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#41 |
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Suicide is a term used to define the act of killing oneself. The definition does not include the intention. To me, one who kills himself with an intention OTHER than bettering society is not necessarily a sign that he/she thinks that they are worthless. For example: The suicide bombings in Iraq. These people aren't killing themself to better the world, and they clearly do not think they are useless. Suicide bombings are done strictly to kill others, so in a way you could say that these people have some sense of accomplishment. Not only that, but they feel that they are doing the right thing. What is right and wrong is based one one's (or a group of people's) opinions. In this case, the person commiting suicide thinks what he is doing is perfectly correct. We might think it's wrong to be killing other innocent people in such a way, but he obviously doesn't. To me, this could also be called an example of 'selfless sacrifice' but with a slightly different outcome.
Okay so that was awfully offtopic, but I felt the need to add that since you were talking about the whole idea of what makes suicide okay and not okay. =\
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Ananana: Girls are so complicated. That\'s why I\'m not a lesbian. Anuj: Marry me Karen XD Anuj: omfg somebody suck my wee wee >.< |
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#42 |
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deltro i don't fail, try and understand what i'm asking you fucktard i'm saying theoretically and morally, on the asusmption that they have no chance for improvement... *sigh* why didi I think intelligent debate could come from this source
ignore me i'm durnk
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#43 |
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... the point of my post is that everyone has the potential to stop sucking, apparently you didn't get that from my post fucktard
learn to read engrish gooder. |
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#44 |
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Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 9
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blahblah,
I am writing this post in the sincere hope that you will read through it, consider my points objectively, and respond to them in a level headed manner. I hope that I have not used forceful language, rhetoric, or made any implications on your character in this passage and further I hope that you do not take offense to anything that I have said. If you do, I assure you that I did not intend it. I think that you (just like everyone else here) have valid opinions. I disagree with you, but by that I mean that either we have different assumptions (which I think we do), not that you or I are better. I personally think that your assumptions might not be quite correct, but am interested in hearing more about your theory in order to more strongly base my conclusions. Note: I use caps in the following, but I do not mean them as shouting - I mean them as emphasis - I just didn't see the "bold" button above before I got through with writing the thing. --- Now, let me go point by point: "You should just kill yourself." What's your definition of "should" here? "Should" can mean many different things. For instance: "If you want to own a cat, you should buy one." - In this sentence, "should" means a causal obligation - you "should" buy one because without performing this action you will not have a cat. "If you want to make yourself happy, you should earn money." - In this sentence, "should" still means a causal obligation but also has the implicit assumption associated with it that earning money will make you happy. Since in this sentence "should" has an associated causal assumption we can call it a "value relation." I.e. it relates values - your happiness (a value) is implicitly related to money (a value) by the word should. Since you are an individual, this type of relation is also often Objective, meaning that it can be explicitly evaluated - "If you want to be unhappy, you should cut off your foot." - In this sentence, "should" implies a relation between negative values. Again, this is object because from a general standpoint cutting off one's food makes one less happy. The above 2 statements have to do with a form of morality based around objective valuations of actions w/r/t personal happiness. This is the definition of a system of ethics and is my own personal moral system. I believe that it is well defined and consistent and therefore is a helpful tool (though obviously not the only one) in helping me determine what I "should" do (see, I've defined my terms clearly!). Let's consider a statement of the type you've made: "[If you're homeless/worthless/etc.] You should just kill yourself." Well, now there are three ways I can personally think that you mean "should" (since you haven't clarified this point) - 1) You mean should in the personal happiness sense I used above (i.e. the homeless person will gain personal happiness by killing himself or herself). In this case, I think that your statement is incorrect. Personally, I do not gain a great deal of happiness from maximizing societal utility. I think that society kind of sucks at the moment and, even if it didn't, I have no interest in how happy the average person is or any other statistic related to societal happiness (except insofar as it effects me - for instance, I'll give to a worthy charity if I think that it will make a change since this will probably make everyone's, including my own, quality of life better). If a homeless person really cares about societal happiness statistics then by all means you are correct (however, I don't think this is what you meant by "should") - 2) The second case is that you mean "should" in the utilitarian sense (i.e. one should do that which maximizes global utility of society over a long or indefinite period of time). In this case, I think that you mean to imply a value relation between a person killing themself and society's utility. In short, you mean to imply that the death of the homeless