What would you do?

[Carsomyr]

This is all very much inspired by a thread started by CrystalLight a few days back or so. That thread can be found here.

Anyways... Has anyone here watched "Death Note"? If you haven't then you should, but anyway, the plot goes like this... I'll just mention what you learn in the first episode of Death Note, in order to keep spoilers to a minimum:

Some student finds a note-book, it turns out that this book belongs to a "Death God". Whoever has his name written in this so called "Death Note" will die. The student tries the Death Note out and finds out that it works, so... Then he gets the idea to start killing off criminals, convicted or not. Anything from petty criminals to murderers, he kills them all by writing their names in the Death Note, and they die from heart attacks.

The student has a very clear purpose with his killings: He wants to create a "perfect world" with no crimes. Once all criminals are dead, he intends to proclaim himself the "god" of this new world, so that he will have the power to maintain its perfection. Nobody knows that the student is doing the killings, but they know that SOMEONE is, and they call him "Kira".

Put yourself in the position of a regular citizen if this were to really happen. An unknown person calling himself Kira promises you a world without crime, ruled by himself. A perfect world sounds all good and well, but is it justified with the killings of all the criminals in the entire world?

To summarize: Would you support Kira, or try to stop him if you ever had the chance?
Would YOU be willing to use the Death Note?

 

[Mephistopheles]

I would most definitly use it. But not just to kill criminals, there's way too much pollution in the gene pool.

 

[punkrockergirl]

This is all very much inspired by a thread started by CrystalLight a few days back or so. That thread can be found here.

Anyways... Has anyone here watched "Death Note"? If you haven't then you should, but anyway, the plot goes like this... I'll just mention what you learn in the first episode of Death Note, in order to keep spoilers to a minimum:

Some student finds a note-book, it turns out that this book belongs to a "Death God". Whoever has his name written in this so called "Death Note" will die. The student tries the Death Note out and finds out that it works, so... Then he gets the idea to start killing off criminals, convicted or not. Anything from petty criminals to murderers, he kills them all by writing their names in the Death Note, and they die from heart attacks.

The student has a very clear purpose with his killings: He wants to create a "perfect world" with no crimes. Once all criminals are dead, he intends to proclaim himself the "god" of this new world, so that he will have the power to maintain its perfection. Nobody knows that the student is doing the killings, but they know that SOMEONE is, and they call him "Kira".

Put yourself in the position of a regular citizen if this were to really happen. An unknown person calling himself Kira promises you a world without crime, ruled by himself. A perfect world sounds all good and well, but is it justified with the killings of all the criminals in the entire world?

To summarize: Would you support Kira, or try to stop him if you ever had the chance?

no without criminals i wouldnt have a job.. so that would suck, so i would have to try and stop him .. although a world without crime would be nice but i need my job 😀

 

[Carsomyr]

I would most definitly use it. But not just to kill criminals, there's way too much pollution in the gene pool.

That wasn't the question 😛 But now that you mention it, that's also very interesting to hear about, so I added it to the end of my original post. 🙂

 

[-Hari-]

fighting crime with crime isnt the way, what sort of an example is that to set?

I would be against it and I would certainly not use it myself, Something like that should not exist.

NO one has the right to take a life from another.

You cant fix a broken world by living by the rules of those who helped break it.

Takes more than one person to turn things around, best thing to do is to do your bit quietly and hope for the best cause things probably wont change.

 

[RUNOFFSTAGE]

If I get to be REALLY politically incorrect and inhumane; of course I'd use it, but only for like.. real badasses - serial killers and such. Hard to draw the line somewhere but.. I'd figure it out ;D
But.. I would like.. want a book where I could just hand out punishments. Say, if someone was mean to me, I would make a newspaper appear and slap'em in the head a couple of times. Oooor I could make some reaaaally embarrassing stuff happen to one of the bullies in school.
Yeah, I'd like one of those 😀

As for if I would support Kira or not... if I couldn't stop him, I'd rather support him. I mean.. noone wants to be on his bad side O.O

 

[-Hari-]

As for if I would support Kira or not... if I couldn't stop him, I'd rather support him. I mean.. noone wants to be on his bad side O.O

thats interesting, see how you would fear getting on his bad side? should we be given something else to be scared of? That just shows how "right" his plan is if we could feel scared of what he might do if we were to disagree with his actions... way too much power for one person!

