About 5yr. log retention

Tom Vogt tom at ricardo.de
Mon Dec 18 03:48:39 PST 2000


"James A. Donald" wrote:
> Tom Vogt:
>  > Weird, a couple thousand years of history disagree with you. until
>  > the very recent past, pretty much everyone was sure that killing
>  > enemies, unbelievers or other people isn't "evil". probably isn't
>  > even "murder".
> 
> If you are  confused about the difference between war and peace, you must
> be seriously confused about a lot of things.

the above holds true for both, peace and wartimes. please try again.



>  > ironically, you seem to agree somewhat that bombing a couple hectars
>  > of an "evil nation" isn't murder, either...
> 
> Those who claim to that killing people in warfare is no different from
> killing people in peace, are more likely to exterminate subjects during
> peacetime, than they are likely to refrain from killing enemies in wartime.

I can't remember the US declaring war on any of the recent nations
they've bombed. care to point me to the relevant documents?


> Tom Vogt:
>  > nice, but old trick of passing judgement on someone in such a form
>  > that it also invalidates his (possibly different) judgement on you.
>  > but it's just cheap dialectics, not "truth".
>  >
>  > remember that many more non-germans died in WW2 than germans. we
>  > really shouldn't use body-count as a measure of truth.
> 
> Remembering that both german and non german deaths were caused by germans,
> we should use body count as a measure of evil.

body count not of those who died, but of those who killed? yeah, that
works for WW2. does it work for vietnam?


> Tom Vogt:
>  > who decides what is wrong and right in moral beliefs?
> 
> Common sense.

whose common sense?


(I'm refraining from the usual reply of "common sense is what tells you
that the world is flat")


>   Tom Vogt:
>  > your point is? that the percentage of "friendly fire" defines what
>  > is right and what is wrong?
> 
> Friendly fire is an accident, an error.  The murder of commies by commies
> and nazis by nazis was planned from the very beginning.

so he who murders his brother is by definition evil? with or without a
look at his reasons?


you didn't answer my two core questions, so I'll present them again in a
short and easily digestable form:


1.) those you call "evil" will often see things the other way around.
how do you resolve this issue without circular reasoning? (i.e. without
saying that their judgement doesn't count because they're "evil")

2.) if "evil" is objective, there ought to be an objective measurement
that can be applied to answer the question of a given person being
"good" or "evil". name this measurement.





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