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TwoToneTerran
United States8841 Posts
On January 01 2010 13:33 Draconizard wrote: And what precisely is the "value of human [sic]"? Who or what defines such value? No one truly can (as any person views their own life as invaluable, and thus has a skewed premise), and since human lives obviously have some intrinsic value that we can't properly equate due to personal bias, the fairest assumption is that human life is all invaluable. | ||
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StorkHwaiting
United States3465 Posts
On January 01 2010 13:15 TwoToneTerran wrote: You'd save your country money by killing anyone who his a deficit to your GDP, obviously, which would be akin to a prejudiced culling, ie Genocide. Money cannot equal human life. Also, I remember reading a couple years back about China's drug war failing due to the rampant power and wealth of druglords, but I could be wrong. But I doubt China is doing its absolute most to eliminate every drug threat in the country, else this guy would've never even had the opportunity to smuggle. I will admit to not being a scholar on the subject, but I thought you were above namecalling, StorkHwaiting. We used to agree so much in other threads. ): Lol sorry my fellow TLizen, I didn't mean to be rude to you. I will now hide behind the fact that I said LIKE a ninny rather than you actually are one. XD Honestly though, I have no strong feelings on it. Death penalty is rather inhumane, but I'm of the opinion that life in prison is just as inhumane. To me, it's a necessary evil. Something that ideally I wish never had to happen, but realistically I can't deny that it's necessary. Is it perfect? No. Do I have a better solution? Not at all. That's why I can't really call foul on it. Sort of like how democracy (as we know it in the modern world) is deeply flawed but it's better than most everything else we've come up with. I'm just waiting for someone to bring up a rational and effective alternate solution. Just being outraged doesn't do much for me. It seems like making a fuss for the sake of it. On the history of China. It's been a long standing policy since Mao's rulership that drug dealers were executed on sight. They've actually progressed some since then with a half hour trial lol. Before it was grab and shoot. And honestly, this isn't something like cherry picking criminals. If there's a guy they know is a drug dealer, they shoot him. Can the central government be held at fault if provincial/local/municipal authorities are corrupt? Not always. This is a very young nation here right now. 65 years is not a long time to establish efficient rule of law. Look at how America was 65 years after the constitution. Wild West would be a good example of how f-ed up things are before the gov't gets enough time to settle in and set up a good foundation. And this isn't an example of gov't just picking on some little guy. The Chinese gov't does not discriminate. They'll take the director of an entire department in the government and have him shot out back if they catch him being corrupt. China is sers no joke about this. They will execute high-ranking officials who got caught with their hand in the pot. It's not some corrupt dictatorship a la N. Korea running things in China. It's a semi-functional one-party government trying to clean up the mess that is their country after 250+ years of foreign conquest and civil war. Not an easy task. I'm def not some red-blooded China nationalist. There are some serious systemic issues over there. But I recognize that much of the government's failings are understandable when taken in context of the historical situation. This is not to say I condone or find their failings justified by history, ONLY understandable. They should change, they will change, it will just take a few more decades to get the job done. | ||
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intotherainx
United States504 Posts
On January 01 2010 13:15 n.DieJokes wrote: Wait, can we get back to the fact that they sentence a man to death for drug trafficking. That's insane, how is there even a discussion going on, they sentenced a man to [u]death[/u for drug trafficking! And this guy was an international citizen with questionable mental status but they just couldn't refrain from giving the motherfucking death penalty... for drug trafficking. I'm going to keep repeating that because if that doesn't alarm your sensibilities you don't understand the value of human. Heroin is bad, no disagreements here, but any argument where selling it should be punished by death is unbelievably flawed It's so painfully obvious to anyone who knows anything about the actual drug involved that you and everyone else arguing along this line has NO IDEA what heroine does. FOUR THOUSAND GRAMS OF HEROINE??? Do ANY of you guys have any CONCEPTION of what this means? I think the estimate of 28,000 lives destroyed or seriously impacted is probably accurate, or even underestimated. Heroine isn't just "bad," it fucking DESTROYS, and if you don't get that, don't make yourself look like a fool by talking about it. Using your own criteria of not harming lives, this decision was BY INCREDIBLY FAR the right decision. And anybody saying some kilos missing won't address the addiction problem is just wrong. Availability is a big factor (esp in Asian countries where it's rarer), and that much heroine will probably generate a large amount of new addicts. and lol i always love reading ignorant racist hate, keep it up guys | ||
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n.DieJokes
United States3443 Posts
On January 01 2010 13:25 BalliSLife wrote: What kind of drug lord would trust 4kg of heroin to someone mentally ill? seriously. Drug lord =! suave international business man. | ||
