than humans? Is a dog really a more valuable member of society than Ted Bundy? I think not. He was a good lawyer and a very skilled trap maker. Honestly Ted Bundy was the best lawyer, cause at least he was honest about not giving a **** about human life, and he was upfront about having blood on his hands.

This is what you have to understand.

Bryce understands!

By this logic Hitler was one of the greatest, most charitable people in history. Throughout a person's lifetime, they endure a tremendous amount of pain and suffering at various times. The death of loved ones, broken hearts, broken bones, joint aches and pains. As they age, their physical pain gets worse and worse. Hitler spared millions of people from a lifetime of pain and suffering. NOT having a genocide would have been cruel.

Right???

Dave, we're getting into Charlie Manson territory imo. No one is "innocent", everyone is guilty of something. Just because you're convicted in a court room, doesn't mean you're guilty. You're guilty when YOU know you're guilty, and as a society we look at people like Charles Manson or Ted Bundy as horrible monsters, but we give the true monsters of our society a pass when they are responsible for far more deaths of innocent people.

Let's just do a little math here. Number of victims killed.

BTK: 10 (officially, 2 more investigating)
Ted Bundy: 20 (confirmed)
Gary Ridgeway: 49 (official)
John Wayne Gacy: 33
Jeffrey Dahmer: 17
Manson Family: 6


These people are known as the most evil members of American society. The worst we have ever seen. And all of these people combined were responsible for 135 (official) deaths.

Compare with say ... oh I don't know, George W. Bush, who was The 43rd President of The United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casual...f_the_Iraq_War


George W. Bush, and the American soldiers he commanded, were responsible for at least somewhere around two hundred thousand civilian deaths. These soldiers are heroes, right? George W. Bush was such a great President he was reelected. So these are good guys! Right???? Jeff Dahmer, John Gacy, Gary Ridgeway, Ted Bundy, Dennis Rader, and Charles Manson and friends are the real monsters and they're only responsible for 135 deaths, and George W. Bush and his army of soldiers are the real heroes, and are responsible for 200 thousand deaths.


See the problem?


"You, out there. You comfortable ones. You point the finger. You say "the junky's the problem," you say "the sexual deviant is the problem," you say "the serial killer is the problem," you say "the racist is the problem." You say "the man that hates his fellow man is the problem." But they aint the problem. You're the problem! The sexual deviant, the murderer, the serial killer, the taker of human life is the cure! YOU'RE THE PROBLEM!" - Joe Coleman

https://boingboing.net/2021/06/12/wa...al-barker.html

Last year I got diagnosed with glaucoma :/

So I started focusing on visual art. I have a sort of grand project idea that's really brilliant, and I gotta get my skills together so I can realize it, and I did this in omg as practice and wanted to share cause I'm pretty proud of it, I like it a lot! It started off as trolling ScreaminAsian by gimping Ed Kemper medallions onto the women he was posting but it progressed into a legit art piece imo.

Who says that a dog who kills someone shouldn't be put down? No one I know. I'm pretty sure that happens at least 99% of the time.

Guess what? I have never killed anyone, even indirectly. How about you?

Also, I don't really know anyone who thinks GWB was a hero, and I don't think US soldiers are heroes either.

American culture holds up soldiers as the greatest of our heroes. Just because you don't, doesn't mean others don't.

As for your question, to be honest I really don't know how to answer that. It's possible I killed my own child in the womb with some weird angry Druid magic, and that's why I don't have a family now ....

A long time ago, x girlfriend was supposed to be on birth control. She came to me one day and said she was pregnant. I asked her how and she said she had no idea. And then I realized I hadn't seen her take her birth control in weeks or even longer. She told me "Oh, I go to the closet to take them." ..... uh ... right, and I go take Tylenol in the tool shed ....

Anyway, we had a big fight and I screamed at her telling her she was going to bleed it out ... which she later did .... so I really don't know how to answer that, cause that's not the only instance of me seemingly causing things to happen with my will alone. However, she was ****ing with meth at the time, so idk.

No.

This is one of those things where anyone with more than one brain cell can make an easy decision but the yanks are somehow 50/50. Even Russia doesn't have the death penalty.

Also: no healthcare is idiotic, guns are idiotic, trump is idiotic, christianity is idiotic, abortions are fine, NFL is boring. It's truly mind boggling how they became the most powerful country.

Russia most certainly has the death penalty, it's just unofficial.

I'm loving the taste of these tears.



Also, lol at no death penalty in Russia.