 

[RUNOFFSTAGE]

thats interesting, see how you would fear getting on his bad side?

So... you're saying that you wouldn't be scared?

 

[Bugman]

I'll go with Lord Acton.

Lord Acton once said, “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

 

[Dave2112]

I think that we have learned, on more than one occasion throughout our history, that one person cannot, or should not, rule the world....even with the best intentions.

I know this is going to sound crazy, but it's my belief that not only can we never get rid of crime....we actually need it. Not so much "crime" itself, but that balance. Good becomes nothing without evil to compare it against. When everyone is safe, no one is.

It is never up to one person to decide who lives or dies, even based upon the most heinous of actions. There is no one...and I mean NO ONE, who would not ultimately become corrupted by that kind of power. You could take the most self-assured, sane and well-meaning person, give them ultimate power over life and death, and it will ALWAYS become political in one way or another. And not even political in the traditional sense, but in the personal sense.

Once you have that power, unchecked and unchallenged, can you honestly say you wouldn't kill someone off just because they hurt you? Sure, you'd start out that way, and may even be able to convince yourself that you really mean it....but eventually, the day will come when someone pisses you off, having done nothing wrong otherwise...and then you find yourself crossing that rubicon of mindless destruction. There isn't a single person currently walking the face of the earth that it wouldn't happen to, no matter how much think it wouldn't be YOU. I know and openly admit I would, given enough time and unchecked power. And I'm a person who doesn't believe in killing even criminals in the first place. But, given unchallenged power...I have no illusions that it would corrupt me eventually.

The world and life travel along a path for a reason. One that we do not, and are not meant to, understand. Good eventually comes out of evil. All life and existence is based upon balance, and even the unpalatable is neccesary.

 

[-Hari-]

So... you're saying that you wouldn't be scared?

Quite the opposite, im saying that dam right ide be scared, and thats what makes it wrong.

 

[Musicroxmysox]

I feel that, while the world is flawed, I wouldn't want to start something like this. To much power is way to much chaos.

 

[Cy/MiG]

To summarize: Would you support Kira, or try to stop him if you ever had the chance?

Support him, kill him eventually.

Take the 'death note'.

Would YOU be willing to use the Death Note?

Yes.

Of course, Bugman is correct.

Eventually the 'Death note' would need to be destroyed or I would be killed by someone else who wanted the power... much like LotR and the 'one ring'

So I'd start out hoping to destroy the 'death note'... though I'm not sure if I would fall into corruption.

Probably would. I'm evil. 😀

 

[luvgirlsfeet]

I know of a few handful of people i'd love to add to that list

 

[Dussicar]

I think that we have learned, on more than one occasion throughout our history, that one person cannot, or should not, rule the world....even with the best intentions.

I know this is going to sound crazy, but it's my belief that not only can we never get rid of crime....we actually need it. Not so much "crime" itself, but that balance. Good becomes nothing without evil to compare it against. When everyone is safe, no one is.

It is never up to one person to decide who lives or dies, even based upon the most heinous of actions. There is no one...and I mean NO ONE, who would not ultimately become corrupted by that kind of power. You could take the most self-assured, sane and well-meaning person, give them ultimate power over life and death, and it will ALWAYS become political in one way or another. And not even political in the traditional sense, but in the personal sense.