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TwoToneTerran
United States8841 Posts
On January 01 2010 13:35 StorkHwaiting wrote: Lol sorry my fellow TLizen, I didn't mean to be rude to you. I will now hide behind the fact that I said LIKE a ninny rather than you actually are one. XD Honestly though, I have no strong feelings on it. Death penalty is rather inhumane, but I'm of the opinion that life in prison is just as inhumane. To me, it's a necessary evil. Something that ideally I wish never had to happen, but realistically I can't deny that it's necessary. Is it perfect? No. Do I have a better solution? Not at all. That's why I can't really call foul on it. Sort of like how democracy (as we know it in the modern world) is deeply flawed but it's better than most everything else we've come up with. I'm just waiting for someone to bring up a rational and effective alternate solution. Just being outraged doesn't do much for me. It seems like making a fuss for the sake of it. Yeah, but Life imprisonment atleast allows eventual absolution so long as it's possible for the innocents. And if someone thinks life in prison too unbearable, I think it's reasonable that we allow them the dignity of choosing death over lack of freedom, I personally never would, because I fear death too much, but some are far braver than myself. On January 01 2010 13:36 intotherainx wrote: It's so painfully obvious to anyone who knows anything about the actual drug involved that you and everyone else arguing along this line has NO IDEA what heroine does. FOUR THOUSAND GRAMS OF HEROINE??? Do ANY of you guys have any CONCEPTION of what this means? I think the estimate of 28,000 lives destroyed or seriously impacted is probably accurate, or even underestimated. Heroine isn't just "bad," it fucking DESTROYS, and if you don't get that, don't make yourself look like a fool by talking about it. Using your own criteria of not harming lives, this decision was BY INCREDIBLY FAR the right decision. And anybody saying some kilos missing won't address the addiction problem is just wrong. Availability is a big factor (esp in Asian countries where it's rarer), and that much heroine will probably generate a large amount of new addicts. and lol i always love reading ignorant racist hate, keep it up guys It's a renewable and highly available resource. And I'm not saying we shouldn't stop drug trafficking, but we shouldn't shoot the guys who do it off the bat for the several reasons as spelled out in this thread (like those doing it being ill/young/uneducated and tricked into it, death penalty having no purpose short of killing for killing's sake, etc etc). I know it's a long thread but try to grasp the entire argument before picking and choosing little bits to lash out against. I'm not racist. =( | ||
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StorkHwaiting
United States3465 Posts
On January 01 2010 13:38 TwoToneTerran wrote: Yeah, but Life imprisonment atleast allows eventual absolution so long as it's possible for the innocents. And if someone thinks life in prison too unbearable, I think it's reasonable that we allow them the dignity of choosing death over lack of freedom, I personally never would, because I fear death too much, but some are far braver than myself. Trust me, life in a Chinese prison would be a fate far worse than lethal injection. FAR FAR worse. | ||
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TwoToneTerran
United States8841 Posts
On January 01 2010 13:39 StorkHwaiting wrote: Trust me, life in a Chinese prison would be a fate far worse than lethal injection. FAR FAR worse. I believe you, and maybe it is a slightly better alternative in that situation, but we are speaking a little bit in slightly idealistic terms, here. Obviously prisons should be maintained sensibly etc etc. How shitty a prison is shouldn't really factor into the purely philosophical reasoning of it! It'd be nice if we could fix up China a lot, but that's a long ways away. :o Hell it'd be nice if we could fix up USA while we're at it. >:[ | ||
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Draconizard
628 Posts
On January 01 2010 13:35 TwoToneTerran wrote: No one truly can (as any person views their own life as invaluable, and thus has a skewed premise), and since human lives obviously have some intrinsic value that we can't properly equate due to personal bias, the fairest assumption is that human life is all invaluable. What an absolutely ridiculous statement. If I hadn't read through some of your other posts here, I would have immediately assumed you to be trolling. I do not consider my own life invaluable (not even close), and I certainly consider others' lives not to be either. How could any decision involving risks to human lives be made properly if the value of those lives were set to infinity by default? The world does not operate in such a manner, and more importantly, it should not operate in such a manner. | ||
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TwoToneTerran
United States8841 Posts
Would you put a numeric value on your life? If you put your net worth and prospective future net worth down on paper and could give that money to anyone you felt like, would you die to do it? Don't just shoulder these questions and quickly toss yes's and no's at it -- truly imagine that you, as a thinking breathing being, will no longer be here. Everything you've become is puffed out of existence. It's a truly grim fact of life. I know there is religion and such to help cope with death, but would you truly and honestly let yourself die for any of these things? If so you're a much stronger person than I am. It's not an unreasonable GENERALIZATION. To most people, atleast, their personal life is fairly invaluable as far as money and philosophy is concerned. There are those who sacrifice themselves to save other lives, and those are truly great people. But, even they only sacrifice themselves for something else invaluable -- another person's life. Maybe you can easily tag a value to human life, but I honestly can't. | ||
