Thought this might be something of a treatise on steeling oneself for the weight of unpleasant but necessary acts of violence against degenerates, due to the soft type of degeneracy that we are now in the throes of. Instead, it's a concern about capital punishment for crime, rather than a reflection on the famed use of the guillotine - the class war that was started by the decadent and resulted in their blood in the streets.
With respect to Camus, I don't find anything particularly disagreeable about the points he made, but it is wholly irrelevant to my interest in the device, or its modern metaphorical relevance. Put simply: one's thoughts on capital punishment are distinct from one's thoughts on asymmetrical warfare, and that is where my mind goes to, and is preoccupied with, when discussing guillotines. If a class response to political binding is to purchase more and more political control, what option do we have that is not violence? And why should we prefer it? If the upper class doesn't care how their comfort causes lower class death, why should the lower class concern itself with how their response causes upper class death? Raise all boats with the tide or drown in the blood you're using to selectively raise your own boats. Seems straightforward to me. Not sure what's so hard for the stockholders to understand, here.
Anyway, yeah, your dad had a weak stomach and an imagination weak enough to not picture you as the kids that dude murdered (or didn't care enough about his future kids to develop bloodlust for the monster who did it). He's weak? He's a saint? We can give the government a monopoly on violence, but we can never give them the ability to execute its most permanent form, on account of the errors and prejudices of the humans whom make it up? Thoughtful. But I am distracted.
> If the upper class doesn't care how their comfort causes lower class death, why should the lower class concern itself with how their response causes upper class death? Raise all boats with the tide or drown in the blood you're using to selectively raise your own boats. Seems straightforward to me. Not sure what's so hard for the stockholders to understand, here.
I’ve always thought this too. I saw a question once on Quora asking why the poor don’t rip the wealthy out of their houses and the top reply was “Nazi!” with hundreds of upvotes.
Just hilariously oblivious and completely out of reality - slinging high level politics insults while the hungry guy is sharpening his knife and thinking very different thoughts.
I think the relative rich have no clue what is coming.
> I saw a question once on Quora asking why the poor don’t rip the wealthy out of their houses and the top reply was “Nazi!” with hundreds of upvotes.
This seems odd because it usually goes the other way: people complaining about the rich typically tar them as the "Nazis". For people against destroying the rich, the usual epithet for those who want to do so would be "commies"...
This sounds like something I might have written at 15. Only fools who have never known the horrors of war or indiscriminate violence would wish for the world you’re fantasizing about.
This sounds like something my illiterate classmates might have written at 15. Point to where you see a wish or a fantasy in what I wrote. Actions have consequences and those that refuse to learn from history are likely to cause it to repeat. If you're seeing a different world than I'm writing about, you're welcome to describe it. But ignorant assumptions about the shit I've seen aren't the slam dunk your smugness assures you they are.
Dude, you’re a software engineer cosplaying a bloodthirsty class warrior on HN. But sure, you’ve seen some shit and you’ll make those evil rich people pay for all your horrible suffering.
That’s enough keyboard warriors for one day for me, going to bed. Hope you find some peace.
Yeah, no we can still want justice and not want to be horrified by the act of execution for the rest of our lives.
Or, I don't know, perhaps we can crush parts of their body one at a time. Or maybe set fire to their limbs one at a time. I mean, why not?
(And never mind that if The State could, even once, execute someone who is innocent, it renders capital punishment instantly null and void in my mind.)
I wonder if you would feel different after witnessing an execution (by guillotine)? I believe Camus is arguing that you would, giving his father as example of someone who similarly changed his mind.
> I wonder if you would feel different after witnessing an execution (by guillotine)?
Not at all. There are kids murderers out there. Recently one in France raped and then killed an 11 y/o girl. Somehow he was free although he'd already been involved in rapes. It's a big thing: there are protests all over France asking for actual laws actually doing something about rapists and kid killers.
To me the guillotine for a kid killer is way too nice: I'd go full medieval style, breaking his arms and legs while he's rotating on a vice. Then cutting his balls. Then finishing it by using horses to dislocate his body.
They used to do that in the middle-age.
From A to Z I'd be thinking about the persons you don't care about: the victims.
The problem is, as someone else mentioned, as soon as you give the state the power to kill people, they'll abuse it.
But, deep down, the harsh truth is very simple: leniency to rapists and murderers is cruelty to the victims, to their family and to their future victims (like just happened in France).
All those begging for leniency for criminals have the blood of that 11 y/o girl who got raped and killed by a repeat offenders on their hands.
> Your comment is below the intellectual and interpersonal standard that makes HN a good place to be.
You should install an extension and tag certain accounts. You'll notice it's the same people doing it for years (and also constant 2 months old accounts, but that's a different issue).
