That is a very good point - thank you for bringing it up. You are right.

I hope this death was enough for the rich people to realize that they need to change, and that no more people will die. I presume that’s something we can agree upon.

Yes, I understand. It is really really gray and complicated here. I’m very conflicted here - on one hand, murder is always a death of a human being who could improve and also has good sides, see my parent comment. On the other hand, exactly as you write sometimes the death of a person means that others will survive.

My point is that no person deserves to die BECAUSE OF WHO THEY ARE - that’s exactly what the Nazis did. But I absolutely understand the ethical argument that people deserve to die for WHAT THEY DO. If you cannot stop a greedy CEO otherwise (because the judicial system is maybe a little tiny bit biased towards the rich), there really isn’t another choice for fulfilling your rights. And I can honestly respect your argument that in this case, murder may be an overall good thing. I don’t know where the line for me is, to be honest - but I acknowledge that is has to exist somewhere.

I hope you understand though why from my perspective the dragon metaphor is a bit too simple, because as our thread shows the topic isn’t easy at all :/

This doesn’t work here, because by death of the CEO the insurance of the USA probably won’t be switched to a public healthcare. The dragon will continue eating people, simply with a different head.

That is actually a very interesting take, thank you for sharing.

For me, it was always clear that actions do not define us as people. I never thought that people might see it differently.

I think it is important to distinguish the term value here. I hope we both agree that every person has dignity. I live in Germany, and the first sentence of our Constitution is “Human dignity shall be inviolable.” That means that I do not have the right to judge a persons value as a person - the Nazis were a famous example for doing that. That’s why in today’s judiciary system, at least in Germany, we e.g. do not lock people away forever: a person always has the chance to improve, work upon themselves, and get out of prison. The prison time can be extended into infinity, if a person poses a threat to society - but if they don’t, they can get free. Their value to society may be close to zero, perhaps negative - but they still possess value and dignity as a human.

This guy was subtracting value from society, and his value to you and me was probably negative. But it still is different than a humans internal value. To murder a person is to take their internal and external value, and to break their dignity. This is something which is not compatible with my consciousness.

Yes, good point. I agree. Maybe there’s also a difference in perception of these tales, because when a dragon is slain the people can regain their wealth. In this case though, the wealth of the CEO doesn’t get transferred to the people. Buuut one can argue that we have an inheritance tax, thus part of his hoarded money WILL get transferred to the people, in which case the murderer is actually returning the wealth to the people and the dragon metaphor isn’t that invalid after all. It gets very quickly very murky ethically. I presume that while the wealth is parked away in some off-shore, probably some of it at least will return to the State. A lot depends though on the tax rate, how exactly the taxing goes, who does it,…

Long story short - this guy was way too rich, no question asked. That’s for sure.

I agree with everything you say, up until the last sentence. Probably as a disclaimer, I study psychology and want to become a clinical psychotherapist. I deeply believe that no person wants to be bad. In fact, I am of the utmost conviction that every person has the potential to become a better person than they are right now. That does not absolve him of his crimes - in fact, it is quite the contrary: he chose to go down the path of evil and to condemn people to die. But that doesn’t mean that he cannot ever change to become better. It is a part of my life philosophy that every person can heal. Obviously many people won’t do so - this guy DEFINITELY would’ve had the chance to go to a psychotherapist himself, for sure. But that does not mean that he deserved to die. My argumentation is heavily based on Albert Ellis (one of the founders of cognitive-behavioural therapy) and REBT. In short, Ellis said that our actions do not determine us as whole human beings. The fact that we often act badly doesn’t make us bad human beings, nor does the fact that we act well makes us good. We are simply humans, and to judge us means putting yourself in the shoes of a God. We can and should judge our actions, by all means - but we are far, far more than actions. To judge a person as a whole is a position I do not want to take. And even though this guy wanted to see himself as a God, I personally want to stay human and recognize that he is and was a broken spirit and a human, just as you and I are. Even though he might have wanted to discard his humanity, he still is and stays human.

Tl;Dr - terrible actions, has committed countless crimes. But his actions don’t determine his worth as a human. Thus I do not want to say that he deserved to die, nor that he was evil as a human.

I disagree. Still thank you for replying - I appreciate it. It got me thinking about my personal position.

Thank you for letting me know about my phrasing. I disagree, and have corrected my post now. Thank you!

And many people do, I fear :/ I think I’ve read a few too many times “I’m okay with death penalties for [child rapists/ war criminals/ mass murderers/ insert group here]”.

I disagree with this metaphor. Humans aren’t inherently evil, in contrast to the dragon. Even though the guy definitely did evil shit as a CEO and is responsible for thousands of dead people, he is not fully evil. I’m very sure he also did good things.

For me this is really important, because that’s exactly why I oppose death penalty. No human is absolutely evil, and thus in every person there is something worth preserving and being protected.

Welcome to the Internet

grabs some popcorn

You’re acting rude.

Ah, now I get why you liked the post ;) Thanks for updating!

I fear my screenshot is not that great :/

You’re amazing! Thanks for sharing!

I think they forgot to mention ads

Thank you for the correction! I meant origin and forgot to write it :)

Or imagine installing uBlock Origin and not seeing ads at all ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

YouTube really promoted uBlock more than uBlock could even promote itself

Are you ready to kill some bugs?!

obligatory “I’m doing my part!” quote