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intotherainx
United States504 Posts
On January 01 2010 13:38 TwoToneTerran wrote: Yeah, but Life imprisonment atleast allows eventual absolution so long as it's possible for the innocents. And if someone thinks life in prison too unbearable, I think it's reasonable that we allow them the dignity of choosing death over lack of freedom, I personally never would, because I fear death too much, but some are far braver than myself. It's a renewable and highly available resource. And I'm not saying we shouldn't stop drug trafficking, but we shouldn't shoot the guys who do it off the bat for the several reasons as spelled out in this thread (like those doing it being ill/young/uneducated and tricked into it, death penalty having no purpose short of killing for killing's sake, etc etc). I know it's a long thread but try to grasp the entire argument before picking and choosing little bits to lash out against. I'm not racist. =( I read the entire thread, thanks for assuming. Not saying we should shoot anybody, just saying that 4000 grams of heroine does a lot more than you idealistic ragers think. Also, in terms of their expressly stated criteria (valuing human lives), that the importing of heroine outweighs one British supposedly bipolar guy. Try to grasp the entire argument before picking and choosing little bits that weren't even in my post to lash out against. and i wasn't talking about you, i love the "CHINA = COMMUNIST" and "US = RETARDED EGOCENTRICS" on both sides. i have a weird sense of humor (: | ||
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TwoToneTerran
United States8841 Posts
And yes, I know about drugs harming peoples' lives. I've experienced it first hand (albeit much less severely than the truly impoverished), and for that, I believe this man should've been imprisoned for quite some time until absolved (though I think life imprisonment is too harsh, especially if he was honestly mentally unaware of the situation), but not killed. No one should be killed when they are in custody and pose no threat to the outside world. To kill someone by the state you must catch them, and once you catch them, short of gross incompetence, they pose no harm to others, and thus shouldn't be disposed of. I'm not raging, though. =\ It's a shame you think I'm lashing out in anger. I've dealt with this argument very often and am completely understanding of it. Myself and my father, who disagree greatly on this very subject, used to have long conversations about it. I'm just doing my best to help others understand my points, because I believe they are very strong and well thought out points. | ||
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StorkHwaiting
United States3465 Posts
On January 01 2010 13:42 TwoToneTerran wrote: I believe you, and maybe it is a slightly better alternative in that situation, but we are speaking a little bit in slightly idealistic terms, here. Obviously prisons should be maintained sensibly etc etc. How shitty a prison is shouldn't really factor into the purely philosophical reasoning of it! It'd be nice if we could fix up China a lot, but that's a long ways away. :o Hell it'd be nice if we could fix up USA while we're at it. >:[ That's my general point. I find it rather ineffective to cry out against a lot of the things that are just a fact of life. If someone had a proposal or some plan to action, I'd be interested. But just bashing China isn't going to fix anything. It happens in many threads and the solution is to help China economically and politically. Half the reason they do things in such a roughshod manner is because they're not yet politically mature/capable as a government. Trying to tear the current government down or undermine it by making the citizens rebellious doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Rather, helping the government and providing it with the advisers/specialists that can help China establish a better rule of law/judicial system etc would be vastly more helpful. Like I said before, this isn't N. Korea here. China sends their best to Western countries to try to learn how things are done. They try to implement some of the systems and techniques of other countries. They're very open to improving their country. That's why I don't understand the bashing. The problem is their own citizens aren't quite ready for it. Just like Americans aren't ready for civil rights like gay marriage just yet, even though morally and ethically it's repugnant that it hasn't occurred. Take a look at some footage of how Chinese citizens are. You tell them to stay home to avoid the spread of SARS because you're trying to contain an epidemic. What do Chinese people do? They all fucking come out, walk around, try to go to the doctors, when half of them aren't even sick. They just want to screw around coz they think they know better. Culturally, Chinese are just not a very obedient body of citizens and they have a great distrust of government. That's what happens when you have two centuries of really inept governance. Trying to overthrow the Chinese gov't isn't going to fix that. It's damn near a miracle that China's even held it together as well as they have. And it's still a pot that's close to boiling over. A lot of the stuff I see China condemned for happens out of necessity rather than some deliberately malicious tyranny. Tiananmen was hotly debated