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I think studies have enduringly shown that indeed, the existence of capital punishment does not act as a deterrent in cases of violent crime. Yet it's still one of the main arguments of the for people, again and again, no sources cited and murmured again and again so as if it's said enough, people will believe it's true without checking.

Well I checked:


The death penalty is not a deterrent; those who are against the death penalty claim that recent studies in the US do not support the view that capital punishment acts as a deterrent. [12]. It is also argued that anyone who would be deterred by the death penalty would already have been deterred by life in prison, and people that are not deterred by that would not be stopped by any punishment. This argument is typically supported by claims that those states that have implemented the death penalty recently have not had a reduction of violent crime. A stronger variant of this argument suggests that criminals who believe they will face the death penalty are more likely to use violence or murder to avoid capture, and that therefore the death penalty might theoretically even increase the rate of violent crime. [13].

from the wikipedia.

If he believed in god eventually, this means he believed the state had the right to take his life? Please explain.

Yeah, not sure there's any point. Go with Inform.

You go do that.

There's a difference between the exchange of information on a subject -  the challenging of errors in someone's line of thinking ( not to his axiomatic beliefs, but in the argumenting from them towards a subject. Like pointing out hypocritical statements and paradoxical arguments) - the presentation of alternate viewpoints, and from directly trying to influence/change someone's opinion to match yours. There's again, a world of difference. A difference of intent.

I don't care at all if big brother or your or nikolas at the end of the day agree with me. I care that they understand my different viewpoint on the subject as I do the same for theirs and that they hopefully have eradicated, or are trying to eradicate strange leaps of logic in their own reasoning.

I don't believe any community has the moral foundation to put people to death, nor to directly inflict pain on them or generally punish them. I believe 'rehabilitation to society' is also a joke, because it implies a 'proper' way to live. Not all for detainment either. I think exile is the best option for serious cases of illegal action.

Does this answer your question?

Uh, at what point do you start saying, "OK, he didn't kill enough people to merit the death sentence, let's let him live so he can think about what he's done."?

What is the reason that one can murder one person and then end up being "good" but 4 is bad?

how about 2? 3? what if he shot 2 people and then broke another guy's legs? is it additive? if he breaks enough legs does it eventually equal a murder?

so yes, explain that 0.01% that is so special to hitler and his types only.

Dreamweb has good ambience. Captain Blood too. Fate of Atlantis is my most pleasant gaming experience on the whole. Flashback shaped my aesthetic sense. Shadow of the Beast too. But there's been no games to evoke something so amazingly strong like a good book or comic or movie have managed so far.

maybe an issue with your debating style is that you pressupose we're playing the 'convince Nikolas' game. We're not. This isn't about your ability or inability to find good enough reason for this man to fry, this is about the moral issues embedded in capital punishment.

This thread is pure gold really, and although I found lots of unintentionally hilarious quotes posted by people falling on all sides of the argument, I mainly felt that what I believe to be the most important aspect of this issue was not touched upon, until recently. I'm too tired to get into a full-blown debate, but since relativistic morality was mentioned, I might as well challenge a few perceptions.

big brother, first of all, do not say you are not putting a utilitarian value on human life. When someone says 'well, they cost more by keeping them alive' you're doing just that. 'good' or 'bad' thing to do, you did it, so don't shy away from it. You have your own pros and cons list just like nikolas (who no offense, is the one advocating the most tired and shallow and weak-kneed position on the subject in this thread) even though you didn't post it like him.

Okay so to quote you:

If there is no absolute morality, why are humans the only animals that live for ideals

To this I agree. There's no god-given or otherwise subjective morality to follow. So people have individual ethical codes, and societies operate under some communal morality, fortified through law. Now, when someones steps outside conventional morality, to say, breaks the law, he's breaking the social contract with his state. The ways to deal with that are various. Ancient greeks usually ostracised people, that is, banished them from the city-state, a fate at the time considered worse than death because the city state was the heart of the world. People just switched cities sometimes, or lived and died in the wild, or eventually were allowed back in after years and years. But there's something important to note on this example: The judgement was clear, but the punishment passive. The city-state didn't judge your morality and effectively punished you for it. You were simply judged unfit to operate within the confines of their society. Now, of course ancient greeks also had death penalties (the socratic fate) and etc, but I'm making a point here: exactly because there's no subjective morality, and right and wrong is invented, there's no morality that is more 'right' than another one. All are equally invalid/valid in their invention. Regardless of how many people may believe in it, or innumerable variations of it (because there's no two people with the exact same morality) I find it completely unjustified for the ruling morality (through numbers) to PUNISH deviations from it. Removal of the offending party is one thing. You lay on the bed you've made. You break the laws of a society, you're removed from the society, fine. But for the ruling morality to TAKE YOUR LIFE on the grounds that your breaking of their laws was too extreme is just an utilitarian leap that I don't see anyone should easily make.

If there is nothing universally perfect, why do we have ideas about improving ourselves and our society? Without an absolute measurement, the concept of measuring things becomes meaningless. (Think about this from a practical persective: without a metric system or any system of distance, everyone having her own incompatible unit of measurement defeats the purpose of measurement.)

Your analysis and example are base and invalid in certain ways. From that there's nothing universally perfect (sic) which I take to mean that there's no subjective truth on matters moral, it does not follow that we are unable to measure things relativistically. In fact, the whole of human existence is based on relativistic measuring of things we can only hope are to a degree compatible from a person to another. People have lived and died for such relativistically defined things as love, freedom, power and even for the fun of it. Your positivistic call for an invented abstract moral system is unrealistic, inapplicable and ill-defined. From that there's no abstract morality does not follow that we need to invent one, and even more PUNISH those that do not follow this sillyness.

What if I am an Islamic extremist (purely hypothetical) who sees killing infidels as a highest good? When I blow up schoolbuses full of children will you stand by and say, "It's not my right to judge his system of morality? It would be wrong to execute him even if the social majority agrees since social majorities have the potential to be wrong"?

Yeah, that's right, you have no right to judge his system of morality. And guess what? You don't have to. You have to judge his actions, and say "these actions clearly mean you are unfit to remain within this society" and then remove him. It's the difference between a judge that says an offender is unfit for this society and a judge that says that an offender is unfit for society at large and also EVIL. This is a world of difference. You can now talk about how ostracising wouldn't work in modern times because of this or that blah blah logistic reason, but I'm not debating logistics, and I'm not debating utilitarianism. I am not  utilitarian, I have personal absolute ethics. 100 deaths and 1 death cannot be weighed against each other and one found 'MORE tragic'. Not every argument can be dragged down to how much a human life costs in prison and how it's better to flush down your shit than scent it. Human life might be worth a bit more than that, and we might also, as finite beings, not be fit to remove it with silly morality-of-majority pretense.

Bullshit.

what the hell! mixed resolutions! Jesus, why did you do this, man?!

your motive doesn't interest me, really. If you want to do this, do this.

The foom is functional, I would however suggest a non-gray noise gradient on the walls, makes the place look dirty but not good-dirty.The furniture need a lot of work, and try to shade down with more saturation-killed shades. There's no subsurface scattering going on in furniture to make darker shades more burned.

big brother, I am ill-equipped to discuss a biblical matter like this, mainly because I've uh... missed bible study for the last 15 years but I think jesus' teachings were supposed to be a 'new guide' to overturn the mosaic law (eye for an eye) completely. At least in the Orthodox church that's how it is. Your reasoning seems reaching, and the two modes of thinking ( love your enemy and eye for an eye ) seem completely inconcilable.

"the law must be based on absolutes" I don't know about that, but I'm pretty sure the interpretation of the law is left upon us incomplete human beings.

thanks for explaining that to me

they shouldn't live here

not living there and dying there aren't exactly the same

I think the death penality is wrong!

light bounces off of reflective surfaces ( like the metal that makes up most of the things in your room ) to create specular highlights. These help add volume

excellent entries so far!

Your personal image is x-tremely creepy

Zenon is 'more correct' in greek really, because we spell it Zenonas/Zenon/Zononws (depends if it's in ancient greek or modern, and the person you're adressing it as) but the english spelling is most definately Zeno. Plato is Platonas, Platon etc in greek too. This conversation sure helps people finish their ags games in time.

no idea for a good background, really, just wanted to tell you that your rendering's gotten a lot stronger, and that this is awesome