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[Cyx]

a

[Vector]

Now, thinking it implies that you are guilty of killing everyone you didn't save is wrong. You actually are guilty of preferring to do something other than saving lives every time you aren't trying to save lives, though, this is an undeniable fact. Whether you are more or less okay with it is another matter.

The example sounds ridiculous because you voluntarily neglected the "life is sacred" part. Let's quit thinking up metaphors and see the core of the problem : someone pretends to value something that much while his actions prove that he doesn't. Some people don't like that. All that was said was : it would be better if you had the wisdom to know what your values are and the courage to act according to them.

Yes.  I was mostly arguing the first paragraph, since Armok's argument explicitly stated that you are guilty of killing everyone you don't save (with a shotgun).  I.e., failure to save with the desire to do something else is a violent crime.

Kind of like failure to date everything that moves is a ... er ... strange misdemeanor.  I ignored "life is sacred" because it doesn't really matter in context of the argument.  The only thing that matters is the amount of blame we are putting on someone for a certain amount of action or inaction.

Well, anyway.  I think we're largely in agreement and mostly arguing semantics at this point, anyway.

[Armok]

Cyx explains what I meant much, much better than I ever could. I suck at explaining things. Any difference between what Cyx says and what I said is much, much more likely to be due to me failing at English than a difference between what I actually meant and what Cyx meant.

[Creaca]

The big problem I have with Armok's theory, is it assumes you have the ability to stop even one death if you dedicated your life to saving them. And that by dedicating your life to saving life you couldn't unintentionally do more harm than good.

I mean, seriously. What are you constituting as saving a life? Feeding a homeless guy for a week? I mean, you can't know if he or she would have lived or died without that food. But you can guess. What if you spend every penny you own buying food for the for lots of homeless people!? Statisticly you have to save someone from dieing then! Shit, now you're out of money. I hope none of those guys grew too dependent on your steady source of food, because that would be like you where starving them.

Maybe that route is too indirect. How about you just buy a stun gun and patrol the streets? Superhero style? Yeah. Stopping any crimes you come across. If you get lucky, and happen to find yourself in New York or Detroit, you might find a crime going on. You can't really stop gang violence, those guys move in armed groups, and you'd be forced to take them all down non lethally. Not likely. Maybe if your lucky you can stop a mugging without you, the criminal, or the victim dying.

Hell, just throw your money into a charity. Course, there is no gaurentee that your money would directly go to something that would save a life. You might buy some kid new shoes, kind of nice. You might pay for the new camera for their advertising. Huh.. Well you can't just say that by donating your saving lives. If that was the case, participating in any economy at all would be saving millions of lives.

These are some vague examples, I'll edit things later to be clearer.

[Armok]

That you can save lives if you really try to is a FACT, at least if you live in a rich country like I presume almost everyone here does. I'm talking about stuff like life saving medical treatments, and yes most charities are unreliable, but by a few hours of looking around the net and asking around you can find ones that provably do save lives.

Also, those examples are rather useless, the only thing they prove is that there are some methods you can try to save lives by that dosn't work, not that there are no methods that do work.

[smigenboger]

This argument is fading into positivism vs nilhilism

[Armok]

In that case I've made myself misunderstood again, because I'm not nihilist, and the people that argues against me certainly aren't.
I really shuldn't post in this thread, it's pointless and I fail at arguing anyway.

[smigenboger]

I mean the bottom root of it will be debating if something is worth doing for helping a person on a relatively short term scale, or if the overlying fact that nothing really matters and we will all die eventually makes helping others useless

[Phmcw]

For armok's argument, it is just one of many artifact you get when you set an infinite value o something.

Pascal made a pretty stupid argument in favor of beliving in god out of it : since it's presumably a source of infinite benefice, and any other choice is not (unproved by the way) you must believe in god. To refute this argument, or armok's you have to refute the premise, which is indeed wrong : I don't think either are worth more  than anything else. Nor live nor paradise.

And Armok's argument is relevant because it seems indeed used in the fact that "nothing is worse than rape" then "anything must be used to prevent it".

This is faulty logic as above : Rape being awful doesn't justify any abuse to the rapist. This is why there is justice, which is supposed to punish and cure . Moreover, American law have a weird notion  of sexual offender, as it is used on exhibitionist, prostitute, sexual battery (which can seem quite minor when you look at the punishment) edit :error and a lot of thing that aren't rape invalidating the argument further.

[Vector]

Moreover, American law have a weird notion  of sexual offender, as it is used on exhibitionist, prostitute, sexual battery (which can seem quite minor when you look at the punishment) and a lot of thing that aren't rape invalidating the argument further.

(1) A person is guilty of sexual battery if he or she engages in sexual penetration with:

(a) Another person without his or her consent;

(b) A mentally defective, mentally incapacitated or physically helpless person; or

(c) A child under the age of fourteen (14) years.

(2) A person is guilty of sexual battery if he or she engages in sexual penetration with a child of fourteen (14) but less than eighteen (18) years if the person is in a position of trust or authority over the child including without limitation the child's teacher, counselor, physician, psychiatrist, psychologist, minister, priest, physical therapist, chiropractor, legal guardian, parent, stepparent, aunt, uncle, scout leader or coach.

Yeah.  Really minor, eh?

[Phmcw]

  my bad I mistaked sexual battery for simple battery.
Sorry, really, I should have looked twice.

This is the phrasing (directly taken from wikipédia to avoid such errors) that i wanted: "In much of the United States, public urination, mooning, streaking, and the failure to prevent one's own teenage children from engaging in otherwise consensual sexual activity also result being designated as a sex offender, requiring registration as such in publicly available, online lists."
Please note that it is notified as "citation needed"

[Creaca]

This is faulty logic as above : Rape being awful doesn't justify any abuse to the rapist. This is why there is justice, which is supposed to punish and cure . Moreover, American law have a weird notion  of sexual offender, as it is used on exhibitionist, prostitute, sexual battery (which can seem quite minor when you look at the punishment) and a lot of thing that aren't rape invalidating the argument further.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/usc_sec_42_00014071----000-.html

Unless the exhibitionism or prostitution where practiced on children, they shouldn't have too much to worry about.

The whole deal with registration isn't that it's to abuse or rehabilitate the Sexual Offenders, but to keep everyone around them aware of the possible danger they could pose. Oh, and of course if they do prowl again, it gives the local authoritys and FBI a much easier time tracking them down. Since most kidnapped kids turn up dead within 36 hours of getting picked up, that's a pretty reasonable request.

Edit: Changed my Wiki link to a link to the source given, as Phmcw noted, wiki sometimes isn't the most reliable source.

[Phmcw]

I was thinking of this

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/19/new-orleans-cops-use.html

Which is a case of simple prostitution.

[Creaca]

Oh yeah, no law or act is perfect. You've still go dumb old Rednecks in power in places like Louisanna trying to twist laws into their own little "Cultural Cleansing" tool. And the act sure doesn't protect kids from all the sick fucks out there.

That being said, when all is said and done. I still think it does more good than harm and totally for keeping the law in place, and instead trying to stop the misuse of it instead.

[Phmcw]

A valid point of view I guess.

Still I disagree, the oddities of he law left alone : I don't see how it help the police to track criminal, and tracking criminal should be the police job alone. Of course this is sort of wider debate : should civilian be involved in the matter of crime. I don't think so ; I would be very upset if firearm were made legal in my country for instance.

I don't think turning the parent into a watch for pedophile is a good, nor an effective thing to do.