This may sound harsh, but I believe that anyone who fantasizes about cruelly murdering anyone has something wrong with them. Have you seen a death, saw someone dying in all the glory of their guts splayed around you? If that is something you desire to see, perhaps this death drive of yours requires some introspective.
>From A to Z I'd be thinking about the persons you don't care about: the victims.
And what exactly does the extra torture for the victim you care about? Is she better after the arm breaking or after the ball cutting?
I don't know any indicator that countries with death penalty have less victims or less crimes or less vicious crimes, or that added torture improves anything at all for past and future victims.
No, you are caring about you: you feel advocating for extra torture puts you in a better moral possition than people that defends a painless death penalty, or even worse, "only" life imprissoning, or those savages that would say "a mere" 20-25 years in jail.
There has been enough deaths of people that were wrongly judged, to add torture to the mix.
I have always actively avoided all the videos online of beheadings or other types of death, because i'm squeamish and don't want such images in my head. However, while not in person, I did actually witness a guillotine execution video. Admittedly it was filmed at a few hundred feet away, so it lacked any gore or closeups of the corpse. It was a shocking process - how quickly it happened (30 seconds from the appearance of the condemned to their demise). But it wasn't too hard to watch, and hasn't haunted me.
Anyway, there are a great many videos online of murders and other death scenes, and famously there were VHS tapes available pre-internet called "faces of death" showing such events. A great many people actively seek out and watch such things, seemingly with no negative reaction to them. So there are a lot of people who would presumably be even less affected by a guillotine execution than I was.
I mean, hangings and torture used to be done publicly and people would gather to watch in large crowds, even bringing the whole family. There are still people who travel to witness death-row executions for no apparent reason than their own pleasure. This kind of morbid obsession with violence and trivialization of it as a spectacle has become much less common as people have become more civilized with time, but I doubt it will ever fully disappear.
Camus also writes that these morbid events essentially harden the people who need to be softened, trivializing violence and thus perpetuating it. He uses the example of pickpockets, where a large majority of pickpockets convicted had atteneded an execution of another pickpocjet, sometimes stealing from others while the execution was ongoing.
Faces of Death still haunts me decades later, even the moderate ones like the magician scene, or the guy who jumps off the building "Here I come girls!" ded
Even the video of the guy in 1800s Paris who thought he could fly off the Eiffel Tower - that video is haunting! It's on Wikipedia.
Somehow the videos that come back to haunt me aren't the most gory. I used to watch LiveLeak when it was around, and aside from those that are objectively disgusting (guts etc.) I was surprised at the ones that stuck with me.
Watching the accidents, especially car ones, prepares you somehow - or at least makes you (productively) more afraid. That's how I justify it watching this trash.
What criteria would allow for someone to "deserve" death? Is it as a form of revenge, like most "deserved" punishments?
Camus believes that state sanctioned revenge just breeds more violence. The death penalty is not a deterrent, it is something that offends the senses, and it is ultimately served on the platter as a criminal getting their just punishment in revenge.
Either such a revenge is public, to declare that justice has occured, or it does not happen at all. What revenge is a secret and supressed lethal injection? By all accounts, revenge should be public and furious, it should be there for the victims to see.
>Indeed, one must kill publicly or confess that one does. not feel authorized to kill. If society justifies the death penalty by the necessity of the example, it must justify itself by making the publicity necessary (Camus).
Thus, revenge is not a sufficient reason for capital punishment due to the abhorence we have to see death in public. Camus adds that such public exetions only harden the ones who need to be softened and offend the soft. He uses the example of pickpockets. A large majority of pickpockets who were sentenced had viewed the execution of a pickpocket before. Revenge only perpetuates violence.
Camus doesn't think that a muderer _doesn't_ deserve a punishment, but rather that a murder in any case cannot be accepted.
Camus is just wrong. And the word "murder" is doing a lot of work in hiding the deception. It hides the artificial difference between cases where you cause the death of someone. Murder is used, almost by definition, to classify the _unjustified_ causing of death. But there are many cases where causing of death is justified, and we all agree; for instance you are fine to cause the death of someone who is actively trying to kill you. And it is a very logical progression from there, to accept the causing of death in many other cases. For example, you shouldn't have to wait for an attacker to pull the trigger of a lethal weapon before defending yourself, you should be free to ANTICIPATE his action and cause his death preemptively. And you can use this exact same line of reasoning to show that there are a great many cases where causing death is justified. There are destructive and evil people on the planet, and nobody will miss them when they are gone. The same way its good to cull deer, if the population of deer gets out of control... it's just better overall for the environment.
