The guillotine was probably the most humane way of execution your aim is to simply erase someone from this earth before they spread their ideas any further, rather than to inflict pain. The latter is not OK. Violence should be minimized and only used in reaction to a deadly threat.
On the other hand... while capital punishment is cruel, some people are so antisocial that they must be removed from civil society lest they attempt further genocide.
To give a specific example from history, I was a fan when I learned Norway abolished the death penalty YEARS before the 1988 European Convention on Human Rights, but briefly brought it back to kill some Nazis[1]:
>Norway abolished the death penalty for civilian crimes in 1905, but was retained for certain military crimes in wartime.[1] During the Nazi occupation of Norway (1940–1945), capital punishment was introduced by Vidkun Quisling's regime in September 1942, and the first of a total of nineteen executions was carried out on 16 August 1943, when police officer Gunnar Eilifsen was executed for disobedience. Before this, German law had applied, and four hundred Norwegians had already been executed. In 1941, the Nygaardsvold's Cabinet exiled in London allowed for the death penalty after the war, and expanded its scope in 1942 to cover torture and murder. The legal purge that followed the occupation resulted in several death sentences, of which 37 people: 25 Norwegians, 11 Germans, and one Dane, were executed.[7] The last execution took place on 27 August 1948, when Ragnar Skancke was put before a firing squad at Akershus Fortresss.
A few places have approved nitrogen hypoxia now, though I don't believe it has been used yet. That has a reasonable shot at being the most human method invented.
Not that we should actually condone the state killing its citizens for any reason, but I digress.
The point of these really heinous execution methods (wheel, fire...) is to wreck the victim's "honor".
I think it's because you go totally batshit when you are being smashed up on the wheel. After a public display like that it does something to what people think of you, your associates, your religion... It mentally scars the audience. And all memory of you will be strongly associated with that scar.
It's a kind of social damage. Yes, a lesson to those who might be inclined to do what you did. But also a kind of theater, recasting you as something demoniacal.
When one group has the legal maxium "rex non potest peccare," it separates people into a class that can act with impunity and one over which hangs the threat of death, those being sovereignty and everyone else.
There isn't going to be a series of royal journal entries that state, "We insist on the death penalty to keep us in power," so this is going to be one of those conversations where one side will claim that there is evidence of the implication and one who says, "that's not enough evidence to support that claim." So, I'm not too sure if you'ld still like to continue, but it's a legitimate discussion to have even if one side can't definitively win because it can help us critique instances of sovereign immunity or things that approach sovereign immunity today.
Lets first look at the Romans, one of the first articles from Google is:
https://owlcation.com/humanities/roman-executions-why-the-ro...
As you can see there were two types of crimes that got brutal death penalty, the main one being rising up against the state which got crucifixion. This is what allegedly happened to Jesus as he called himself king of the Jews. Second major crime was standing up to your family head, which got you thrown into a river in a sack with some animals. Your father however could kill you or a slave without penalty.
Same in England, the main penalties were high treason (rising up against the king/queen) and little treason (rising up against father/husband). I was going to link to a hardcore history but it is behind a paywall now and not exactly scholarly science.
Interesting that the example given for restoring death penalty is killing Nazis. It is the opposite of "a reaction to a deadly threat".
Defeated Nazis were mostly harmless once stripped of their power, they were only dangerous with a system to support them. I am not aware of any ex-Nazi leader (they were not all executed) who ended up committing a major crime, let alone genocide. You can argue that a death sentence was justified as a form of punishment, but as a way to protect society from a deadly threat, I am not sure.
The ones I think would be more likely candidates for the death penalty would be more like psychopathic killers. Violence is simply part of them, like rabid dogs, no matter where you put them, they will be a threat to their surroundings, and it includes prisons. They don't need a system to support their crimes: leave a sharp object, a few seconds of inattention, and an innocent may die, that's what makes them so dangerous that putting them in prison (or in a mental institution) for life may not be sufficient.
