Kevin's Watch

Posted: **Wed May 30, 2012 11:18 pm**

Hashi, none of your examples is the sacrifice of another.

And I understand that we can choose this and that. The point is that it is not necessary. That's what Ron was saying. But it is not necessary to save some at the expense of others.

Ron Burgunihilo wrote:
Fist and Faith wrote:What I'm saying is that such an act is not "necessary". As SRD said, we are not required to save the world. It was not Veidt's responsibility. It's nobody's responsibility. Fine to do so without committing murder, and a few other things. But not at any cost. I'd be horrified to learn that I was saved at such a cost. Who is worth that? How can it be necessary to save me at that cost?

It could be argued that, by doing what he did, Veidt did become a psychopathic monster.
You have been saved at such a cost. Many, many times.

That doesn't make it right. If I become aware that someone is being sacrificed for me, I will attempt to stop it. Anyone is free to sacrifice themself, but we are not free to sacrifice others. At what point is what we are saving not worth being saved? What kind of species are we that we think it's okay to survive by killing innocents?

Posted: **Wed May 30, 2012 11:26 pm**

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:Sometimes, in order to attain what we want most we have to be willing to sacrifice ourselves, or some other dream or goal we hold dear, or something else equally important. Three examples to highlight this:
Dr. Doom, in Triumph & Torment, sacrifices his mother's love in order to free her soul from Mephisto--a price he is willing to pay.
Hartigan, from Sin City, is willing to endure years of brutal beatings in prison and ultimately confess to being a child rapist to keep Nancy Callahan safe--a price he was willing to pay.
Warden Dios--a man who needs no introduction here--is willing to allow his career to be ended in disgrace and is even willing to die to bring down Holt.

Extreme choices, to be sure. However, in the face of extreme circumstances can those decisions be considered "wrong" in the normal sense? I believe that the extremity of the circumstances nullifies any sense of "normal" and leaves us with "that which must be done regardless of the cost".
[/color]

In these three examples, you are highlighting the self-sacrifices. What about the others that got caught in the cross-fire?
And Veidt? Because of his secrecy, all he did was sacrifice others for the 'greater good' as he saw it, but in the process robbing millions of their own free wil, whether they knew it or not -- leaving him publically blameless to boot.
The greatest villains are convinced they are serving the greater good - they just have a different notion of acceptable losses.

dw

Posted: **Thu May 31, 2012 2:09 am**

Okay, I admit that my examples were self-sacrifice only.

Let me pull an example from the real world, then. Harry Truman always believed that he was right to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He personally accepted the blame for those deaths but he argued that fewer people died as a result than would have happened had he followed his military advisors' strategies for an invasion of first Okinawa and then mainland Japan. As it is, he killed, what, 200,000 people? If the invasions had taken place, anywher from 500,000 to 1,000,000 people--including civilians who would have been ordered to fight to the death by the Emperor himself--would have died. He chose the lesser of the two evils.

We already kill innocents in our wars, even if that isn't for survival. In fact, that is worse--the innocents who die in war die for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

I can rationalize killing one to save a handful but not everyone is ready to make that leap. That doesn't make me right and other people wrong; it only makes us different. Also, that doesn't mean that I will "shoot first and ask questions later" but it does mean that, should extreme circumstances occur--the probability of these kinds of circumstances are so low that we can safely presume they will not happen--that I will have an option available to me that is not available to someone else.

I have never been in the military but I know that part of training for field command is that you have to be willing to sacrifice some men to acheive a greater goal. *shrug* My overall personality and way of viewing things would not have been a good fit for a military career.

Posted: **Thu May 31, 2012 3:03 am**

I think the estimates were 1 Million Allied casualties, 20 Million Japanese casualties. In any case, the choice had to be made, but that does not eliminate culpability for decisions of this kind.

Posted: **Thu May 31, 2012 6:28 am**

Fist and Faith wrote:What kind of species are we that we think it's okay to survive by killing innocents?

Psst... it's called Christianity!

Posted: **Thu May 31, 2012 2:30 pm**

Rigel wrote:
Fist and Faith wrote:What kind of species are we that we think it's okay to survive by killing innocents?
Psst... it's called Christianity!

That was uncalled for, don't you think? If you want to trash-talk a religion, go do it in The Close.

We're not saying that making extreme choices removes culpability; rather, we are saying that the price of culpability is worth paying.

Posted: **Thu May 31, 2012 2:51 pm**

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:
Rigel wrote:
Fist and Faith wrote:What kind of species are we that we think it's okay to survive by killing innocents?
Psst... it's called Christianity!
That was uncalled for, don't you think? If you want to trash-talk a religion, go do it in The Close.