Camus does talk about this in I believe part 3. He doesn't have a problem with killing someone who would cause harm to you. His problem is that the framing of the justification of death by the state is after the case, preventing no harm, and in fact creating harm-see comments above and the article. Secondly, assuming the innocence of the victim is put on society so that allows for execution by the state is just incorrect. It is not justice for a victim but a show for an undeserving audience. I don't think I explained it well, so if you have time, I really encourage reading Camus's article. Even if you don't agree, I still find his reasoning and viewpoints interesting.
I know that the belief in the majority is a core part of our democracy, but I'd like to challenge it for a moment here. First, does common belief make sonething right? Lets say society A has a majority vote that says people who murder are horrible and should be executed. Society B says no, murder is okay, because the majority say its okay. So, is murder right or wrong? The point is that a crowd doesn't always have a right answer. Second, opinions are not homogenous, and popular opinion can be wrong (think geocentric systems, newtonian laws, disease, etc.). A morality by plurality is arbitrary and non-universal which seems to defy the point of moral frameworks.
You stop the philosophical navel gazing and use your best judgment. If someone has their hands wrapped around YOUR throat and is actively trying to kill you, you would defend yourself to the death if necessary. And you would clearly claim that you had objective proof that the attacker deserved death. You just apply the same concept, to less immediate forms of attack.
I don’t find this a convincing argument. This works as an argument for permitting lethal force to end a life-threatening attack. But once someone is already detained there’s no way that killing them meaningfully increases public protection over just keeping them locked up.
Yes, it does. are you familiar with the rules for perjury? Once someone lies under oath, everything they say gets thrown out. The logic being that others cannot know what words can be trusted; you are done as a witness.
For some crimes, everything they are should be thrown out, because society should not be burdened with the trust that these people will not commit another similar crime. Removing them from society protects the very fabric of our society: our trust in others.
Child rapists, serial killers… these fuckers need to die, or society learns that we catch and release such predators back into the world. Where they become someone’s neighbors. Are you willing to let them move into next door to you? You think keeping them alive protects society?
Pay for your work. An eye for an eye. Equivalent exchange. Justice for any crimes perpetuated.
Such are some timeless principles that brings fairness.
And to counter on Camus when he writes:
> that there is no proof that the death penalty ever made a single murderer recoil when he had made up his mind, whereas clearly it had no effect but one of fascination on thousands of criminals;
This is where he's wrong. Having such a law alters the calculus of people's decisions. It's a simple first principle. It's one net of many nets for would be offenders, if it alters even one of their minds it's worth it.
44 comments
[ 6.0 ms ] story [ 40.0 ms ] threadIf conditions in the west continue on this abysmal path I imagine a whole lot of people will be ejected from their houses and dealt with accordingly.
How to tell if it will be you? Go on Zillow and tell me if your house is worth more than $1M - if it is you might get decapitated just saying
This is a 1957 essay by Algerian-French philosopher Albert Camus.
With respect to Camus, I don't find anything particularly disagreeable about the points he made, but it is wholly irrelevant to my interest in the device, or its modern metaphorical relevance. Put simply: one's thoughts on capital punishment are distinct from one's thoughts on asymmetrical warfare, and that is where my mind goes to, and is preoccupied with, when discussing guillotines. If a class response to political binding is to purchase more and more political control, what option do we have that is not violence? And why should we prefer it? If the upper class doesn't care how their comfort causes lower class death, why should the lower class concern itself with how their response causes upper class death? Raise all boats with the tide or drown in the blood you're using to selectively raise your own boats. Seems straightforward to me. Not sure what's so hard for the stockholders to understand, here.
Anyway, yeah, your dad had a weak stomach and an imagination weak enough to not picture you as the kids that dude murdered (or didn't care enough about his future kids to develop bloodlust for the monster who did it). He's weak? He's a saint? We can give the government a monopoly on violence, but we can never give them the ability to execute its most permanent form, on account of the errors and prejudices of the humans whom make it up? Thoughtful. But I am distracted.
I’ve always thought this too. I saw a question once on Quora asking why the poor don’t rip the wealthy out of their houses and the top reply was “Nazi!” with hundreds of upvotes.
Just hilariously oblivious and completely out of reality - slinging high level politics insults while the hungry guy is sharpening his knife and thinking very different thoughts.
I think the relative rich have no clue what is coming.
PS you have a great writing style IMO
This seems odd because it usually goes the other way: people complaining about the rich typically tar them as the "Nazis". For people against destroying the rich, the usual epithet for those who want to do so would be "commies"...
My point is those with $1M+ houses (not even that rich) who will end up paying the price (not the billionaires) have NO IDEA what's coming to them.
That’s enough keyboard warriors for one day for me, going to bed. Hope you find some peace.
Yeah, no we can still want justice and not want to be horrified by the act of execution for the rest of our lives.
Or, I don't know, perhaps we can crush parts of their body one at a time. Or maybe set fire to their limbs one at a time. I mean, why not?