First of all, there is something called freedom of thought. In countries that respect human rights, you generally can't convict let alone kill people for ideas, including harmful ones.
What Nazis were tried for are the actual crimes they committed, the people they killed or ordered to be killed. And what justice needs to do, in addition to the punishment aspect is no make sure they don't kill any more people, and this can be achieved by surveillance in or out of prison. Nazis don't have wololo powers, they can't instantly turn people into Nazis like a psychopath can stab you.
And ex-Nazis are burnt anyways people will not follow them like they did when they were in power. We all have seen what they done. In fact, extremists who want to push genocidal idea will do everything they can to avoid ex-Nazis if they expect any kind of influence.
I still don't see why we should execute ex-Nazis if the only reason is a last resort to protect society from danger.
Opposition to capital punishment is rooted in modern sentiment rather than actual moral reasoning. We are opposed to it despite the moral justification for it. Justice has three ends, namely, retribution, correction, and deterrence[0], and in order for these to be just, they must be proportionate to the crime. Obviously, death is proportionate to murder and therefore a proportionate penalty for murder.
> modern sentiment rather than actual moral reasoning
To me, the phrases "modern sentiment" and "moral reasoning" describe the very similar things. That follows from the observation that beyond a certain point, deterrence has very little effect. That point is remarkably low.
For most of us a traffic fine is enough. The additional deterrence provided by jail time is not that large. If you reason about it with the rigour your "moral reasoning" phrase suggests, a holiday at her majesties expense might even be welcome. (Actually, we know for a fact it is - people commit crimes to get into jail to be fed and housed.) For the rest of us it looks to me like it's not the jail time that's the deterrence, its the public record of the transgression and the resulting ostracism.
The additional deterrence over minor stints in jail and a criminal record, for punishments like longer terms, barbed wire instead of jail farms, small cells, isolation and capital punishment are so small, they could well be a net negative cost to society. Their only positive contribution is to keep a possible repeat offender off the streets, but they also create repeat offenders by robbing of their ability to survive outside of jail. The evidence that Scandinavian like emphasis on rehabilitation over retribution reduces both crime and the cost of law enforcement is so strong, I consider irrefutable.
Given all that, you have to wonder what is this thing you call "moral reasoning" that leads to the conclusion that strong deterrents are justified in some sense. It doesn't lead to maximising any Utilitarian measure. About the only thing it does seem to maximise is some individuals sentiment about what is morally right - modern or otherwise.
Perhaps I am just a pessimist, but I think it's far from a guarantee that we will only progress. I have no reason to believe that people today are any more civilized than 500 or 1000 years ago. Our much improved technology sure does look pretty though.
Indeed, just look at the ongoing wars today - exactly the same level of brutalism and violence like hundreds years ago, if not more due to the improvements in weapons technology.
The ancients were significantly less nice. Crucifixion is a slow and nasty way to go. And of course there’s scaphism whixh is so appallingly nasty that revisionists deny it was ever practiced.
Slightly unrelated but there was a good story from NPR a few days ago about the psychological toll that capital punishment has on the people carrying it out. It turns out that it’s a lot easier to declare that bad people should die than to actually do the killing part.
Part of the reason Nazis invented the gas chambers. Even many of the Einsatzgruppen couldn’t personally murder people all day, every day without going insane.
If you're interested in the social history aspect of this then you should probably read Foucault's Discipline and Punish, a short book which examines the tension between different organizational models for society and.
I once watched a video on YouTube about execution and for weeks after that it peppered me with videos about execution. It's not a favorite topic of mine so I was glad when YouTube decided not to keep suggesting execution videos to me.
On the YouTube video suggestion page, clicking on the 3 dot (⋮) menu next to the title of a video (only visible by hovering), there is a "not interested" option. I don't know how effective it is, but it is there.
One must assume YT has a blacklist of search terms/topics that won't persist in recommendations(?) - at my place of work these types of blacklists are only possible to add to "when people ask" (unfortunately) or if they're basic/obvious (NSFW terms or "words you can't say on the radio").