person will increase the utility of society (or some other measure of societal "goodness" such as average happiness, average productivity, number of babies, etc.). Well, if this is your meaning of "should" (and I think that it is based on your statements) I have to disagree with you on a few grounds: a) In terms of actual utility of society - I don't believe that the actual utility of society or the effect of any action on it is actually possible to determine. Your claim is that homeless people are leeches on society, but if you step back for a moment and consider the bigger picture, there are many many many many much bigger leeches than homeless people - e.g. the US government, e.g. charities that lie and run away with profits, e.g. criminals, etc. etc. etc. There is no proof that a homeless person's suicide will provide positive benefit (maybe the smile on a homeless man's face There are a lot of costs to homeless-person suicide as well - society has to clean up/dispose of the bodies, society has to manage disease control procedures (since dead people rot), society has to deal with the psychological impact of seeing murders on the street, etc. etc. b) Even if we had some sort of societal-benefit-function f(ACTION) which maps actions to a number representing a gain or loss of global societal benefit (i.e. f is the first derivative of some global utility function GU(ACTION) -> net gain of society in terms of utility), and even assuming that this function were known to be positive when homeless people killed themselves, this is not to say that we can say ANYTHING about the behavior of the function outside of an incredibly small time period (what I'm trying to say here is that while the death of a homeless person might give society benefit for a short while there may be long term fringe effects which you have not considered - and I'm not saying that this is a flaw with your reasoning, what I am saying is that these fringe effects are incredibly difficult to figure out relative to the value of the function I described since they are essentially the same as predicting the future). An example of a fringe effect that homeless person suicide could have which is bad is the fact that homeless person suicide would most likely drop the property value in an area (who wants to live in a place that smells like rotting flesh, where you have to see suicide often, etc. homeless people are unpleasant, but dead homeless people are really unpleasant). This drop in property value would probably lead to conditions which would cause more people to become homeless -> global impact of the action = bad. c) Even if we knew that f(homeless person suicide) lead to an overall rise in the global utility function of society for all of time, your supposition that a homeless person "should" kill themself relies on a definition of morality that I do not quite understand - why should a homeless (or any other) person do anything to benefit society? You have not given a reason for this. And besides, what if that person ends up hurting society by giving some poor little girl a disease? d) One thing that you have to realize is that a large large number of homeless people (in the United States) are insane, suffer from a disease, and/or are addicted to drugs. This implies that we could lower the number of homeless people by trying to treat these problems before they take the dignity away from a person. This isn't an argument against your statement per se, but is moreover a fact which should be potentially included in your assessment of the situation. - 3) You intend "should" in a way that I don't understand - please explain it. Now, here's where I really disagree with you: I do not think that ANYONE should have an obligation to help homeless people. I.e. I don't think that you should be taxed and have that money given to homeless people. This actually does make the homeless into a leech (via the government) on society. However, if individual people want to give money to charitable organizations or directly to the homeless then more power to them. Those people are doing what they want with their money and are supporting others (which is the central theme of a capitalist society). So even assuming your doctrine of morality, it is shown that homeless people aren't a "leech" like social security, the War on Drugs, the CIA, etc. etc. etc. --- "Moreso you should have an Obligation to society to kill yourself." You posit the existence of societal obligation. I would be very interested in hearing your explanation of how that works. What does it mean to be obligated to society and when is one obligated to society? --- "First of all, you're draining from society and giving nothing back in return." Here you're messing with the activity of your verbs to give credence to your statement (logical fallacy). That is to say there is a difference between the following scenarios: i) I killed Jim with a butcher knife. ii) I couldn't help Jim because it would cost me $1000 and I needed the money. In both cases, I "killed" jim, but in the second case my role is much more passive. I think that this is the same case with homeless people. They are not "draining" society actively, they are doing it passively - i.e. people are freely giving them money. Further, the question comes up of whether things like your precious computer is a "drain" on society since that money could be going to make someone else much much happier than it makes you (see how the subjectivity of the universal societal utility function makes utilitarianism a floppy theory?) --- "No one will miss you since you have no one to miss, and probably most importantly, you've broken your part of the Social Contract." What's the social contract? I never signed no damned contract - well, except maybe for implicitly the constitution, but I'll be damned if there's anything related to societal obligation in there. --- "Government is protecting you and keeping you alive practically, and you're giving NOTHING back in return..." Same with subsistence farmers - note that income tax is a modern invention (c. ~1910) and government (and the protection it gave its citizens) existed before then - i.e. you don't pay taxes for government protection, it