When is killing a newborn acceptable?

Originally posted by Grimpachi
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

Yes I would kill baby Stalin, Hitler, Dahmer, or antichrist.

Yes I am for the death penalty although the way it is implemented now I disagree with.

Without the death penalty there are far more murders occurring in prisons than those prisons in states that do not have that penalty so for inmates that already have life without parole there is nothing to dissuade them from killing other inmates or guards.

If the tech existed to eradicate those you named in order to prevent the atrocities they committed I cannot say I would oppose it, off the hook. Without further examination of the specifics, could such powerful technology bring into being undesirable forces and effects? What are your thoughts on our time continuum? Do you believe that altering events can have irrevocable effects on our timeline? I'm not sure what I believe. I'm not educated enough to even make an amateur guess, lol. Is time linear? What effects on time, space, matter and energy, if any, could result? The question would provoke an interesting discussion in transpersonal psychology. On the flip side, would the elimination, and subsequent prevention, of these men and their actions constitute a Machiavelli risk-benefit equation? The subject matter demands a working knowledge of quantum theories to even have an intelligent discussion. Whew!

Oooh good thread OP.

My view is that even a good man can do an evil act in his/her life, what If that person up to the point of murdering someone does good things that change others lives for the better most of the time?.
To me you have to be insane to murder someone it goes against sanity for me so do we kill them for being insane?.
they have to pay for it and spend many years in jail or hospital of course.
Oh and no Iam against the death penalty, no true civilized society should put people to death.

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

Killing to stop a killer. Hypocrisy. I would hope someone would also go back in time and kill the newborn who kills newborns.

I just went crossed-eyed

reply to post by Cosmic911


I am just answering the OPs question the way he framed it.

The implications of time travel and changing events has been worth pondering in many great SciFi novels and movies I think there is even a TV show called Continuum still running that deals with the idea.Yeah Looper did come to mind as well but anyhow time travel wasn't in the OP precognition of what someone would turn out to be is.

It is a good thread to ponder on its own merit.

Originally posted by Grimpachi
but anyhow time travel wasn't in the OP precognition of what someone would turn out to be is.

I know i am pulling this quote out of context a bit but how else could it be known someone would be a "certain killer" in the future without time travel elements to be considered. This is not like saying a violent aggressive gene has been identified and those will it are going to be untoward characters, this is stating a known objective fact, which could only be deduced from a "crystal ball" of sorts.

I'm all against the baby killing by the way.

So much is at stake with taking an action such as killing baby Hitler, why would you assume that your actions wouldn't cause an even greater tragedy?

What you don't consider is the potential repercussions of your actions. Going back in time and killing baby Hitler not only wouldn't have changed ANYTHING - the climate was right and someone was going to start a genocide in Europe sooner or later. But lets assume it meant no Nazi Germany, which would mean that eugenics never became uncool which would mean that today the USA would have continued its scary eugenics programs possibly up until today.

The UK wouldn't have lost its empire.

WW2 also brought Europe together. It solidified the USA as a world power. It ended Imperial Japan's designs on the Asian continent.

What happened to the Jews showed the ugly side of racism to the world. Without the holocaust how much more would global civil rights have struggled?

Let's not forget the technology. No world war 2 would mean no penicillin. at least not for a long time.

This these factors and millions of others into consideration, can you say with any confidence that your actions would say any lives? No.

reply to post by sajuek


Penicillin was discovered in 1928, just pointing that out...but I agree with the rest.

reply to post by TheomExperience


Well I am not trying to rewrite the OP and I do not think the OP intended for us to figure out how something like that would be plausible.

It is a strictly hypothetical question and he set the parameters. I answered based his parameters nothing else.

If I knew that a baby would grow up to be a murderer and could stop that from happening by killing the baby I would like to say yes. The OP didn't leave any room for doubt or changing the future murder in his hypothetical it would be a predetermined fact.

It would be hard to do sure except with cases like future Stalin's, Hitler's, OBL, I can think of some others but you get the point. With the cases like what we do not even hear of in the news everyday gang murders and such for some reason that choice becomes harder to make yet the principle is the same.

reply to post by Grimpachi


An ethical debate over an irrational line of thinking is indeed interesting.
With that said i have considered the possibility that the baby would grow up and kill someone and then someone else attached to the person murdered would be inspired to go an and do great things to aid humanity. This chain of events which occurred as a direct result of a murder, which was a result of letting the baby grow up in the first place.

Anyway since the universe is mysterious i would like to add a short clip regarding the mysterious nature as told from the funny man Jim Jefferies. Please be aware this comedian is extremely hard core and he uses language that is considered inappropriate, in well, society

reply to post by SaturnFX


Life is life. Even with all the bad things like death, murder stealing...it's all a part of life. Humans want to play the role of "GOD" so bad because they have an ego the size of the universe.

You execute some baby because of potential, your no better than the piece of trash we put to death. No matter what you know about anything.

I would have to say no to killing an infant at birth given only the 100% knowledge that the person would kill in the future.
The scenario provided does not account for different things that could make killing that infant a 'bad' thing.

What if the infant in question were to come up with a cure for a devastating disease before they became a murderer? Or afterwards?
The lives that the person could possibly save might outnumber the one murder he would commit by an imponderable factor over the course of time.

reply to post by SaturnFX


Someone once told me that (Ted Bundy) had an adult female relative...and one day (when he was 3 years old)...she was baby-sitting him...and she put him down for a nap...and then she went to her room to lay down for a while...when she woke up...she was surrounded by (knives) that 3 year old Ted had put on the bed...and when she looked at him...he was standing; starring at her with a sinister grin.

To me the (Ted Bundy) story does tell me that yes...some people are born evil.

