Murder IS the human condition: Philosophy Forums

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Murder IS the human condition
murder is natural for man, not a deviation from his humanity

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Murder IS the human condition

123savethewhales
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Posted 07/07/09 - 08:05 PM:	#21
sparrowminded wrote: You can say "disposable human beings" if you want. You can say there's a gardener if you want. I don't agree that I appoint myself as that. We get so far into this stuff that we zoom right past the basis of everything, which is natural selection. That's one obvious example of how to run things. In a social extension of natural selection, it would be very easy to reduce everything to a kind of social balance. Let's say that our John Doe example dropped out of public school in the 10th. grade. Within 7 months, he was in prison for a minor felony. He got out, and 14 months later, he was jailed for several lesser crimes, which led to a warrant search, and landed him more time for another felony. He gets out after 2 years, and within weeks, he is killed by rival gang members. He has proven that he has no intention of contributing anything to society. He has proven that he intends to remain a burden on all of us for as long as he lives. He won't be missed. OF COURSE social science has come far enough to enact a program where eligible parents can be distinguished from people who have dysfunctional backgrounds. If I was raised by a single, crack addicted mother who entertained several "boyfriends" a week, and didn't care a whole lot if I got fed, or bathed or schooled, would anyone claim that I had been trained to be a decent parent? Would anyone claim that any degree of respect for life had been instilled in me? If we could prevent people from having to live in this way by preventing birth in such households, wouldn't that serve everyone better? -including, and maybe especially the people who had been spared that fate? Why is it so hard for some to contribute to this sort of discussion? We are in a non-sustainable social fix right now, and it cannot be improved unless we improve it. Right now, the US maintains the highest per capita prison population in human history. We maintain the highest per capita divorce rate in human history. Do we see a pattern? The US is producing the highest per capita number of dysfunctional human beings that has ever existed. What is your CONTRIBUTION? While you continue to point out individual cases of people who you don't mind seeing dead, you have yet to back up how an entire community of people must be the same. Even the most rundown ghetto still got hard working Americans taxpayers with jobs. They might not be anything high end, even minimum wage, but at least they work hard for a honest living. I have not known of any case where gang violence "fixes" itself, nor do their number stabilized/decline if left unchecked. Rather it seems that the more influence gang has, the more "territory" they process, and the more members they are able to recruit to replace those who "die in action", which increases their influence.... While you might care less about the gang member who die, what is our law for if we don't even bother to arrest the murder? Is law exclusive to honest tax payers while crooks run free? What message are you sending to criminals if they can get away with murders? If that's not what you have in mind, then you would have little choice but to have the police deal with the worst of the ghettos and scums. It then becomes not only a social problem for those who lives there, but every tax payer within the city. Not that I believe that the US somehow creates the most dysfunctional human beings. Or that there's anything strange about our rise in prisoners and divorces base on how or law system/economic system is today. Edited by 123savethewhales on 07/07/09 - 08:11 PM
Keep it simple.

sparrowminded
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Posted 07/08/09 - 03:01 AM:	#22
Anyone can pose an argument. What is your contribution? I keep asking that, and all is see is more argument.... The fact is that we will be experiencing huge reductions in human population. Much of that will be due to murder, when various other conditions come into play. They will. I don't believe that murder is so much the human condition as I believe that we are distinctly aware of it. No other species is so motivated by power and greed, or jealousy/envy, and no other species maintains a vendetta against it's own members to the point of murder and genocide. It will not be long before we see all of this come into play, with food, water and other resources as the subjects. Who will live? Ultimately, those who are most willing to murder.
Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Therein lies the Peace of God.