The phrase "roadkill" specifically came up today in a somewhat similar context.
Humans are as evil of a creature that will ever exist, I think. Reading about this, as well as some much more contemporary tortured killing that happens around the world has me convinced that humanity is the worst thing which has ever existed.
Not only are we unfit to exist, I feel we are entirely and completely unworthy of existing, or of becoming a species that spreads to other worlds for colonization.
we just don't deserve to persist. and because of who we are as a species, I don't think we will last very long at all.
I don't need to talk to anyone; I'm neither suicidal nor homicidal.
what I am, is this: aware of how shitty people are to each other, at almost all times. all it takes to end a marriage or a decades-long friendship is a bit of money, or a small opportunity, sometimes.
slavery is more common today than it ever has been, it's just all underground now, instead of out in the open. dictators exist and make millions upon millions suffer each day because they can't let go of their power, and those same dictators are surrounded by people who would gladly assassinate that dictator if it meant they could become the new dictator.
I've seen people I work with become absolutely drunk with power when they get a new job title; so drunk with power that once I witnessed a power-tripping "team lead" push someone down a flight of stairs because that person printed six pages instead of the weekly quota of five.
people are self-destructive, power-hungry, and evil. prone to violence, and many seem to need to feel superior so much that they will make a mountain out of anything just so they can climb it and look down derisively at others.
we are an absolutely garbage species.
I don't need to do anything to help our destruction along, nor does anyone else. we are all contributing to the demise of our species already, as part of daily life.
I think that you are judging the situation too harshly.
More than 99% of all species that have existed are extinct. Did something make them worthy of existence? More worthy than us? What conveys this worthiness?
The sun will burn off the atmosphere somewhere between .5-1billion years from now. Humans understand the problem, and our progeny might be able to adjust orbital mechanics to add life to our earth. We are the only species that has ever existed here that is capable of contemplating or acting on this problem. Does that make us worthy?
The answer to both questions is no. Worthiness comes from within you, and you do what you want with it. I cannot give you worthiness; you must find it within yourself.
what makes us unfit and unworthy as a species is our nature as humans, an example of which is the communally accepted extraction of value of one group of humans by another group of humans. some examples:
- the British extraction of colonial resources (at the heavy expense of the colonized) of literally every single British colony, ever. (I'm primarily thinking of India and Africa, here.) How many millions died due to British imperialism solely because keeping those people alive was less profitable than letting them starve? The British are joined by the French and the Spanish, here, if I'm being semi-inclusive.
- systemic racism.
- war for oil (war for money).
- class warfare, where the rich create policies and laws to keep themselves rich, and to make it more difficult for others to become rich.
- caste systems.
- the ultra-rich when contrasted against the ultra-poor. if humans were worth anything, extreme wealth inequality as seen today would never happen, ever. it simply would not be tolerated.
- slavery.
it would be one thing if humans simply didn't care about each other, but we take it several steps away from apathy deeply into malevolence: humanity will gladly devour entire races of other humans for land, or money, or power. I don't think animals do that, even on small scales.
leaders of small ape communities sometimes do things like this against an individual or two, but it doesn't become part of the culture of entire swaths of that species as it does with us. you may not live in a country with a caste system, but I bet you know what it is. you may not live in a country ravaged by the British, but I bet you know what they did. these things are familiar to us because we are familiar with ourselves at that level. we accept these things as they are happening instead of challenging these systems and stopping them.
our global culture knows what happens around the world, generally speaking, and our global culture does VERY little, if anything, to make any real changes to any of this.
a species worthy of existence would go well out of its way to right these wrongs. human life has inherent value, and if you are reading this, and you think it does not, you are an example of why we do not deserve to succeed as a species.
yes, MY worth is determined by me. and the worthiness of the collective species is determined by the collective species, and we are simply not worthy of leaving this planet or even surviving on this one.
we care about power. we care about money because it grants power. we somehow deeply NEED to feel superior to others, so we create systems which grant the power we crave. we "eat our own tail" by doing this, and will ultimately destroy ourselves, because no one is willing to care about it once they have attained any position of power over others. no one wants to give up their power to benefit others, so they don't, and we continue to demonstrate ourselves as a species unworthy of note, even on our home planet.