Even knowing this...I still could not kill a newborn.

Originally posted by boymonkey74
reply to post by sajuek

 

Penicillin was discovered in 1928, just pointing that out...but I agree with the rest.

I realize that this is outside of the guidelines laid down by the OP, but your post made me think...

What if the person delivering the baby Alexander Fleming were to be able to foresee only the deaths that would be caused by penicillin (through allergic reaction) and not the many lives saved by it?

How about this.

What if you knew without any doubt as fact that the baby would grow up and create and distribute a designer drug 10 times worse than meth essentially becoming the cause of thousands maybe tens of thousands of deaths ruining millions of family's.

There is no possibility of preventing the outcome aside from death and you will get one chance before losing all knowledge of the future.

No time travel just prior knowledge of the future for a limited time presenting an opportunity before losing that information.

Would you be able to act or would you let it happen?

reply to post by SaturnFX


Look, we have PLENTY of evidence that our perceptions and events are preconceived and played out and outwardly influenced.....

If we accept that, then I don't care what you pose, THERE IS NEVER AN ACCEPTABLE TIME TO KILL AN INFANT.

Sorry, I find this an objectionable thread. When I commented this on a thread, yesterday, the OP just said turn the thread off like a TV channel, don't read. But I have to wonder what propels the posing of such a question.....

Do you really think, OP, in the world of manipulation and control we live in today, anyone could really truly know who would grow to be what you describe to justify such?

Every "possibility" described herein, imagines at THAT TIME OF SUPPOSED KNOWING, you were right....
If life is a question of your perception, what does that say to you about the topic and dissemination of possibilities where it would be "okay" here to kill something helpless, totally, to you and your interpretation and judgement. Sorry, not flying for me. Would you have been judged. thus, when you were born in such a world as this, right now????

Answer to horrifying thread question: NEVER.

You wanna be the newborn, helpless, dependent on all other life that is supposed to take care of you, and ask that question again?
Sometimes I think there is a true movement here, underground, to not share ideas, but just to inculcate and fish, and wishes to get those that don't fish to move to GLP, or to add infinitum or wherever, but gettoffa my cloud, dude.

How 'bout this, as a reason and justification.....
I am currently ashamed, but will not leave despite the supposed bullying and affront to anyone and anything of a decent and moral nature, bc it just informs you are more needed here than anywhere.......so stop, if that's the goal.....

Respectfully, (bc I hope I am wrong and wish mostly most days, that I am, from what I see and read everywhere. You must all want transhuman augmentation in a REAL BAD WAY, and are dedicated to prove humanity severly lacking and in need of that.....what you want to be a super model in a different body? I do, too, but I have limits as to what I will trade out in my humanity in search of that. Think about it.)
Tetra50

Originally posted by Grimpachi
How about this.

What if you knew without any doubt as fact that the baby would grow up and create and distribute a designer drug 10 times worse than meth essentially becoming the cause of thousands maybe tens of thousands of deaths ruining millions of family's.

There is no possibility of preventing the outcome aside from death and you will get one chance before losing all knowledge of the future.

No time travel just prior knowledge of the future for a limited time presenting an opportunity before losing that information.

Would you be able to act or would you let it happen?

Okay. But you are making a very big assumption this info is CORRECT, right? Where is the allowance for that? Because, to me, an open mind means, by definitions, I COULD always be wrong.
Right?
And if you are....well, then where are we all with that killing the children, most helpless.......

Yes I would kill baby Stalin, Hitler, Dahmer, or antichrist.

But what if, in this karmic entanglement environment (assuming you accept that), you could just forgive and heal t hem, instead.....wouldn't that be far more instuctive and useful to us all, as a species?

My point is, in another sense, if I assumed, like you, that this destiny is attached solidly to this persona or soul, then where would we be as a species? It really doesn't work like this, I caution you. But we could get into a whole nature vs. nurture, eugenics, geniology ånd blood type and what that all means (really nothing; that's the big secret....it's an agenda to attribute this all to biology and blood when it is artificial constructs and control at its ultimate best causing this and no one want to see it or admit to it) here.

But, I am truly surprised, shocked and horrified to see this on ATS. It is a stated philosophical fact that those who fight against evil frequently become what they are fighting. I see this thread as a result and example of just that happening......
Tetra50

reply to post by SaturnFX


So if the person is going to kill someone and that is wrong, then how do we kill them is justified as right? ...

Your only changing who dies, instead a way to use abortion.

Our Creator knows who we will kill, hurt, steal and even damage in our lives, yet he allows us to do these things. Why? Called CHOICE....we get to choose and given the chance to do it our way.

There won't ever be a way to predict if someone will murder someone else in their life simply because free will is a too great of a variable. If you want to go full nature with this debate, you could argue that, based on genes, a child will grow up to be more violent or belligerent, but I imagine in 100 years genetic modification of human genes will allow us to eliminate such genes from the baby while it is still in the womb; disaster averted.

Furthermore, evidence suggests that childhood and upbringing play a major role on the actions you take as an adult, and there is simply no way to predict whether you will have a rough or traumatic childhood or a rather easy and emotionally healthy one.

Originally posted by caladonea
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

Someone once told me that (Ted Bundy) had an adult female relative...and one day (when he was 3 years old)...she was baby-sitting him...and she put him down for a nap...and then she went to her room to lay down for a while...when she woke up...she was surrounded by (knives) that 3 year old Ted had put on the bed...and when she looked at him...he was standing; starring at her with a sinister grin.

To me the (Ted Bundy) story does tell me that yes...some people are born evil.

Even knowing this...I still could not kill a newborn.

Oh, GOD...

Talk...about...CREEPY!!! Yeeeeesh...

Thank you for the nightmares, Cal! LOL