has other ways of getting money. (technically, you pay money for the government to protect your contracts, but that's a whole other question in itself). --- A personal anecdote - I live in Cambridge and go to the Boston Commons sometimes. There are homeless people there and one time one of them approached me. He was an alcoholic 8-10 years ago and had recently rebuilt his life by doing labor for people who offered to pay him and by taking donations from people. Eventually, he got his act together, got sober, went to live in a dry hostel (a place where you can go to live if you're homeless but have given up alcohol), and is now doing charity work to help other homeless people like himself who had a bad run of luck, fell into alcoholism, and want to recover. I thought that his story was especially touching and reflects the fact that homeless people are usually very sad but can be helped if you have the right method - I'll grant you that giving money to some homeless guy on the street isn't a good solution and neither is welfare, but there are good solutions (like dry hostels, places which find homeless people work, etc.) --- I hope to hear from you. I am genuinely interested in your responses and do not mean you any disrespect by my response to your question. I think that you have a system which a number of people adopt in some form or another, but I am not assuming that your system is the same as theirs and will give you the benefit of the doubt (for instance, I could say that your system is the same as Utilitarianism, but that wouldn't be giving you the credit you are due - besides, I don't know that your system is the same, maybe you have completely different arguments for your points that I have not considered). Bigsley |
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#45 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: I'm sad lost little puppy
Posts: 140
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Damn man, you should write a book! A book on drunk government hobos.
The homeless people that you say should kill themselves should just get jobs instead. That's what I've done, I hate working. Working is allmost as bad of a punishment as killing yourself and they would be benifiting society as well. If they work enough maybe they can dig there way out of the hole there in. Like killing two birds with one shotgun.
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I am not allowed to be happy for more than a half an hour. Otherwise strange things can happen. |
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#46 |
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A) I don't believe in anything I wrote.. as I STATED, it was merely a topic i was shooting around to use in a debate round, therefore IMPLYING that i'm simply looking at the matter on 1. a personal fun elvel to discuss , and 2. morally relativistic only so I can set any preset guidelines I want in describing the situation (thats moreso a reply to deltro who obviously didn't understand that)
B) the should is morally should, moral set being used most liekly would be John Locke's Second Treatise , specifically the Social Contract, which I'm not gonna go into huge detail about here... I just assumed people knew it, but reeeeal basically its that we enter a contract with government by allowing its creation... Government grants us the right to life, liberty, and property, and in return we sacrifice certain freedoms and guarantee a contribution to society. The gist of the argument therefore is that when a member in society no longer offers ANYTHING to society, then shouldn't he not be allowed to reap the benefits from the government that he put into place? The converse would be that if a government didn't give liberty to its citizens, then the citizens would be morally justified in overthrowing that government since it didn't hold up its end of the Social Contract (Quick Aside) Constitution was based off Social Contract, 3 biggest names in Social Contract are Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is very different from utilitarianism, because I'm not trying to claim that he kill himself for the betterment of other people , that just happens to be an external relation. The main concept is that he should kill himself since he is just mooching off society. One could replace kill himself by moving to a desert island for all I care, I just like to strike the point home with suicide to make it a more interesting discussion, and then leads into the muhc deeper philisophical issue of "Is suicide ever morally justified" which has been a centerpiece of philosophy for centuries. That's enough for now... hopefully this post clarified what was meant in the original one, and all the ignorant people will stop thinking they're so smart from flaming me when they clearly missed the boat (not Bigsley, since he wasn't retarded, but just responded based on the vein that the thread had taken)
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#47 | |
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Ok, so you're on this big speel about homeless people being a pain in the ass to society, and for that reason needing to die. They obviously have something to live for if they actually stand on the street and bear the embarassment for the money that "we throw at them in pity"... Secondly, he obviously doesn't want to die, or he would've though of that already. I believe that homeless people are well aware of what they have and what they lack...Therefore, there's obviously something he sees that you don't that prevents that as an option. Just because they're homeless, and you see them on the street doesn't mean you know their whole life story, or why they are that way. Not to mention, the way that you're acting right now, is the way that everyone acts to them, so why does he give a hell what benefits he takes from all of the other ass loads like yourself...Ever thought maybe it's not their fault that they're homeless..? (Don't respond to me with that half-witted bullshit of how they can do something about it...that's not always true) I feel like your classifying and judging, and I don't find it fair. If you didn't read the book, why should you make the ending?
