(no subject)

Ahhh, the fun of MEME :)
This is a conversation continued from a MEME in which I had supplied 5 questions to hill_ after she read my comments from the 5 questions severity_softly and then asked to be interviewed (which was part of the MEME)

This is hill_ posting of the question and her answers
http://users.livejournal.com/hill_/160473.html

Intrigued by mieronna response (as well as hill_) to question #2 I decided to try to transfer the conversation here, because (and I may be wrong) I believe that it is bad etiquette continue posting in someone else's journal that is more of a concern to myself...

hill_ & mieronna">
This was mieronna thought provoking response to this question:
2) A time machine has been provided to you and it has been programed to for you to meet 6 different serial killers before they have killed anyone. You have been supplied with an untraceble gun and have been give the instuctions to kill them before they can kill... what would you do?

Apart from the fact that I myself could not kill, at least I don't think so, but for the sake of argument...

I see it like this - any murder, especially highly publicized serial murders (and let's be honest, they all are - and rightly so, because they warn us) that happened influenced the history in some way. Not only influenced it the life of the people directly involved, families, locals, it also influenced our politics and our legal system and our awareness. If you take that away - can you truly foretell in what ways the society you will come back to will be changed?

And there is another problem. Let's take this imaginary example. One of the people who were killed had never had children, but if he had stayed alive, he would have. Who would his child have been? A normal average person? A teacher, accountant, lawyer, factory worker? Or maybe a scientist who discovered something truly ground-breaking? Or maybe a politic? Maybe the best state leader that country would have had? Or maybe a new Hitler? Or maybe a serial killer, worse than the one who (did not) kill his parent? How can you know?

I think part of history, the normal, every-day part, the small local and personal history is so full of random coincidences (and let's not argue about the nature of coincidence, please :D) that you cannot know what would happen if you change one small part. In the big history you can (with hindsight) see where events are leading and could even maybe predict the general direction the changed history will take. But in the small history? It might not matter at all, it might change things for the best and it might change thing for the worst - for the few people involved and indeed for all people. And you never know if maybe you're not part of that small group of people for whom things would be different.

And one more thing. Every single life taken - or given - leads someone somewhere on his particular way. I don't think we have the right to come back with hidnsight, knowing that so many others will take damage, and tear that one person from their way. It might be the right of God, if there is one, but it's not ours. Same with dealing out death sentences, I truly don't think it is our right. (Can you tell that I oppose and even despise capital punishment?)

There are too many mights and maybes for my taste. I would not attempt such a thing, the responsibility would be too great.

My response is I understand what mieronna is saying about changing future events. A similar question has been brought up with abortion "how do you know that child you are aborting is not going to be the next Mozart/"... my reply is circular... "how do you know that child is not going to be the next Ted Bundy/Hitler etc.?" I am both pro-choice and pro-life so this is not an advocacy to necessarily agree with abortion but a to say that we do not know what the future holds.

However, the question posed was one of knowledge of the past to change the future… to tell you the truth that is not where my problem lies… I think it would be fascinating to pick up the dice and have a re-throw (which I do realise is an incredibly reckless statement…) my problem is actually in the act of killing. Do I have the right to take someone else’s life, no matter what I would value that life as? Do I have the right to pass that judgement?

Now the question that is natural retort to the last; “would I kill to protect myself?” Most likely but that is a base survival instinct. Could I calculatedly kill someone that I know will cause misery to many? Even after hill_ brought up Pinochet and Hitler, whom I think are worse than serial killers because they bring a philosophical rational to their killing that can be continued by other socio-paths, I still don’t think I could kill.

Having said all that I also understand hill_’s response and I sort of feel that she may be the braver than I…