Should people who live/think differently from you die?
- Thread starter S.A.M.
- Start date
Fixed. We both know she doesn't believe in any other answers.
SAM humans are inherently error prone either collectively or individually. The good news is that over time we tend to be able to see reason and correct our mistakes. Democracies are better able to self correct than individuals. I think here in The United States you have seen a massive self correction occur within these last few months.
Oh is that what the last 60 years of regime change have been about? Supporting the tolerant?
This thread is putting a lot of horses before a lot of carts.
In the first place, essentially all primates believe that any other primate who is not related to them by blood should be killed, or at least driven away. Actually, this goes for most every animal they encounter, not just primates.
It is only when social groups arise that exceed the boundaries of blood relation (i.e., states) that this basic group survival instinct becomes (by necessity) repressed. The rub is that it is not repressed in favor of some set of beliefs that prohibit all killing of outsiders; rather, the favored "in-group" in simply expanded to include people that aren't related by blood. This is typically accomplished by introducing a religion that justifies living peacefully with all other adherents (blood relations or not) and also provides a tax base for a power structure to inforce this "morality." It is generally impossible to repress the basic urge to kill non-relatives without imposing some equally ruthless system in its place, since any potential replacement will have to contend with people who are willing to kill those not related to them, who must be either eliminated or deterred if the state is to persist. Which is to say that the result is increased destruction of outsiders; indeed, the greater economic gains that a state is able to make at the expense of outsiders relative to, say, a tribe, are exactly what provides them the necessary competitive advantages to displace said tribal structures.
This process can then be extended further, producing larger and larger in-groups tied together by increasingly tenuous connections, provided you manage to produce a succession of sufficiently powerful state/church institutions to sustain them. But you never reach a point where the whole dynamic is not sustained by the urge to do violence against outsiders, and if you ever ran out of outsiders, the system would collapse. So you end up with a world divided into states/nations/religions/civilizations that are fundamentally hostile to one another, all of which hold the belief that the rest should be eliminated in some way (this can become very abstract in advanced societies, but the basic element of chauvinism is always present).
All of which is to say that pretty much everyone thinks that those who are different from them should die, or at least disappear. That is essentially the definition of "people who are different from you," at least as "different" has been applied in this thread. Said another way, the decision not to want to kill some other group is indistinguishable from the decision that they are not "different" from you. The catch is that, absent some institutionalized power to enforce and sustain such a decision, it will inevitably succumb to the inherent hostility that all people feel towards anyone not directly related to them.
In short, the world has always been populated exclusively by societies that are fundamentally at odds with one another, and states and religions exist specifically to exploit and magnify such tendencies. Anyone who would pretend that any state/religion/civilization is somehow above this process is either a fool or a propagandist. It is not possible to believe in the superiority of your own in-group without also believing in the inferiority of all outsiders, nor is it possible to sustain such an in-group for any length of time without actualizing this propensity for externally-directed violence.
In the first place, essentially all primates believe that any other primate who is not related to them by blood should be killed, or at least driven away. Actually, this goes for most every animal they encounter, not just primates.
It is only when social groups arise that exceed the boundaries of blood relation (i.e., states) that this basic group survival instinct becomes (by necessity) repressed. The rub is that it is not repressed in favor of some set of beliefs that prohibit all killing of outsiders; rather, the favored "in-group" in simply expanded to include people that aren't related by blood. This is typically accomplished by introducing a religion that justifies living peacefully with all other adherents (blood relations or not) and also provides a tax base for a power structure to inforce this "morality." It is generally impossible to repress the basic urge to kill non-relatives without imposing some equally ruthless system in its place, since any potential replacement will have to contend with people who are willing to kill those not related to them, who must be either eliminated or deterred if the state is to persist. Which is to say that the result is increased destruction of outsiders; indeed, the greater economic gains that a state is able to make at the expense of outsiders relative to, say, a tribe, are exactly what provides them the necessary competitive advantages to displace said tribal structures.
This process can then be extended further, producing larger and larger in-groups tied together by increasingly tenuous connections, provided you manage to produce a succession of sufficiently powerful state/church institutions to sustain them. But you never reach a point where the whole dynamic is not sustained by the urge to do violence against outsiders, and if you ever ran out of outsiders, the system would collapse. So you end up with a world divided into states/nations/religions/civilizations that are fundamentally hostile to one another, all of which hold the belief that the rest should be eliminated in some way (this can become very abstract in advanced societies, but the basic element of chauvinism is always present).
All of which is to say that pretty much everyone thinks that those who are different from them should die, or at least disappear. That is essentially the definition of "people who are different from you," at least as "different" has been applied in this thread. Said another way, the decision not to want to kill some other group is indistinguishable from the decision that they are not "different" from you. The catch is that, absent some institutionalized power to enforce and sustain such a decision, it will inevitably succumb to the inherent hostility that all people feel towards anyone not directly related to them.
In short, the world has always been populated exclusively by societies that are fundamentally at odds with one another, and states and religions exist specifically to exploit and magnify such tendencies. Anyone who would pretend that any state/religion/civilization is somehow above this process is either a fool or a propagandist. It is not possible to believe in the superiority of your own in-group without also believing in the inferiority of all outsiders, nor is it possible to sustain such an in-group for any length of time without actualizing this propensity for externally-directed violence.
They are innocent?
So, some entity invades you, should you attack not only the invaders, but also the ones responsible for the invasion, who are probably planning future invasions? ...Even if this means that innocent people will probably get killed in the process?
No, SAM never has any moral conundrums, everything is easily defined and morally clear. I guess that's what comes from thinking God wrote a book for you, the perfect religion that inscribes the perfect response to every situation. Life isn't like that.
I think I specified that you don't have to go to their country. Targeting civilians is pointless unless they have invaded you too. If a burglar breaks in with his family in tow, that's different. Otherwise, I'd only defend myself against the burglar, not hunt down and kill his relatives too.
Are you an apostate Jew? Cos the Talmud says the age of three is old enough for penetration.
It's a general direction.