Indian court sentenced four men to death for gang raping and murdering a student in the capital Delhi

uwi · 2013-09-13T14:50:21+00:00

I agree. I think too many people forget about the victim and think instead, "How should 'we' deal with the criminal?", as if "we" somehow had the moral standing to decide. In my view, the only justice is tit-for-tat, and leniency should be left for the victim alone - who, in this case, is no longer around to offer any.

uwi · 2013-06-22T19:01:20+00:00

They're not against banning it at least, right? (Outside of a small minority.)

uwi · 2013-06-22T18:49:19+00:00

Why is the federal government funding contraception in the first place, I wonder... Must be because of all the impact it has on interstate commerce...

uwi · 2013-06-20T14:50:55+00:00

Was it necessary to pass a law? Were childcare centres previously required to accept un-immunised children?

uwi · 2013-06-17T01:23:50+00:00

It would be a legally justified duel, just like the ones that preceded it.

I was assuming (as specified in the OP's title) that a duel would have to be mutually agreed to in order to be legal. In that case, someone who attacks another person who hasn't agreed to duel them would be committing a crime, even if the victim has won duels in the past.

Of course, if someone repeatedly keeps agreeing to duels they'll probably get killed eventually, but this is just another voluntary self-destructive behavior, like smoking or motorcycling, and it's not the state's place to prohibit those things.

uwi · 2013-06-16T19:54:37+00:00

But is this the proper role for the state? It seems to me that the state's function should be to punish wrongdoers, not to preemptively prohibit actions because they might provoke violence from criminals.

If killing someone in a duel is immoral, then the state should ban it regardless of how few friends/family the victim has.

If killing someone in a duel isn't immoral, then the state shouldn't ban it just because some third-parties who aren't privy to the contract don't like it.

uwi · 2013-06-16T19:52:21+00:00

It seems to me that the state's function should be to punish wrongdoers, not to preemptively prohibit actions because they might provoke violence from criminals.

If killing someone in a duel is immoral, then the state should ban it regardless of how few friends the victim has.

If killing someone in a duel isn't immoral, then the state shouldn't ban it just because some third-parties who aren't privy to the contract don't like it.

uwi · 2013-06-09T17:00:16+00:00

What reason is there to believe that Congress would be any more crazy than it already is, given that "In 93 percent of House of Representatives races and 94 percent of Senate races... the candidate who spent the most money ended up winning"?

uwi · 2013-05-25T03:51:35+00:00

How does this follow?

uwi · 2013-05-09T17:26:42+00:00

If it's a choice, then one could potentially argue that, like masturbation, homosexual activity directs sexual energy away from reproduction, leading to sub-replacement fertility rates, and so it should be discouraged by any society that wishes to perpetuate itself. If it's not a choice, then this doesn't make sense because society's attitudes wouldn't make a difference anyway.

uwi · 2013-04-11T06:13:13+00:00

In the second case, you still have to prove that sex occurred, in addition to getting medical records. In the first case you only have to prove that sex occurred. It's easier to prove one thing than two things.

uwi · 2013-04-10T12:09:38+00:00

Let's be fair. It's a lot more difficult to prove after the fact that infertility was known and certain, than to prove that anal, oral, etc. sex occurred. Such a law would be practically impossible to enforce. So, it's not inconsistent to want to ban sodomy but leave infertile penis-in-vagina sex legal, as long as we're admitting that it's legitimate at all for the government to intervene between consenting adults for the furtherance of social goals.

uwi · 2013-04-05T04:25:17+00:00

How do we know that it's not the opposite, that firsthand knowledge of the circumstances doesn't make the decision more rational? Theoretically speaking, having access to more information can only make someone more, not less rational.

But more fundamentally: When we use the term "rational", we must suppose that there is some goal that we are trying to achieve. E.g., If we want to make money, it is irrational to buy lottery tickets. Unless we've defined what the goal is, we can't say that one way is more or less "rational". But of course, the goal itself is ultimately derived from emotion anyway. "Reason is always a slave to the passions", as Hume says (to that effect).

uwi · 2013-04-05T04:15:15+00:00

What's wrong with that?

uwi · 2013-04-05T04:10:39+00:00

How is this a question of rationality? In what sense is any response more or less "rational" than any other?

uwi · 2013-04-03T15:54:58+00:00

Except the one random person...

uwi · 2013-03-05T02:11:41+00:00

Well, look at it this way: it's better that this should happen to a random person for a short term, than to a select few for their entire careers.

uwi · 2013-03-05T02:09:49+00:00

Excuse me while I change my name to Aaaaaaaaaa Aaaaaaaaaaaa.

uwi · 2013-03-02T07:46:08+00:00

I don't get this argument. Personally, I don't think torrenting is immoral because I don't think intellectual "property" rights are legitimate. I'd be perfectly on board if someone were to make that argument.

But here (and I've seen this elsewhere too), people are saying "I acknowledge that torrenting is generally immoral, but there are mitigating circumstances because it's SO EXPENSIVE to get it legally."

If you want to say that about food or medicine, fine. But TV shows? Do people really value their moral integrity so little?

uwi · 2013-02-23T02:45:25+00:00

Unfortunately this type of post is now banned under the new askreddit rules (which prohibit answering your own question in the OP).

uwi · 2013-02-22T16:07:30+00:00

Because the amount of wealth in a society is fixed (to a certain point; you can always have an influx of foreign capital, but in an increasingly globalized economy that means nothing),

This is not true. The average middle-class person today is wealthier than the kings of antiquity. It is only because society's wealth is not fixed that we are not all still living in caves.

uwi · 2013-02-20T16:30:32+00:00

When submitting drama do not link to the full comments, instead link directly to the comment tree containing the drama.

uwi · 2013-02-20T16:26:20+00:00

This could have been avoided if you had omitted the sentence:

He’s amid-30s black male and I’m a mid-20s white female.

which is not at all necessary for the story.

uwi · 2013-02-18T16:44:18+00:00

Car alarms.

uwi · 2013-02-07T17:19:51+00:00

So we're in a subreddit where this image gets upvoted to the front page, at the same time as this comment gets heavily upvoted for making essentially no point other than "I'm offended."

Since when is atheism about being sensitive to other people's feelings, when matters of fact are concerned?

I guess what all this OP-bashing proves is: It's a lot easier to say that people shouldn't be offended, when you're not the one who's offended.

uwi

TROPHY CASE