123savethewhales
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Posted 07/08/09 - 11:35 AM:	#23
sparrowminded wrote: Anyone can pose an argument. What is your contribution? I keep asking that, and all is see is more argument.... The fact is that we will be experiencing huge reductions in human population. Much of that will be due to murder, when various other conditions come into play. They will. I don't believe that murder is so much the human condition as I believe that we are distinctly aware of it. No other species is so motivated by power and greed, or jealousy/envy, and no other species maintains a vendetta against it's own members to the point of murder and genocide. It will not be long before we see all of this come into play, with food, water and other resources as the subjects. Who will live? Ultimately, those who are most willing to murder. Why would people post their "contribution" given that they disagree with your premises to begin with? You believe that the US produce the highest per capital number of dysfunctional human beings, I don't. There's nothing to contribute. While I also predict that human population will stabilize and go on the decline, it will have much less to do with murder and much more to do with our economic system heavy reliance of education. Children back in the days often die during childbirth/early years. They can start helping out on farms and age 6 and they cost a lot less to maintain. It makes having as much kids as possible a good idea (and it still is in many developing countries). In developed countries, you would have to pay for their food, their toys, their education, etc, for at least 18 years. If your kid happens to make it to college, make that 23. Children also stop dying during childbirth/early years. Now surely there will still be people who held onto dying traditions and have 10 kids, but as it stands now, on average all developed countries are on a population decline. It shouldn't take more than 2 generations for China and India to face the same phenomenon if they can achieve economic stability without collapsing on itself. When it comes to animals killing each other to gain status, you should watch hippos and chimps. They will kill within their own groups just to get ahead, and would not take a second to think about rather or not to kill an outside male. Or take lions, a rogue male will come in in attempt to kill the existing alpha male. If he wins, he will take over the group of females while killing off all the lion cubs so the females would have to bear his children. Human as far from the most violent creatures internally. Only thing that makes us different is that we have weapons that makes killing easy. Having one person with a dysfunction brain and an automatic weapon is enough to ensure a massacre.
Keep it simple.

Willowz
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Posted 07/09/09 - 12:45 AM:	#24
123savethewhales wrote: You believe that the US produce the highest per capital number of dysfunctional human beings, I don't. There's nothing to contribute. Why believe? Look at your Almanac or whatever. Let the numbers speak for themselves.
This song will prepare you for a good smile.

sparrowminded
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Posted 07/09/09 - 12:49 AM:	#25
Hmmm... When I post to an existing thread, I try hard to keep my comments in some kind of view of the original post. It doesn't matter one whit whether you agree with the facts. Believe whatever you want to. There are more facts that your little proposals ignore, which make them fantasy. For one, as populations decrease, they become disproportionate, with way too many older people depending on social services and pensions that the younger work force simply cannot provide. For another, humankind is much too predisposed to war for any of your illusions to have merit. There are several powerful bodies in competition this very moment, vying for who gets to rule the world. They all have agendas that include some manner of decreasing the planetary population by at least 35%. We might like to believe that mankind is evolving away from genocide, but historic indicators tell us that this tendency has been on the rise. It will culminate at some point, and one can surmise that humankind will eventually evolve away from murder/genocide, but we have more like the next 50,000 years to look at in that regard, rather than the very brief lull since WWII. But it is certainly not for me to educate you. Seek out the truth for yourself. If you need web links and reading references, let me know.
Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Therein lies the Peace of God.

Tenkamuteki
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Posted 07/10/09 - 10:22 PM:	#26
I see murder as more of a ripple effect of other emotions that are natural. The cost of those emotions are before and after and are so much more then being able to "kill" someone. Its because of the emotions that a person is driven to that point and the power used to achieve your goal leaves scares on those same emotions. Violence is from a world without hope and built on fear as in other parts of the world where death is common place. As for statistics placing the US on the top of a murder ticket depends on the relevence of who, how many, where and in what context did those numbers get taken. How informed were officials about current events and who did the search what's his background how many were involved who's missing etc. etc. Stats are normally based upon known information, but warfare death isnt murder and the amount of variables that stack upon themselves make me question that sort of statement. A alternative reason for hiding a body is to send a message as in some cases the more public a murder is would also be a message, but that is more about what context did the murder take place. Fear motivates and maybe some of the situations what a person fears is hard to understand, but there's a lot more then death that people fear, example being closure. Street justice is right and wrong in the same breath and I couldnt honestly say I believe one way over the other. The one thing I do know is the cost of it is high and the reality is if by chance you survive by strength of power to murder them before you and make it through to be the last man standing is a scary thought. In those cases you are sometimes the most suprised you actually did. Now that those distractions of staying alive are gone you get time to reflect and I wouldnt be able to cope. The reason I dont murder or even consider the fact is the thing I fear is seeing people as dead already because what does that make me? So the reasons that make the arguement for murder being a human condition are also the same reasons why everyone doesnt commit murder.