Technology has a tendency to remove the value from valuable things, like diamonds we can synthesize and slave labor a robot can do.
We might not go out of our way not to exploit others, but we continually build new tech that makes exploiting others and using real resources seem like more trouble than it's worth.
Most people are to some degree not happy with various atrocities people do, they're just not sure what they as an individual could do.
With that much hatred in your opinion of our species, i'd say that you suffer from too much garbage thinking that has lost all perspective or balance in judging humanity. Yes, we can be a terrible species and in many ways continue to be awful to our own kind and other species, but we're also extremely social, capable of incredible acts of good and by our basic nature tend more towards cooperation, peaceful interaction and friendly exchange than towards violence and murder. We literally couldn't be where we are right now if the opposite was the case or if we were even half as bad as you describe.
Also the obvious: Fashionable misanthropy is all fine and well if you enjoy pretending that obvious things aren't actually the case, but if you're taking it as seriously as you claim, nothing stops you from removing yourself from the human world around you if you hate it so much. Personally, i'd suggest therapy and some calming, professional external perspective.
Chimpanzees will chew off the hands, feet, genitals of chimps from other troops when they capture them. Lions and other predators each animals alive. Wolves will kill outsiders not of their pack. Humans are not uniquely violent.
64 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 134 ms ] threadThe guillotine was probably the most humane way of execution your aim is to simply erase someone from this earth before they spread their ideas any further, rather than to inflict pain. The latter is not OK. Violence should be minimized and only used in reaction to a deadly threat.
On the other hand... while capital punishment is cruel, some people are so antisocial that they must be removed from civil society lest they attempt further genocide.
To give a specific example from history, I was a fan when I learned Norway abolished the death penalty YEARS before the 1988 European Convention on Human Rights, but briefly brought it back to kill some Nazis[1]:
>Norway abolished the death penalty for civilian crimes in 1905, but was retained for certain military crimes in wartime.[1] During the Nazi occupation of Norway (1940–1945), capital punishment was introduced by Vidkun Quisling's regime in September 1942, and the first of a total of nineteen executions was carried out on 16 August 1943, when police officer Gunnar Eilifsen was executed for disobedience. Before this, German law had applied, and four hundred Norwegians had already been executed. In 1941, the Nygaardsvold's Cabinet exiled in London allowed for the death penalty after the war, and expanded its scope in 1942 to cover torture and murder. The legal purge that followed the occupation resulted in several death sentences, of which 37 people: 25 Norwegians, 11 Germans, and one Dane, were executed.[7] The last execution took place on 27 August 1948, when Ragnar Skancke was put before a firing squad at Akershus Fortresss.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Norway#M...
People only like lethal injections because they don't spill any blood. Once you see blood you know what you have done.
Not that we should actually condone the state killing its citizens for any reason, but I digress.
However, I also think that prisoners serving life sentences should have the right of euthenasia, after speedy judicial review (maybe six months).
The applicants should trigger the nitrogen flood themselves. The state should not have the power to do this.
I think it's because you go totally batshit when you are being smashed up on the wheel. After a public display like that it does something to what people think of you, your associates, your religion... It mentally scars the audience. And all memory of you will be strongly associated with that scar.
It's a kind of social damage. Yes, a lesson to those who might be inclined to do what you did. But also a kind of theater, recasting you as something demoniacal.
Is it? I thought there was a bit of "this could be you" message sent to everyone
There isn't going to be a series of royal journal entries that state, "We insist on the death penalty to keep us in power," so this is going to be one of those conversations where one side will claim that there is evidence of the implication and one who says, "that's not enough evidence to support that claim." So, I'm not too sure if you'ld still like to continue, but it's a legitimate discussion to have even if one side can't definitively win because it can help us critique instances of sovereign immunity or things that approach sovereign immunity today.
