Death penalty

[vardar]

Is it legal to hold somebody captive for the rest of their life? Something being legal or illegal has to do with the laws that surround it, and if the laws say that for killing 100 other human beings you should get the death penalty then yes, its legal.
There also is an inner sense of justice and applied "eye for eye" concept' we want these people to feel the same emotional distress that they caused or easier said: Punishment fitting their crimes.

look, I dont really believe in punishment. I believe in taking the dangerous people for society away from society until they have become safe again. Thats just my idea of it though, which is probably pretty controversial.

I thought you said people do stuff because of their genes and experiences? So thus those dangerous people most likely(with your theory) were born that way, to be dangerous to society. They might not think they are dangerous because thats who they are right? I am a bit curious on your theory here tbh

[momuuu]

This is where I am kinda stuck with the theory. What you say makes so much sense, but I am not sure if it is actually true.

The idea is that you face a situation (for example, the option to steal something or not) and then the outcome is just a matter of a machine (your body, or just you) using the input (the situation) and converting it to a output using this machine (which is the result of your genes + experience) to produce a (slightly random) outcome. So, where could you have not stolen it if you are programmed to steal it? The idea is that you do everything because you were programmed to do so. So being punished for something you were programmed to do is kinda... weird. Thats like hitting your tv because it increased the volume after you pressed the increase volume button. You see what I am trying to say? This concept is so counterintuitive that it is so hard to understand really, and it still makes no sense to me. Even though I think it might be the scary truth.

There are still laws though that cant be broken and if they are, than whoever broke them should be punished no matter what their "genes" or "experiences" made them do.

Honestly your theory is ludicrous, have you seen what scientists are finding out about our brains? All the stuff that goes on in there and you say its almost random chance with a pinch of experience that decides what we do. Nahh I make my own decisions depending on how I feel or what the circumstances are, and I can just as easily change my mind on things, my genes and experiences might fluctuate my attitude or personality or what I do so to speak. But they dont control what you do or say your whole life, just doesnt fit together.?

Whatever, thats my off-topic 2 cents for ya :7upspot:

You have to look further than you are doing now. What you are saying is the way it seems. You have to go further than just the way it seems, and the reasoning I proposed is actually solid and very basic. If you want to disagree, please do so by showing that the reasoning is wrong. Literally everything you said is irrelevant if my reasoning is correct.

Also, you are placing too much emphasis on the genes and experience, and too few emphasis on the idea behind it. The idea that we are not much more than a complex robot.

An interesting question: does a robot programmed to exactly simulate the brain of a human person have a free will? I feel like this question is what made me think about free will more and finally led me to my current idea about it. Maybe it can do so for you aswell.

[momuuu]

look, I dont really believe in punishment. I believe in taking the dangerous people for society away from society until they have become safe again. Thats just my idea of it though, which is probably pretty controversial.

I thought you said people do stuff because of their genes and experiences? So thus those dangerous people most likely(with your theory) were born that way, to be dangerous to society. They might ?not think they are dangerous because thats who they are right? I am a bit curious on your theory here tbh

that post is kinda apart from my own free will theory. Thats just how I think about punishment, I just dont think punishment is ever reasonable. I personally would propose institutions to try to change the personality of the criminals, similair to how they treat mentally unstable criminals. Try to change the person as fast as possible and put him back in society if thats possible.

[gibson]

I thought you said people do stuff because of their genes and experiences? So thus those dangerous people most likely(with your theory) were born that way, to be dangerous to society. They might ?not think they are dangerous because thats who they are right? I am a bit curious on your theory here tbh

that post is kinda apart from my own free will theory. Thats just how I think about punishment, I just dont think punishment is ever reasonable. I personally would propose institutions to try to change the personality of the criminals, similair to how they treat mentally unstable criminals. Try to change the person as fast as possible and put him back in society if thats possible.

so how is putting someone in an asylum to try to change their personality not punishment? Sounds way worse then prison tbh

[momuuu]

that post is kinda apart from my own free will theory. Thats just how I think about punishment, I just dont think punishment is ever reasonable. I personally would propose institutions to try to change the personality of the criminals, similair to how they treat mentally unstable criminals. Try to change the person as fast as possible and put him back in society if thats possible.

so how is putting someone in an asylum to try to change their personality not punishment? Sounds way worse then prison tbh

it is... But what else are you going to do? At least you could give them a gaming console and a decent room or sth. I know the post is phrased in such a way that it sounds crazy (thought police stuff) but thats not really what I want to say. You can just put them in there until the chance of them doing the same thing again is minimal. Then try to help them to be freed again. Thats kinda what I wanted to say I suppose.