Once you have that power, unchecked and unchallenged, can you honestly say you wouldn't kill someone off just because they hurt you? Sure, you'd start out that way, and may even be able to convince yourself that you really mean it....but eventually, the day will come when someone pisses you off, having done nothing wrong otherwise...and then you find yourself crossing that rubicon of mindless destruction. There isn't a single person currently walking the face of the earth that it wouldn't happen to, no matter how much think it wouldn't be YOU. I know and openly admit I would, given enough time and unchecked power. And I'm a person who doesn't believe in killing even criminals in the first place. But, given unchallenged power...I have no illusions that it would corrupt me eventually.

The world and life travel along a path for a reason. One that we do not, and are not meant to, understand. Good eventually comes out of evil. All life and existence is based upon balance, and even the unpalatable is neccesary.

I have to disagree with you on that point. I feel that I could shoulder that kind of responsibility without it corrupting me.

All I would do is make sure that those names I wrote in the death book truely deserved it. The murderers and rapists who destroy lives are far from redemption. They already went too far. In my opinion, there is no rectifying what they have done. The pedophiles would also fit nicely into that category as well, followed by the police officers who dragged their asses on the individual investigations, thus allowing the criminals to destroy even more lives. Then I would write the names of every judge who gave that scum anything less than brutal medival torture into my newfound book of joy.

Once the immediate menaces and threats have been eliminated, I will begin to turn my attention towards all those goddamned neo-cons and then followed closely by the name of any conservative I can get my hands on.

Finally, I can rest easy...If it weren't for the fact that there is a growing percentage of litter accumulating in my hometown. COCKSUCKERS! Do they honestly think that this city cleans itself??? Imma wipe 'em of the face of the earth! Yeah! That's right! Not so tough without your candy bar wrappers now, are you!?!

I bought a new mattress two months ago. Some prick at either the warehouse or the retail store tore the tag off BEFORE I even bought it! Unfortunately, one fucked up apple spoils the whole bunch. They're all going to have to die...Hey, it's not MY fault one asshole decided to be a mister teary-pants! If they wanted to act like a man, then they would have taken the time and responsibility to track the sale of that mattress to my house so they can show up at my doorstep and take full responsibility. Now everyone at those two outlets have to die because one-ONE- person was too gutless to accept blame...Maybe I should obliterate their family and friends, too...We need to make an example of those who wish to destroy our freedoms and way of life.

Don't even get me started about that prick who coughed sixty yards away from me yesterday at the mall...That fucking winter jacket-wearing, baseball cap-wearing piece of black plague-spreading shit!

 

[Mister Scruff]

I think that we have learned, on more than one occasion throughout our history, that one person cannot, or should not, rule the world....even with the best intentions.

I know this is going to sound crazy, but it's my belief that not only can we never get rid of crime....we actually need it. Not so much "crime" itself, but that balance. Good becomes nothing without evil to compare it against. When everyone is safe, no one is.

Game Theory! Game Theory! Man the fkn harpoons!!!

It is never up to one person to decide who lives or dies, even based upon the most heinous of actions. There is no one...and I mean NO ONE, who would not ultimately become corrupted by that kind of power. You could take the most self-assured, sane and well-meaning person, give them ultimate power over life and death, and it will ALWAYS become political in one way or another. And not even political in the traditional sense, but in the personal sense.

Once you have that power, unchecked and unchallenged, can you honestly say you wouldn't kill someone off just because they hurt you? Sure, you'd start out that way, and may even be able to convince yourself that you really mean it....but eventually, the day will come when someone pisses you off, having done nothing wrong otherwise...and then you find yourself crossing that rubicon of mindless destruction. There isn't a single person currently walking the face of the earth that it wouldn't happen to, no matter how much think it wouldn't be YOU. I know and openly admit I would, given enough time and unchecked power. And I'm a person who doesn't believe in killing even criminals in the first place. But, given unchallenged power...I have no illusions that it would corrupt me eventually.

The world and life travel along a path for a reason. One that we do not, and are not meant to, understand. Good eventually comes out of evil. All life and existence is based upon balance, and even the unpalatable is neccesary.

I agree with most of the rest of this.


But come on; Game Theory? You serious?...