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.so what. -Skooter- .drama makes life boring. |
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#48 | |
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Ananana: Girls are so complicated. That\'s why I\'m not a lesbian. Anuj: Marry me Karen XD Anuj: omfg somebody suck my wee wee >.< |
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#49 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: I'm sad lost little puppy
Posts: 140
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The U.S. government doesn't give me the right to live. It protects that right. Here in America we are supposed to be a government by the people and for the people. The ones who don't contribute are under no obligation, they are just ingrates. It's like the honor system. It may not be fair what the hypothetical human waste is doing to society, but society isn't allways fair either.
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I am not allowed to be happy for more than a half an hour. Otherwise strange things can happen. |
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#50 |
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Think of it this way; with the government system we have now, we can hypothetically say everyone deserves a chance to live regardless of wether or not they contribute to society.
However, being alive is often not enough to fulfill one's needs. One living on welfare still receives meal tickets, clothing donated by Salvation Army, etc... These things are given to ensure that said person is still capable of surviving. He is being fed, and somewhat well clothed. To us, this is obviously not enough. We go to school to gain an education. We work to make a living. Having an education gives you the knowledge you need to later on take a job when you become an adult. When you are an employed adult, you reap benefits for your hard work. You are paid a salary, and most jobs offer other benefits such as health insurance. etc... From that, I interpret it as the more you contribute, the more you gain. If the only thing you are doing is living on the streets, then all you really get it the privelege to live. All you're doing is living = 0. You're giving nothing = 0. 0 + 0 = 0. Nothing was taken away. Meaning, taking away one's life cannot be justified, because there's no subtraction. Okay so that last part didn't make hte least bit of fucking sense..... ignore it if you want, but that's just the way I see it :S
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Ananana: Girls are so complicated. That\'s why I\'m not a lesbian. Anuj: Marry me Karen XD Anuj: omfg somebody suck my wee wee >.< |
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#51 |
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FFR Player
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Sydney
Posts: 3
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But by actually taking from society (money going to feed the homeless, medical systems dealing with them, supplying beds, etcetera), they've just added a subtraction... if that makes sense. So now 0 + -10 = -10, therefore they are in debt. The whole point of this topic is whether when somebody is at the <0 stage whether they should kill themselves to balance it out. Nobody is saying anybody is worthless, it's a hypothetical situation. Often I feel that pensions should be removed, or old people 2 days from death should be kicked out of hospital (often elderly people in nursing homes are transferred to hospitals for a very few days before they die, leading to nothing but increased trauma for everyone involved and excessive strain on health systems). I really feel that natural selection should play a more important part in our society. Helping people beyond productive and reproductive ages or situations to survive we are actually placing an increased strain on those who are productive.
But I don't think anybody should feel obliged to kill themselves (except people who can't spell IQ, but then it doesn't matter to them). |
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#52 | ||
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You can take the arguement further by killing off the elderly. If you go on a strictly scientific view the meaning of life is to pass as much of your genetic material on to the next generation as possible. Well, if you can no longer have offspring then your life is pointless. Furthermore, the elderly are a drain on society politically and economically. Everyone knows with the increase age of americans and the growing elderly population due to the baby-boom generation maturing, us younger generations will be paying up the wazoo just to keep these living corpses breathing. Quite frankly I don't see what their purpose is to live, and maybe its not my business, but it becomes my business when I have to pay to keep them alive. I say they should stop being so selfish, realize the burden that they put upon the population, and croak already.
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#53 | |
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Not trying to bitch here but..
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You argue that since they are no longer to reproduce, their purpose/job in life has been fulfilled, therefor continuing to live is pointless. That is no different from saying "Oh okay I've retired now so I should go commit suicide since I am no longer going to contribute to society." Just because they are not giving to society, does NOT mean they lose the right to live.
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Ananana: Girls are so complicated. That\'s why I\'m not a lesbian. Anuj: Marry me Karen XD Anuj: omfg somebody suck my wee wee >.< |
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#54 |
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Why should society have to support them? Sounds a bit unfair, if you ask me.
And another thing: sterile people have no purpose in society, either. If society rids itself of the sterile, that could help slightly, too. The only thing as that although they cannot contribute to the SIZE of society, they can still be effective by working in a job. I can accept that, so long as it is an extremely demeaning job. Like, working at a sperm bank. Ouch. While we're at it, all peopole must LEGALLY produce children. All the ones that are defective ought be slaughtered. I'll leave it for you to judge where I was kidding and where I was not.