John Kievlan
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Posted 07/13/09 - 12:15 PM:	#27
A couple of comments: Firstly, I think people are largely missing the point of the OP (or maybe I am, but if so I think the OP should have been making a different point ). It's not so much a question of which (or how many) people commit murder, or who is murdered, as of the reasons that a mentally-stable murderer commits murder while I (also mentally stable, I hope) do not. Specifically, is it the case that if, instead of living my life, I had lived the murderer's life up to the point he/she did the deed, I would have chosen not to murder? If so, why would I have chosen differently? Genetics? Personal revelation perhaps? Upbringing is not relevant because one's upbringing is part of the network of causes that presumably contribute to a choice to commit murder. There would have to be some essential difference, not dependent on life experiences, that differentiates a murderer from a non-murderer. If, on the other hand, in all cases a person living that life chooses to murder, then it seems reasonable to conclude we are all equally predisposed to murder but have simply managed to avoid situations where we would violate that particular moral prohibition. Even in the lesser case that many (but not all) apparently normal people would have committed the murderous act, it follows that there are many murderers living among us that simply have not yet expressed their murderous nature. If that is so, then it's problematic to distinguish between murderers and non-murderers as if there were some essential difference, especially if we consider it unjust to judge a person for acts not yet conceived of. Secondly: sparrowminded, it seems to me that you're suggesting that murderers and murder victims share the general traits of being (1) disposable and (2) predisposed to murder one another. You also seem to be suggesting this isn't necessarily a bad thing. I tend to agree broadly with some of the things you're saying here (especially your comments on regulating the right to raise children) but I think you go too far to suggest that some portions of the human race are disposable. Suppose we grant that you're correct that murders are generally morons killing morons (understanding "morons" to be "those who don't contribute" and setting aside the problems with defining "non-contribution" given that the value of one's contribution largely depends on what jobs are available to be done). What reason do we then have to assume that morons being killed means fewer morons, in the long run? In at least two particular cases, "morons killing morons" is a HUGE problem for society: 1) Criminal morons might be killing non-criminal morons (bums, welfare moms, etc.). In that case the criminal population might thrive (due to decreased non-criminal competition), increasing murders in general, which means more social contributors murdered (since at least some murders involve morons killing non-morons). 2) Far worse, it might be the case that the percentage of morons in a society is more-or-less directly related to social factors rather than individual proclivities. If so, then morons killing morons just makes room for more non-morons to become morons and join the killing spree. Your garden analogy only works because dandelions are not only not lilies, but are fundamentally incapable of being lilies. It is difficult to argue that children of non-contributors are fundamentally incapable of being contributors; rather, it appears that they simply do not often become contributors due to their environment. So revise your analogy thus: is it a problem for the garden if the least beautiful lilies are regularly being killed? Perhaps not, if the garden is overcrowded -- but it certainly isn't a given that it's not a problem. Perhaps the garden is short on lilies, which means that every lily is valuable. But your garden analogy falls short in another important respect: it assumes that the only reason we have moral thought is to ensure the health of humanity as a whole. I do not think you really believe that, and here is why: Let's assume you're a mechanical engineer. Suppose that tomorrow all the morons killed each other and we had only contributors in society, and the next day somebody invented a machine that could design any machine better than the best human engineer. Who is the non-contributor then? Answer: you are. Would you agree that if that happened, it wouldn't be a problem for anybody if you and your fellow engineers got killed off by some politician? My point is that it is a problem for everyone if anybody can be judged unimportant enough to be "disposable", in that anybody can become unimportant at any time due to forces outside their control. It may not be a problem for the human race in terms of our long-term survival -- but it's certainly a huge danger to any individual human. I.e.: just because the gardener might not mind if un-needed lilies die, that doesn't make it rational for the lily to believe that.

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