(And never mind that if The State could, even once, execute someone who is innocent, it renders capital punishment instantly null and void in my mind.)
Hard disagree. There are people who deserve death, and it is a good thing when it happens. It's just really dangerous to give the state such a power.
Not at all. There are kids murderers out there. Recently one in France raped and then killed an 11 y/o girl. Somehow he was free although he'd already been involved in rapes. It's a big thing: there are protests all over France asking for actual laws actually doing something about rapists and kid killers.
To me the guillotine for a kid killer is way too nice: I'd go full medieval style, breaking his arms and legs while he's rotating on a vice. Then cutting his balls. Then finishing it by using horses to dislocate his body.
They used to do that in the middle-age.
From A to Z I'd be thinking about the persons you don't care about: the victims.
The problem is, as someone else mentioned, as soon as you give the state the power to kill people, they'll abuse it.
But, deep down, the harsh truth is very simple: leniency to rapists and murderers is cruelty to the victims, to their family and to their future victims (like just happened in France).
All those begging for leniency for criminals have the blood of that 11 y/o girl who got raped and killed by a repeat offenders on their hands.
Not casually and not for "minor crimes" (by the standards of the time) like the killing of a child.
The overly performative hung, drawn, and quartering variations were reserved for high crimes of treason, regicide, etc.
Your comment is below the intellectual and interpersonal standard that makes HN a good place to be.
I don’t doubt your sincerity and I can abide your opinion, but you should be restrained in ascribing such points of view to others.
You should install an extension and tag certain accounts. You'll notice it's the same people doing it for years (and also constant 2 months old accounts, but that's a different issue).
And what exactly does the extra torture for the victim you care about? Is she better after the arm breaking or after the ball cutting?
I don't know any indicator that countries with death penalty have less victims or less crimes or less vicious crimes, or that added torture improves anything at all for past and future victims.
No, you are caring about you: you feel advocating for extra torture puts you in a better moral possition than people that defends a painless death penalty, or even worse, "only" life imprissoning, or those savages that would say "a mere" 20-25 years in jail.
There has been enough deaths of people that were wrongly judged, to add torture to the mix.
Anyway, there are a great many videos online of murders and other death scenes, and famously there were VHS tapes available pre-internet called "faces of death" showing such events. A great many people actively seek out and watch such things, seemingly with no negative reaction to them. So there are a lot of people who would presumably be even less affected by a guillotine execution than I was.
Even the video of the guy in 1800s Paris who thought he could fly off the Eiffel Tower - that video is haunting! It's on Wikipedia.
Somehow the videos that come back to haunt me aren't the most gory. I used to watch LiveLeak when it was around, and aside from those that are objectively disgusting (guts etc.) I was surprised at the ones that stuck with me.
Watching the accidents, especially car ones, prepares you somehow - or at least makes you (productively) more afraid. That's how I justify it watching this trash.
Camus believes that state sanctioned revenge just breeds more violence. The death penalty is not a deterrent, it is something that offends the senses, and it is ultimately served on the platter as a criminal getting their just punishment in revenge.
Either such a revenge is public, to declare that justice has occured, or it does not happen at all. What revenge is a secret and supressed lethal injection? By all accounts, revenge should be public and furious, it should be there for the victims to see.
>Indeed, one must kill publicly or confess that one does. not feel authorized to kill. If society justifies the death penalty by the necessity of the example, it must justify itself by making the publicity necessary (Camus).
Thus, revenge is not a sufficient reason for capital punishment due to the abhorence we have to see death in public. Camus adds that such public exetions only harden the ones who need to be softened and offend the soft. He uses the example of pickpockets. A large majority of pickpockets who were sentenced had viewed the execution of a pickpocket before. Revenge only perpetuates violence.
Camus doesn't think that a muderer _doesn't_ deserve a punishment, but rather that a murder in any case cannot be accepted.
As a framework - death penalty should be legalized when a majority members of the society support that as a punishment.
When applying that framework - it should be applied for the cases beyond any reasonable doubt.
Once you agree on these principles, all other details can be easily negotiated.
For some crimes, everything they are should be thrown out, because society should not be burdened with the trust that these people will not commit another similar crime. Removing them from society protects the very fabric of our society: our trust in others.
Child rapists, serial killers… these fuckers need to die, or society learns that we catch and release such predators back into the world. Where they become someone’s neighbors. Are you willing to let them move into next door to you? You think keeping them alive protects society?
Such are some timeless principles that brings fairness.
And to counter on Camus when he writes:
> that there is no proof that the death penalty ever made a single murderer recoil when he had made up his mind, whereas clearly it had no effect but one of fascination on thousands of criminals;
This is where he's wrong. Having such a law alters the calculus of people's decisions. It's a simple first principle. It's one net of many nets for would be offenders, if it alters even one of their minds it's worth it.