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#55 | |
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I guess you can't really relate the homeless with Bill Gates. If you WERE homeless, what would you do? I believe that you wouldn't try to kill yourself at first and try to find other reasons to. I think, if i was homeless i would probably go to my family begging for money, or if i have no family, i would just try to make new friends? :P Anyways, killing yourself is not a very good reason. Like our history teacher says: "WRITE TO GEORGE BUSH! HE WOULD ANSWER YOU FULL HEARTED!"
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![]() בקצה השמיים, ובסוף המדבר, יש מקום רחוק מלא פרחי בר מקום קטן, עלוב ומשוגע, מקום רחוק מקום לדאגה יש אומרים שם שמשיקרה וחושבים אל כל מה שקרה אלוהים שם יושב ורואה ושומר אל כל משברא אסור לקטוף את פרחי הגן אסור לקטוף את פרחי הגן ודואג ודואג נורא |
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#56 | |
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Qreepy's post brought another point to my mind. Imagine this scenario. You're on the road in your car, it's late. There's maybe only 3 or 4 cars ouside. The light goes green, and a pedestrian begins to make his way across the road. Suddenly, a drunk driver comes flying in and hits the pedestrian. This person is rushed to the hospital, and luckily doesn't die. Unfortunately, this person is now stuck in a coma(sp?) and when he will finally wake up is unknown. This person, is still alive, but is not doing anything for society, nor is he/she capable. Does this person deserve to die? NO. Why? Because this fully capable-of-contributing person became 'worthless' as you say it, over an innocent situation. Said person never did anything wrong, he crossed the street at a green light, and a drunk hit him. This person's life is completely left in the hands of fate, and yet doctors still continue to help the person to recover. Alot of homeless people are also hit with unfortunate events during their life. Divorce, being left by parents, parents with drinking and/or gambling problems. The list of possibilities continues. These people are homeless now, living on terribly filthy streets. They are too young to be able to contribute (legal working ages anyone?). So what do they do? If they have the least bit of class in them (For girls that is) they'll know better than to go become a prostitute/hooker. They would rather beg for money on the street, losing all self esteem that they could have possibly had before. These people's lives were struck with events beyond their control. Why should they pay the price of death, for the fault of others?
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Ananana: Girls are so complicated. That\'s why I\'m not a lesbian. Anuj: Marry me Karen XD Anuj: omfg somebody suck my wee wee >.< |
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#57 | ||
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Well, that brings me to another point. People that have genetic disorders should not be able to reproduce. Now these people can still cintribute to society, so it's unfair to kill them, but they should at least be sterilized. To healingvision's point: I never said they don't have the right to live. Sure they do, judt like I do. I'm saying if you want to live support yourself, like I support myself. Why should I pay to keep people alive that have no use to me or society? Your point about showing gratitude to the elderly is all about morals. Morals are a figment of your imagination, the less you have the better off you are (not always true obviusly; a generlization). Quite frankly this isn't a moral issue anyway, and if it were the elderly would say, "wow, look at what jackasses we are taking everyones' money and just sitting here on our asses playing euchre all day." I say contribute to society, in one way or another, or at least show the potential to, and you can stay. I don't care what you've done in the past, it should be a product of the present and beyond.
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#58 |
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You thought I was a GUY?!
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What about if what they give, keeps on giving? I'm going to drop a super-hypothecital extreme, just to fully prove my point.
If there was some guy who saved the world through some means, but now he is worthless to society, do we kill him? We all owe a debt to him that none of us, or our grandchildren can ever repay. In fact, he isn't useless. He becomes a role model to the population, not on his present deeds, but his past deeds. Although yes, I agree that someone should never say, "I did my duty, now I can mooch." The same can be said for a religious person. "I have been the best person for over 70 years, now with all that under my belt, one or two mass murders shouldn't matter." We can all see that that doesn't work. |
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#59 |
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Sterilization sounds like a fair comprimise, Maka.
And Karen, if they are in a coma or a vegetative state (lol Schiavo), WHY should they live? What good are they doing? I guess they are giving some hospital workers and nurses and doctors a little bit more work. But it really is not that necessary for them to have that extra bit of stress and workload, so off with the coma guy. Get him outta here. And it's not as if his family wants to see him in that shape, either. So, what good's he doing lying there, wasting money, and basically just being a burden? None. Doff him. The homeless should all learn cheap instruments and make cheap little street bands. I willingly give money to people like that.
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#60 | |
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Seen your member
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