"If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill..."

reply to post by maria_stardust




How could I say it any better? Answer is simple. I can't. When it comes to my family and loved ones, my life is purely secondary. No question. I would do whatever it took to protect them.

I never had a chance to lie.

I cheated.

I never had a chance to steal anything that was mine. I shall steal away life of an alien by extorting them into ending their own existence.

I've killed persons, but not their physical bodies.

^^Reason to all this is self-protection, and securing myself and my well-being.

If you cant learn something, and realise you'd get put in a lower postion because of it, when that shouldn't be, then by all means cheat. Otherwise if that ant the case against a cowardly function, then dont cheat as you should feel. I say as you should feel because magicians cheat as an only mean to accomplish what others should already expect without the see how. Yeah, that's all in fun as the point. Have a problem with the point of fun, then what you gonna do? Sue or beat up or jail the magician?

If a certain type of math you realise you dont need in your future that could hold you back if you fail by an allowed cowardly function, then by all means do like I did, and um just cheat the whole course because you are justified in our Lord too.

Here is my take on the situation..

In the event that people had to choose to go against their morals in order to survive and provide for their children, I am sure many would do whatever it takes, however they had to do it. No questions.

Now, think of this though. EVERY other family is going to be thinking the exact same way. EVERY family is going to want THEIR family to be the ones that survive. So while you are out doing what needs to be done, so is thousands of other people.

Would it be possible to even survive in a world like this? Where EVERY person is so desperate that they will kill over a loaf of bread to feed their family for one more day? What happens when someone kills you for the bread that you killed someone else for? And so on.

The way most people are looking at this, is if YOU are the ONLY person who has the mindset to kill, steal, lie, and so on while the rest of your town is in a passive state of mind. Of course you can take candy from a baby, but teach that baby how to use a gun and give him a reason to and it sure as hell isnt the same thing any more.

I personally would rather die without blood on my hands in this situation, as tough as that is to say. You are going to get killed eventually, for something, by someone who will probably get killed right after they take whatever from you, for what they had. It will be a never ending cycle of violence. The ones who do survive would probably have to of had killed hundreds, if not thousands of other people in order to procure their goods.

Then again, I do not have children so I could die peacefully and that would be the end of it. If I had children.. god bless all of you beacuse I have no idea in hell what I would do.

I could certainly lie if I had to, it takes a certain amount of skill to cheat, but killing?
I could kill for my children, because of my motherly instinct. I can get very cold and protective for them. But to kill for food, I don't know. I suppose I would have to have that instinct kick in, where it never has before. I have never killed an animal in sport. I have never been in a war. Though I kill bugs quite easily.
I would have to be really really hungry, otherwise I think I would manipulate my husband into the killing for food.
Now if there was someone trying to kill me and my family, yes I think I could kill. Out of fear and survival. I don't think I would be as brave without a weapon of some kind.

I could steal too if I felt it was justified. If there was an empty home, or animals left alone. Again, I would have to be really really hungry to take from others. Or really really cold.

Originally posted by sc2099
Would you do literally anything - lie, steal, cheat, or kill (or perhaps something worse Scarlett omits) - to protect your family from hardship, from starvation, from homelessness just as Scarlett did?

Very interesting topic. Thanks.

I'd say that I would definitely do anything to protect my own self-interests. Anyone who wouldn't doesn't deserve their lives, their loved ones or their possessions because they take all they have for granted. When all that you value in life is at risk you can't handcuff yourself with silly philosophical ideas of morality, fairness or respect for one's fellow human beings. If you do, that just means somebody else will take advantage of you in order to feed their own family.

Originally posted by Skyfloating
The reason is, that I dont actually believe in death. I also believe that the murder is to the deteriment of the person murdering me, not to my detriment.

I agree with you somewhat about death being illusory. I'll try to explain. Firstly, I don't believe that our consciousness survives death. Therefore, since everything we experience is relative to our ability to perceive it, once the brain dies we won't be able to realize it's shut down. So life will just slow down into a never ending dream state (compressed into a single instant) to the dead because it's impossible to experience past the point of death but it's also impossible to know you're dead. It's hard to explain my belief, but hopefully I got it across.

Anyway, on to the people who survive the dead person. Surely death is real, because we move on and the dead do not, right? Well, no. The dead continue living, but they are simply rearranged and live on in different forms. It is impossible to destroy someone so completely that their component parts do not continue in the life cycle.

So, in conclusion, it is impossible to kill someone and it is impossible to die.

Originally posted by Seeker Mom
I'd like to say that I would never harm another human being, but the truth is I would be lying. If someone seriously threatened my children, husband, and home I would do whatever was necessary to protect them in that moment and would worry about the more ethical issues once the danger had passed.

Lying, cheating, and stealing are another matter. I'd never do any of the above out of sheer greed. But if survival in general were at stake I'm afraid I would probably do whatever it took to protect my family.

