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If you murder murderers, do you get closer to The Good Place, or closer to The Bad Place?

If you murdered every murderer, you should get enough points to go to The Good Place, right?

Hypothetically speaking of course. I'm obliged by lemmy.world rules to state that I do not condone murder. πŸ˜‰

56 comments
  • Of we're talking points, then you're rolling the dice. If they've already murdered, you're not preventing those, so you've done no good. If they're going to murder at least two more people, you should net out positive, by preventing those murders. But you can't know they'll murder more people; maybe their murderin' days are over, and they've given it up; maybe they'll get hit by a bus before they can kill anyone else; maybe they'll get caught and imprisoned before they can kill again. If you murder them, but they'd never have killed again anyway, you're pretty well net negative.

    I've only watched through season 3, so if there are any other spoilers below, they're purely accidental.

    So: while The Good Place is somewhat ambiguous about the question of Doing the Wrong Thing for the Right Reason, I think in balance it'd weigh against you. You should have tried other things first - like tipping off the police. If all you're trying to do is get into the Good Place, your best bet is to try and reform thre person. Even if they killed you - maybe especially if they killed you - self-sacrifice in a good cause is clearly a lot of points.

  • This was actually a huge problem in medieval times. The people back then adhered to the existence of the death penalty, but they also didn't see it as anything aside from a kind of state sanctioned murder rather than how you'd expect many people to see execution. Executioners were thus highly stigmatized, to the point where we have that stereotype today of medieval executioners having that black veil over their heads to conceal their identity, and out of necessity, the role of executioner was inherited like that of a monarch rather than acquired, since often nobody would've otherwise sought the job. Executioners were considered so much of an outcast and felt so little incentive to be executioners that it was medieval law that they would get a lifetime supply of free food in order to reduce the burden of the job. They were considered a hesitant necessary "evil" that put a cap on other "evils", like adultery (oh the horror). Or so they say.

    Times have evolved though, and I go by a different school of thought (schools of thought where it's much more difficult to get to the bad place and stay there if your intentions are good). I cannot help you out of legal issues should something happen, but I have faith that doing what you consider to be a favor won't be eternally punished.

  • Ah the old Schrodingers Dexter X The Good Place Crossover Episode Gambit, a decent argument. However I think it can be disproven through the axioms suggested through Zenos Jurrasic Park III X Terminator Clause.

  • Does that include other people who only murder murderers? And yourself?

  • no? because not every situation is black and white. I can't just kill someone because they killed another human being. they could have a lot of reasons for killing someone, killing them doesn't help anything.

56 comments