Same in England, the main penalties were high treason (rising up against the king/queen) and little treason (rising up against father/husband). I was going to link to a hardcore history but it is behind a paywall now and not exactly scholarly science.
Defeated Nazis were mostly harmless once stripped of their power, they were only dangerous with a system to support them. I am not aware of any ex-Nazi leader (they were not all executed) who ended up committing a major crime, let alone genocide. You can argue that a death sentence was justified as a form of punishment, but as a way to protect society from a deadly threat, I am not sure.
The ones I think would be more likely candidates for the death penalty would be more like psychopathic killers. Violence is simply part of them, like rabid dogs, no matter where you put them, they will be a threat to their surroundings, and it includes prisons. They don't need a system to support their crimes: leave a sharp object, a few seconds of inattention, and an innocent may die, that's what makes them so dangerous that putting them in prison (or in a mental institution) for life may not be sufficient.
What Nazis were tried for are the actual crimes they committed, the people they killed or ordered to be killed. And what justice needs to do, in addition to the punishment aspect is no make sure they don't kill any more people, and this can be achieved by surveillance in or out of prison. Nazis don't have wololo powers, they can't instantly turn people into Nazis like a psychopath can stab you.
And ex-Nazis are burnt anyways people will not follow them like they did when they were in power. We all have seen what they done. In fact, extremists who want to push genocidal idea will do everything they can to avoid ex-Nazis if they expect any kind of influence.
I still don't see why we should execute ex-Nazis if the only reason is a last resort to protect society from danger.
[0] https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2011/09/4033/
To me, the phrases "modern sentiment" and "moral reasoning" describe the very similar things. That follows from the observation that beyond a certain point, deterrence has very little effect. That point is remarkably low.
For most of us a traffic fine is enough. The additional deterrence provided by jail time is not that large. If you reason about it with the rigour your "moral reasoning" phrase suggests, a holiday at her majesties expense might even be welcome. (Actually, we know for a fact it is - people commit crimes to get into jail to be fed and housed.) For the rest of us it looks to me like it's not the jail time that's the deterrence, its the public record of the transgression and the resulting ostracism.
The additional deterrence over minor stints in jail and a criminal record, for punishments like longer terms, barbed wire instead of jail farms, small cells, isolation and capital punishment are so small, they could well be a net negative cost to society. Their only positive contribution is to keep a possible repeat offender off the streets, but they also create repeat offenders by robbing of their ability to survive outside of jail. The evidence that Scandinavian like emphasis on rehabilitation over retribution reduces both crime and the cost of law enforcement is so strong, I consider irrefutable.
Given all that, you have to wonder what is this thing you call "moral reasoning" that leads to the conclusion that strong deterrents are justified in some sense. It doesn't lead to maximising any Utilitarian measure. About the only thing it does seem to maximise is some individuals sentiment about what is morally right - modern or otherwise.
https://youtu.be/znk3tdoilrY
Spoiler alert, society's failures all stem from bad proofreading.
Browsing on your logged-in google account is what caused this persistence.
Not only are we unfit to exist, I feel we are entirely and completely unworthy of existing, or of becoming a species that spreads to other worlds for colonization.
we just don't deserve to persist. and because of who we are as a species, I don't think we will last very long at all.
what I am, is this: aware of how shitty people are to each other, at almost all times. all it takes to end a marriage or a decades-long friendship is a bit of money, or a small opportunity, sometimes.
slavery is more common today than it ever has been, it's just all underground now, instead of out in the open. dictators exist and make millions upon millions suffer each day because they can't let go of their power, and those same dictators are surrounded by people who would gladly assassinate that dictator if it meant they could become the new dictator.