by Chinese leaders before they finally gave the go-ahead to put down the protests. There was a lot of internal wrangling among the top brass. And the guy who pulled the trigger on it was Deng Xiaoping AKA the father of Chinese capitalism. One of the most liberal Chinese leaders. And he didn't do it because he liked to see his people get squished by tanks. Honest. It's more like he did it because he'd lived through the Chinese civil war and in his mind, a few hundred dead college students is better than the possibility of a repeat civil war, in which many millions died only a few decades ago. A big reason why a lot of Chinese people get really nationalistic is because they feel on the defensive. Yo, when your history classes are full of factual examples in recent history of other nations beating the hell out of your people and raping your country for natural resources/trade surpluses, you tend to get wary of their motives. When the USA doesn't send aid other than corporations who want to invest (AKA put Chinese children to work in NIKE sweatshops) and is constantly throwing up articles in the media to try to slander China, that tends to make Chinese citizens defensive. When the Pentagon draws up plans to invade/conquer/neutralize China, that tends to make Chinese people think the USA is not friendly. When the US sends warships up and down the Taiwan Strait... etc. When the USA has spyplanes get shot down ... etc. I think it's kind of perverse that Americans enjoy their consumerist lifestyles of luxury due in very large part to the cheap labor of Chinese workers and the nigh endless financing of US debt by Chinese capital, yet want to turn around and bash China a ton and throw their lofty ideals in China's face. It reeks of hypocrisy. Yes, if everyone was born in a country that was able to reap the profits of empire building, conquest, and financial hegemony, I'm sure they too would have lots of highfaluten ideas about what should and shouldn't occur in the world. Sadly, people in other countries are too busy gluing the rubber soles on sneakers and getting brain damage from the fumes to sit down and think on all these weighty matters and cast an opinion onto the waves of the Internet. | ||
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Draconizard
628 Posts
On January 01 2010 13:47 TwoToneTerran wrote: You are framed for a crime that, if guilty, results in the death penalty. Is your life, to you, worth losing so long as the death penalty keeps on killing bad guys? Would you put a numeric value on your life? If you put your net worth and prospective future net worth down on paper and could give that money to anyone you felt like, would you die to do it? Don't just shoulder these questions and quickly toss yes's and no's at it -- truly imagine that you, as a thinking breathing being, will no longer be here. Everything you've become is puffed out of existence. It's a truly grim fact of life. I know there is religion and such to help cope with death, but would you truly and honestly let yourself die for any of these things? If so you're a much stronger person than I am. It's not an unreasonable GENERALIZATION. To most people, atleast, their personal life is fairly invaluable as far as money and philosophy is concerned. My statements had nothing to do with the death penalty. They were general comments about the supposed value of human life. Certainly, I would readily put a price on my own life, as I would for any life. The precise tabulations may prove arduous, and there may be some haggling over the details, but there's no metaphysical barrier that prevents it from being done. The entire insurance industry does this on a daily basis, after all. Why all the fear of eventual nonexistence? It is one of the absolute constants that binds all members of humanity together, regardless of creed or origin. How many individuals have sacrificed their lives throughout history so that either other individuals or some cause could benefit? They must surely number into the millions. | ||
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TwoToneTerran
United States8841 Posts
If you don't fear nonexistence, then why aren't you risking your life on an hourly basis? Self preservation is important to continue growth of the species, to be frank, and from a personal perspective, I want to keep on keeping on as long as I can, because, frankly, I enjoy living. Most people do. The ones who don't tend to tally our suicide numbers, I'd imagine. StorkHwaiting: Man you just made me all depressed. I know, the world sucks, but I can still be all philosophical without being terrible, can't I? =\ | ||
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Draconizard
628 Posts
On January 01 2010 14:08 TwoToneTerran wrote: Into the millions. So less than a tenth of a percentile of people? That's pretty rare, if you ask me. If you don't fear nonexistence, then why aren't you risking your life on an hourly basis? Self preservation is important to continue growth of the species, to be frank, and from a personal perspective, I want to keep on keeping on as long as I can, because, frankly, I enjoy living. Most people do. The ones who don't tend to tally our suicide numbers, I'd imagine. StorkHwaiting: Man you just made me all depressed. I know, the world sucks, but I can still be all philosophical without being terrible, can't I? =\ Don't circumvent the topic by concentrating on the number. You, as well as everyone else for that matter, do risk your life on an hourly basis. Everything one does is a calculated risk. Perhaps you should refrain from crossing the street in the near future? I'm sure there are statistics out there that cite the likelihood of you getting run over at a specific time and place. If you truly valued your own existence as infinite, which you obviously do not despite your protestations, you would never partake in this or any other countless number of mundane activities with the slightest amount of risk attached. You already have an internal value of your own life, and it is most certainly not infinite. | ||