I find it really odd that you've got fewer reservations about physically harming a fellow person than you do about lying, cheating or stealing. Personally, I think lying, cheating and stealing are naturally occurring human virtues, especially in today's society. Without lying, for example, it's virtually impossible for a person to obtain a mate. Cheating is a prerequisite for societal success, as anyone who has gotten ahead in a competitive business or political environment can attest to. And what is business, if not legal, organized thievery?

Originally posted by LLoyd45
I've never understood why some people surrender without a fight.. You hear about it all the time in robberies. When you're told to kneel on the ground with your back to your assailant, you're more than likely going to die executioner style. Why not fight back? Dying like a lamb on slaughtering day is not an option for me.

In my opinion, it's usually a smarter idea to surrender in a situation like that. Most robbers don't want to kill you. They just want to take your money and get away without getting in any trouble. Killing you just makes a big mess and potentially puts them in a LOT more trouble if they get caught. That's why it's advisable to be cooperative and non-threatening if you get mugged or something. And unless you are armed (or maybe a martial artist) and are in a favorable situation (not too outnumbered, for example), trying to fight will probably just increase your odds of getting killed or seriously harmed.

Originally posted by AntiCensorship

Originally posted by sc2099
Would you do literally anything - lie, steal, cheat, or kill (or perhaps something worse Scarlett omits) - to protect your family from hardship, from starvation, from homelessness just as Scarlett did?

Very interesting topic. Thanks.

I'd say that I would definitely do anything to protect my own self-interests. Anyone who wouldn't doesn't deserve their lives, their loved ones or their possessions because they take all they have for granted. When all that you value in life is at risk you can't handcuff yourself with silly philosophical ideas of morality, fairness or respect for one's fellow human beings. If you do, that just means somebody else will take advantage of you in order to feed their own family.

And thank you for the very interesting reply.

I had a response but it got lost in the void when I tried to post. I'll do my best to recreate it.

Basically I agree with you. If someone is willing to lay down their life or their lifestyle without a fight then they clearly aren't too attatched to either. I'm not saying I advocate killing except in self defense. What I am saying is defend yourself!

To me life is like a years long fight. Other fighters drop their weapons because they found something more powerful or they got knocked out. If you don't pick up a better weapon every time you find it, that is if you don't try to improve your life at every opportunity and in some cases make your own weapons (opportunities) when there are none, then you don't want to win. I have no sympathy for anyone who lays down in a fair fight and just lets themselves get beaten up.

In America, Canada, Europe, and Australia every single person with a functional mental capacity has the chance to win at life. Being born here is like being in a fair fight. Obviously in less successful countries the fight is less fair but it can still be won. Everyone who loses at life has given up. Some sooner and some later but eventually they all decided they no longer wanted to fight the good fight.

Originally posted by sc2099
Two plane loads of people against a few guys with box cutters and absolutely no one stood up and fought? No effing way. If you knew or even thought you were about to die why would you not fight back, if not to save yourself but to at least prevent additional death? I will never believe that out of so many people there was not one hero among cowards, flight 93 excluded.

Great answers all around, I tend to lean toward Karlhungis's and Solar Sky's responses.

However in reply to sc2099 and Lloyd, I would also like to add that, more often than not, people don't act logically in dangerous situations. Like the recent video of the man who was run down by a hit and run driver and people just walked on by him as he lay there in pain. Or the latest video of the female cashier being abducted in Texas and who was later found dead. She just walked out calmly, holding a fountain drink in her hand.

Dangerous situations can often have an feeling of "unreality". Like it's not really happening to you. Also, in group situations there is a sense that someone else will step up and take the necessary actions. As for the hi-jacked passengers, especially in a setting when someone else is in charge - the FAA, the airline, the flight crew - there is a tendency to let authority figures handle it.

There is a good reason why the term sheep is so accurate, often we just do what we are told. Like right after 9/11 when we were told to prepare for a WMD attack by having duct tape and plastic sheeting on hand, like that would save us.

As for when the SHTF, it's all situational You just have to be prepared for any situation.

Originally posted by kosmicjack

Dangerous situations can often have an feeling of "unreality". Like it's not really happening to you. Also, in group situations there is a sense that someone else will step up and take the necessary actions. As for the hi-jacked passengers, especially in a setting when someone else is in charge - the FAA, the airline, the flight crew - there is a tendency to let authority figures handle it.

There is a good reason why the term sheep is so accurate, often we just do what we are told. Like right after 9/11 when we were told to prepare for a WMD attack by having duct tape and plastic sheeting on hand, like that would save us.

I agree with you kosmic that most people are just going to sit there and die. Most people will just go with the abductor. Most people will buy the plastic and duct tape, if they're not too lazy to even do that. But some of us out there are not sheep. Some of us won't be cowed by a box cutter. Some of us are on ATS right now trying to find out what we can really do to help ourselves in the midst of the attack that is going on all around us right now as we speak.

We don't expect authority figures or passers by to save us because we know they are either complicit or sheep themselves or just don't give a crap. We are fighting to save ourselves every day from the manipulation and the herding. I find it hard to believe that not one person like us was in a group of that many. Maybe we're a lot fewer and farther between than I thought and hoped.