Good vs Evil (not really, but its a catchy title)

NineTEE9

Since I have now broken my cover and actually posted something on here, I'll pose a question, following on a little from my (only) other post.

so

If you could get rid of all the depravity in the world... all the truly 'evil' people, the ones that do things that sicken and disgust to an unprecedented level. (fritzl for example)....
at the cost of getting rid of people like einstein, galileo, turing, Those who had a firm idea of what they believed in, and what they wanted to do.

I'm sure you can see what I'm getting at. Is normalization really what we are working towards?

EDIT: The question: Would you sacrifice forward thinking for stable and moral thinking?

brummytom

No. We're humans. Some are evil bastards, but we'd be nowhere without the geniuses.

NineTEE9

So you would keep the depravity? for the sake of the geniuses. ? I just realized I didn't actually pose a question at all., might go back and edit that

B.A._Baracus

If suddenly the top 3 most evil men & the top 3 smartest men where killed tomorrow. It wouldn't change a thing. New people would rise. This applies to history too.

NineTEE9

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

If suddenly the top 3 most evil men & the top 3 smartest men where killed tomorrow. It wouldn't change a thing. New people would rise. This applies to history too.

Well I'm not talking about killing the existing ones, more so, stopping this kinda thing happening at all.. from my reading of the threads on here (as a infrequent lurker), there's a disturbing amount of people who would happily go along with that.

flutterflye

Firstly, there is no such thing as 'evil'.
Secondly, where is the line for depravity? Where is the line for genius?
One person could find something depraved, while another person doesn't.
One culture could find something a hangable offense, while another is completely fine with it.
Who decides what is forward thinking or genius?
Who decides what is evil?
Your question makes zero sense.

aidan24326

NineTEE9 wrote: »

EDIT: The question: Would you sacrifice forward thinking for stable and moral thinking?

What you're really asking is would we sacrifice x number of great people (scientific geniuses, political forward-thinkers, human rights pioneers etc) if it meant the eradication of an equal x number of despots, tyrants and villains? The answer to that has to be no.

It's not about eradicating Galileo and Newton and Einstein and those people individually it's the process they were part of that you'd be eradicating. You could delete Newton or Darwin off the face of history and it's a certainty that someone else would have discovered what they did given the right amount of intelligence (which enough people have) and the right kind of education (which very few people ever got in those days).

On the other hand, people like Fritzl are almost an anomaly and as much as what they do might be terrible, it doesn't have a far-reachig effect. Psycopaths like Stalin and Pol Pot can of course have a more wide-reaching effect but it almost invariably tends to be shortlived and tends to have a diminishing effect on society as time goes on, whereas scientific breakthroughs by the likes of Faraday, Tesla, Einstein, Lister, Watson/Crick, Shannon, Bardeen etc have had a long-lasting beneficial efffect on humanity.

NineTEE9

flutterflye wrote: »

Firstly, there is no such thing as 'evil'.

You'll notice I put it in quotes in the OP..

Question is simple, maybe you need to read it again?

flutterflye

NineTEE9 wrote: »

You'll notice I put it in quotes in the OP..

Question is simple, maybe you need to read it again?

No matter how many times I read that, it will continue to not make sense.
I think the problem here is that it is that you are asking an extremely complex question with infinite variables, but in the simplistic manner of a 5 year old.

NineTEE9

aidan24326 wrote: »

What you're really asking is would we sacrifice x number of great people (scientific geniuses, political forward-thinkers, human rights pioneers etc) if it meant the eradication of an equal x number of despots, tyrants and villains? The answer to that has to be no.

Hmmm, I'm asking it the other way around, we get rid of the despots and serial killers at the cost the forward thinkers. Minor point maybe, but I'm trying to troll here ffs.

IMO You can't have one without the other, you say Fritzl is an anomaly, I say he's just standard deviation, as is Einstein.

NineTEE9

flutterflye wrote: »

No matter how many times I read that, it will continue to not make sense.
I think the problem here is that it is that you are asking an extremely complex question with infinite variables, but in the simplistic manner of a 5 year old.

It makes no sense, or its extremely complex... can you decide please?

flutterflye

NineTEE9 wrote: »

It makes no sense, or its extremely complex... can you decide please?

The question would make perfect sense if you gave an extremely detailed list of where the line is drawn on all the variables.
Then, once that was decided, the question would be complex.
As it stands, you have asked an unanswerable question.

NineTEE9

This isn't math. Gez if you look at the posts above yours actually two people answered it already (with the answer that personally I would agree with, 'no' )
in fact, its a yes/no question, so give it a shot, you got a 50/50 chance of getting it right.

flutterflye

NineTEE9 wrote: »

This isn't math. Gez if you look at the posts above yours actually two people answered it already (with the answer that personally I would agree with, 'no' )
in fact, its a yes/no question, so give it a shot, you got a 50/50 chance of getting it right.

I cannot answer the question.
The question is not answerable as is.
There is 'good' and 'bad' in everyone - neither of which are even generally definable.
Views on morality differ widely.
Levels of intelligence, and types of intelligence, are regarded as superior or inferior depending on culture and circumstance.