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n.DieJokes
United States3443 Posts
On January 01 2010 13:36 intotherainx wrote: It's so painfully obvious to anyone who knows anything about the actual drug involved that you and everyone else arguing along this line has NO IDEA what heroine does. FOUR THOUSAND GRAMS OF HEROINE??? Do ANY of you guys have any CONCEPTION of what this means? I think the estimate of 28,000 lives destroyed or seriously impacted is probably accurate, or even underestimated. Heroine isn't just "bad," it fucking DESTROYS, and if you don't get that, don't make yourself look like a fool by talking about it. Using your own criteria of not harming lives, this decision was BY INCREDIBLY FAR the right decision. And anybody saying some kilos missing won't address the addiction problem is just wrong. Availability is a big factor (esp in Asian countries where it's rarer), and that much heroine will probably generate a large amount of new addicts. and lol i always love reading ignorant racist hate, keep it up guys Actually I'd rather not, TwoToneTerran can handle it | ||
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TwoToneTerran
United States8841 Posts
You're playing semantics way too hard. I can't put a price tag or a proper concept on the value of mine or anyone's life. | ||
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StorkHwaiting
United States3465 Posts
On January 01 2010 14:08 TwoToneTerran wrote: Into the millions. So less than a tenth of a percentile of people? That's pretty rare, if you ask me. If you don't fear nonexistence, then why aren't you risking your life on an hourly basis? Self preservation is important to continue growth of the species, to be frank, and from a personal perspective, I want to keep on keeping on as long as I can, because, frankly, I enjoy living. Most people do. The ones who don't tend to tally our suicide numbers, I'd imagine. StorkHwaiting: Man you just made me all depressed. I know, the world sucks, but I can still be all philosophical without being terrible, can't I? =\ Lol sorry to lay that on you buddy. I think you're well within your rights wax philosophical, just always do it with the humility of knowing that you are priviliged to have a better understanding of the world around you because you were lucky to be born into a country and family that has allowed you that luxury. And that many of the people/governments/etc that you find fault with were not as lucky as you are. Personally, I try to say that ethically I can envision there is another way, but realistically I understand the stresses they made their decisions under and that it is the rare government which does things purely out of evil/ignorance. There are regimes of evil out there, but quite often even those were created by the evils of others. N. Korea is one of them. Saddam's Iraq was another one of them. These countries are victims of the power struggles of greater nations and I pity them more than condemn them. Then there are the countries that are trying to do their job, trying to improve the quality of life of their people, and sometimes it's just a damn hard job. | ||
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StorkHwaiting
United States3465 Posts
On January 01 2010 14:23 n.DieJokes wrote: Hmm where to start, heroine prevention is important because heroin is an addictive and dangerous drug and any reduction of it's availability is a step in the right direction; everyone agrees with that. Thats not the issue you here even if you'd like it to be because obviously you'd be right. The dealer doesn't force the user to use drugs, he enables their drug use; he doesn't actively "destory 28,000 lives" and to attribute that solely to the dealer is absurd fallacy. My criteria is not "harming human life", that's your criteria. My criteria is human life has invaluable intrinsic worth and can't be taken away as retribution for X amount of damage done. Moreover, jail is not beneficial, when you put someone away you aren't helping them; its punishment for his wrong. But what a drug trafficker does is not murder, he doesn't deserve a death penalty. Other problems with your post; 1) 4,000 grams of heroine is 4kilos, we can all do the conversion; your trying to exaggerate its severity by misrepresenting the units and it's a stupid tactic. 2) I don't see any "racist ignorant hate" but if you want to victimize yourself that's cool I guess I think the difference in opinion here is that the execution was not in retribution. Rather it was a preventative to further drug trafficking. They weren't "punishing" the drug dealer. They were making an example of him. It might not help the drug dealer, but perhaps it would help the billion+ people in China who might have been affected by access to heroin or entertained the notion of taking up the drug trade. A similar analogy in my mind would be Martha Stewart being sent to jail for insider trading. OK she was financially unethical. She cheated the system. Does this warrant jail time? She was fined MUCH more than she profited by the illegal trade. I think it's a somewhat odd notion to say that the "punishment" for breaking a law should be the direct equivalent of damage or losses done by the crime itself. That may be poetic justice but it doesn't make for a very sound judicial system. | ||
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ProbeSaturation
Canada292 Posts
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