I've seen people I work with become absolutely drunk with power when they get a new job title; so drunk with power that once I witnessed a power-tripping "team lead" push someone down a flight of stairs because that person printed six pages instead of the weekly quota of five.
people are self-destructive, power-hungry, and evil. prone to violence, and many seem to need to feel superior so much that they will make a mountain out of anything just so they can climb it and look down derisively at others.
we are an absolutely garbage species.
I don't need to do anything to help our destruction along, nor does anyone else. we are all contributing to the demise of our species already, as part of daily life.
There’s a lot of current day love offsetting arbitrary historical torture sessions.
This is tautological, as we're the only lifeform capable of any evil.
More than 99% of all species that have existed are extinct. Did something make them worthy of existence? More worthy than us? What conveys this worthiness?
The sun will burn off the atmosphere somewhere between .5-1billion years from now. Humans understand the problem, and our progeny might be able to adjust orbital mechanics to add life to our earth. We are the only species that has ever existed here that is capable of contemplating or acting on this problem. Does that make us worthy?
The answer to both questions is no. Worthiness comes from within you, and you do what you want with it. I cannot give you worthiness; you must find it within yourself.
- the British extraction of colonial resources (at the heavy expense of the colonized) of literally every single British colony, ever. (I'm primarily thinking of India and Africa, here.) How many millions died due to British imperialism solely because keeping those people alive was less profitable than letting them starve? The British are joined by the French and the Spanish, here, if I'm being semi-inclusive.
- systemic racism.
- war for oil (war for money).
- class warfare, where the rich create policies and laws to keep themselves rich, and to make it more difficult for others to become rich.
- caste systems.
- the ultra-rich when contrasted against the ultra-poor. if humans were worth anything, extreme wealth inequality as seen today would never happen, ever. it simply would not be tolerated.
- slavery.
it would be one thing if humans simply didn't care about each other, but we take it several steps away from apathy deeply into malevolence: humanity will gladly devour entire races of other humans for land, or money, or power. I don't think animals do that, even on small scales.
leaders of small ape communities sometimes do things like this against an individual or two, but it doesn't become part of the culture of entire swaths of that species as it does with us. you may not live in a country with a caste system, but I bet you know what it is. you may not live in a country ravaged by the British, but I bet you know what they did. these things are familiar to us because we are familiar with ourselves at that level. we accept these things as they are happening instead of challenging these systems and stopping them.
our global culture knows what happens around the world, generally speaking, and our global culture does VERY little, if anything, to make any real changes to any of this.
a species worthy of existence would go well out of its way to right these wrongs. human life has inherent value, and if you are reading this, and you think it does not, you are an example of why we do not deserve to succeed as a species.
yes, MY worth is determined by me. and the worthiness of the collective species is determined by the collective species, and we are simply not worthy of leaving this planet or even surviving on this one.
we care about power. we care about money because it grants power. we somehow deeply NEED to feel superior to others, so we create systems which grant the power we crave. we "eat our own tail" by doing this, and will ultimately destroy ourselves, because no one is willing to care about it once they have attained any position of power over others. no one wants to give up their power to benefit others, so they don't, and we continue to demonstrate ourselves as a species unworthy of note, even on our home planet.
We might not go out of our way not to exploit others, but we continually build new tech that makes exploiting others and using real resources seem like more trouble than it's worth.
Most people are to some degree not happy with various atrocities people do, they're just not sure what they as an individual could do.
Also the obvious: Fashionable misanthropy is all fine and well if you enjoy pretending that obvious things aren't actually the case, but if you're taking it as seriously as you claim, nothing stops you from removing yourself from the human world around you if you hate it so much. Personally, i'd suggest therapy and some calming, professional external perspective.
For myself, I am uncertain.
You will likely claim that your misanthropy has nothing to do with this relic of Judaism, but the end effect is identical.
You assert that mankind is damned, I suggest that he is not. This difference of opinion does not require me to hate you, nor you me.
"No snowflake feels responsible for the avalanche."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
As you yourself said a few comments ago, this is a tautology: humans are the only creatures capable of evil.
Lots of species are perfectly capable of doing evil things.