I'm sorry if I was being snarky, but I didn't realize pointing out the single most important doctrine of Christianity is considered "talking trash." The whole religion is based on the idea of someone sacrificing themselves voluntarily, for the benefit of countless others, without their knowledge or consent.

The whole debate of about justifiable casualties, acceptable losses, etc... The needs of the many versus the needs of the few, and all that... Some people are able to reconcile themselves to the costs involved and accept that a net benefit is realized, other people are unwilling to consider surrogates being harmed for the benefit of others. To the latter group, I like to remind them that the idea of vicarious punishment is already deeply embedded in our culture.

Posted: **Thu May 31, 2012 3:27 pm**

Rigel wrote:I'm sorry if I was being snarky, but I didn't realize pointing out the single most important doctrine of Christianity is considered "talking trash." The whole religion is based on the idea of someone sacrificing themselves voluntarily, for the benefit of countless others, without their knowledge or consent.

hrm...no, the fault is mine--I misunderstood where you were going with that. I apologize.

Posted: **Thu May 31, 2012 5:44 pm**

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:We're not saying that making extreme choices removes culpability; rather, we are saying that the price of culpability is worth paying.

And preferable/convenient if you can nominate somebody else to pay the price for *your* goal.

I agree that self-sacrifice is noble, and perhaps even regardless of whether anyone else ever noticeably benefits from that sacrifice.

However, sacrificing others against their will toward a goal, especially one that isn't even objectively laudable - well that's just committing one crime to reduce/avoid another. In my thinking, that just increases the # of criminals, while allowing someone to play god.

dw

Posted: **Thu May 31, 2012 8:29 pm**

Was the strategic bombing of Germany and Japan a crime?

Posted: **Thu May 31, 2012 10:35 pm**

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:
Rigel wrote:
Fist and Faith wrote:What kind of species are we that we think it's okay to survive by killing innocents?
Psst... it's called Christianity!
That was uncalled for, don't you think? If you want to trash-talk a religion, go do it in The Close.

Agreed. Any more of this and I'll have to move it to the Close.

Posted: **Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:46 am**

I thought Rigel was pointing out the central theme of Christianity, not putting it down.

But Jesus was all about self-sacrifice, so not the stuff I'm talking about.

Posted: **Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:09 am**

Surviving by killing innocents is not the central theme of Christianity. Even if it was, the central theme of Christianity is a topic suited for the Close, not the Avengers movie thread in Flicks. Now, if this were the Star Trek: Wrath of Khan thread, and we were comparing the sacrifice, death, and rebirth of Spock and comparing that to the central theme of Christianity......we'd at least have a valid comparison.

Posted: **Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:33 am**

Certainly, these last many posts can be split to the Close. I have no problem with that.

I'd say that creating a way to eternal life by killing Jesus is a pretty close fit. (Although, again, self-sacrifice doesn't fit the bill that I'm arguing about.) But I never thought of it in these terms before: Was Jesus innocent? Not arguing, just asking. He certainly wasn't guilty. Not innocent in the sense of ignorant, though.

Posted: **Fri Jun 01, 2012 1:48 am**

Posted: **Fri Jun 01, 2012 2:52 am**

Looks like I'll be busy this weekend, figuring out what of this belongs here, in the Tank, or in the Close. Plus I have to either fix my amp, or take it to be fixed and find a suitable replacement/backup amp. I know none of this has anything to do with the Avengers movie (unless I go to see it again this weekend in lieu of performing my modly duties), but honestly, this thread's been derailed enough that I doubt anyone will even notice. And if I don't go see the Avengers again, and don't shirk my modly duties, would that be considered a sacrifice?

Posted: **Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:49 am**

Avengers will most likely surpass TDK in the domestic box office race sometime today and will probably go on to stay relevant for another couple of weeks and continue to pull in a tidy sum to become the highest grossing superhero film of all time.

Is this on topic? I can't tell anymore after reading the past page or two of this discussion. Maybe if I add a line or two about sacrifice. "Tom had to sacrifice his interest in talking about The Avengers to read the past 20 posts of this thread." I also mentioned Batman so I think I'm good with the flow of the chat. Watchmen! There. I'm really golden now.
All joking aside...Christians!
Okay I'm done.

Wait...Amplifiers!!!

Now I'm really done.

Posted: **Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:19 pm**

I hear that in spite of what we saw during the credits of Avengers 1, the villain in Avengers 2 is still a mystery. Perhaps He Who Shall Not Be Named will serve some other purpose or continue to be the puppet master through another film however it appears Marvel is perhaps positioning for a future film that will raise the stakes to galactic proportions.

Posted: **Fri Jun 01, 2012 12:34 pm**

Yeah? I hadn't heard that it won't be Thanos. Unfortunate.

Posted: **Fri Jun 01, 2012 7:26 pm**

Who else thought

Spoiler

"I'm always angry"

was not cool?