But in a real world the scare factor of punishment is probably necessary to discourage criminals.

Anyhow.. I dont see any place for death punishment here.

[momuuu]

Dont confuse yourself... You risk a headache xd

[gibson]

Dont confuse yourself... You risk a headache xd

don''t tell him what to do. He was programmed to do that so you have no right to criticize hi.

[Good ol Ivan]

this thread is tl'dr

This may have been mentioned before, but both are still very important factors:
-Criminals convicted to life imprisonment might get out.
-There have been far too many cases where a person convicted to death penalty was innocent all along, and that being found only post-mortem.

So personally I don't think death penalty is inherently wrong as long as there is no space for speculation. I.e. there is a certainty of 100% the subject is a criminal and there's a certainty of 100% the subject is the criminal in question. Rehabilitation is a fair point, but I'd say it should only be reserved for small crimes.
Anyhow neither the death penalty nor life imprisonment should be burdens for the state, it's absurd how expensive death penalty is in the U.S.
It makes much more sense to send criminals to work in a dangerous construction through winter nights than wasting a fine piece of lead on their heads.

[_venox_]

People aren't programmed but conditioned to do stuff' the theory behind determinism is that whatever you do was caused by conditions in your brain environment etc... that caused you to behave in a certain way, so him ridiculing that by joking about "I'm programmed so I just wait for the next program." is in fact also conditioned.

[Mr. Pecksniff]

This whole thread is just a natural consequence of the big bang that took place 14 billion years ago. None of this could have been avoided, and yet we can all imagine situations in which it might have been. Why are we always ruminating on physically impossible outcomes? What defect of the mind prevents us from focusing on certainties and facts as opposed to misguided speculation? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind - the answer is blowin' in the wind...

[momuuu]

Not really. Theres randomness in the core laws of physics. There were tons of possible outcomes 'p

[Mr. Pecksniff]

Not true, there must be an underlying explanation that makes these processes seem random from our perspective of ignorance. The whole field of scientific inquiry begins with the assumption that the universe is deterministic. You can't then go on to say that the discoveries of science show that the universe is otherwise without creating a paradox.

[momuuu]

Not true, there must be an underlying explanation that makes these processes seem random from our perspective of ignorance.

A single particle (a foton) passes through a slit. You''d expect it to go in a straight line because that''s what would make sense. But it isn''t merely a particle, its a particle and a wave. If you''d shoot many particles at it, you''d surely see a wave patern, but if you send one particle through it, whats gonna happen? What turns out is that the particle will end up somewhere on the interference pattern without actually having anything to interfere with. It''ll randomly, like completely non causally randomly end up somewhere on the screen behind the slit. That''s about the basis of quantum mechanics, kinda roughly. I suppose you should probably read a wikipedia page on it if you actually wanted to understand it lol.

anyhow, there''s strong indication that there is non causal randomness in many aspects of our world. To the disappointment of many, including Einstein: "God does not play dice with the universe"

[Mr. Pecksniff]

See my edit

[momuuu]

I don't think determinstic is the right word. I think the underlying assumption of physics is that the world is defined in some way. How did einstein phrase it.. Something with that the way the world works is uniform, that it is the same in any situation (regarding the fact that electromagnetism and classical mechanics weren't compatible). So the idea is that there is a way the world works, and that this is the same throughout this world. Kinda the assumption that something is always going to fall down due to gravity.

[_venox_]

There isn't one law or an infinite amount of laws that determine the outcome...
Jerom said that Einstein said the laws in the universe have to be conform and aren't suddenly different at a certain point in space or time.
Determinism is a philosophical position, and since the world hasn't been proven to be deterministic or nondeterministic your argument about not being able to prove it is countered.
Determinism and morality are things that can't really be proven, since a big portion of the death penalty is also about morality. In morality there isn't just one right way and everything else is wrong.

[_venox_]

It is kind of funny that you think only you have the right idea of morality and everybody else is wrong.
What I meant is that morality is comparable to your taste in music.

[_venox_]

You are just being silly.

[iNcog]

-- deleted post --

[Mr. Pecksniff]

I''m beginning to believe that atheist posters on the Internet are in fact Catholic trolls trying to lower people''s opinion of atheists.

Haha! Thou art so superior, oh mighty dragon! :bravo:

[Mimsy for President]

Im beginning to believe that atheist posters on the Internet are in fact Catholic trolls trying to lower peoples opinion of atheists.

Haha! Thou art so superior, oh mighty dragon! :bravo:

You forgot to say "so superior in his redneck village" :waiting: