Moral dilemma on the 5th of July (hypothetical)...

[Lord Zentei]

Does the totality of all life in the Universe "deserve" to die off because of one guy?

Of course not, but the dilemma is to choose the less reprehensible option. There are far worse things than death: Such as being tortured mercilessly for billions of years. This person would give anything to die after a few minutes of that. Is that really worth staving off what's going to happen regardless?

If you think that killing all the sentients in the Universe is less reprehensible than torturing one sentient for the duration of the Universe then you are a fucking idiot. There is no dilemma in this case. The importance of all sentient life in the Universe outweighs the importance of a single sentient who will live for the duration of the Universe by a factor of the time-averaged population of the Universe, i.e. it is infinitely more important.

Your argument that all sentience will die off anyway eventually betrays your lack of understanding for the value of life. Who gives a flying fuck that life is not eternal? It has intrinsic value regardless.

[Lord Zentei]

If this deity thingie is placing this sort of decision on me. Either it is the absolute epitome of childish cruelty and pointless suffering, or it is operating off a system of morals so alien to me that I cannot even begin to comprehend it.

That being said, I have either the chance to allow this creature to condemn one being to 'eternal' agony so that the rest of us can live under Its obviously psychotic whims. Or I can say no, have no suffering whatsoever, and be freed from being a puppet to this insane being with the dissolution of my consciousness. Fuck, there's no choice involved there.

Fuck what everyone else wants, if that was important, this deity-thingie probably wouldn't have made me the sole-arbiter now, would it? Fuck the 'greater-good' as well. There is *no* 'greater-good' that can be achieved in a universe run under the will of such a tyrannical, childish being. I'd rather end Its little game early and stop all the suffering this obviously sadistic creep had planned for everything before it starts.

This is a bullshit copout. You are not adressing the fucking "dilemma". Incidentally, you are also being no less arrogant than this ficticious "supreme being" by making the choice that life is not worth living on behalf of an infinite number of sentients.

[Darth Raptor]

Either way, you're evading my point that A and B do not have the exact same outcome.

This is what you get for refusing to realize the difference between individual death and collective death. If the universe would continue indefinately and all sentient life would not be irradicated, then you would have a point. Because although each individual person eventually dies, civilization as a whole has a chance to continue. I'm not talking about the fact that everyone dies of old age or any other crap you'd like to build into a strawman, the universe will eventually reach a point where life is impossible.

In other words, you would kill everyone so one person doesn't have to suffer. By your "logic", if a woman is going to have a child, you should nuke her city into glass.

That isn't even remotely analogous. If someone had a gun to my head and made me choose between nuking it now and nuking it later (also, I'm in said city), you might have a point. As it is, you're barely making sense.

Your argument that all sentience will die off anyway eventually betrays your lack of understanding for the value of life. Who gives a flying fuck that life is not eternal? It has intrinsic value regardless.

Because you say so? This is fucking rich, and I absolutely have to hear your rainbow and puppydog reasoning behind it. Life is an anomoly that only wishes to continue because of the process that created it. Every living thing in the entire universe will die, we can only strive to make that transition as painless as possible. Before now, that entailed advancing civilization to a point where there is no war, disease or lack. That way everyone would be happy and enjoying themselves billions of years from now as they are torn assunder at the subatomic level.

Now this asshole god shows up and forces me to inflict on someone something I'd never do myself. And to what end? Allowing the status quo to continue for several billion years towards the exact same outcome. Everything is just as dead post heat death in both of these scenarios. The only difference is that there's a lot less suffering in one than the other. That's how this is a dilemma, Zentei. Because if life isn't eternal, and everything is going to die, how can it possibly have any "intrinsic value"? Did you just find religion?

[Lord Zentei]

Your argument that all sentience will die off anyway eventually betrays your lack of understanding for the value of life. Who gives a flying fuck that life is not eternal? It has intrinsic value regardless.

Because you say so? This is fucking rich, and I absolutely have to hear your rainbow and puppydog reasoning behind it. Life is an anomoly that only wishes to continue because of the process that created it. Every living thing in the entire universe will die, we can only strive to make that transition as painless as possible. Before now, that entailed advancing civilization to a point where there is no war, disease or lack. That way everyone would be happy and enjoying themselves billions of years from now as they are torn assunder at the subatomic level.

If your assessment of the value of life is true, how the fuck does it follow that we are only under a moral obligation to ensure that it's demise occours painlessly? If you find life is so valueless, I suggest you travel to someplace that legalizes euthanesia and spare the rest of us your bullshit.

Also, the Big Rip scenario is not the current benchmark model for cosmic evolution, just FYI.

Now this asshole god shows up and forces me to inflict on someone something I'd never do myself. And to what end? Allowing the status quo to continue for several billion years towards the exact same outcome. Everything is just as dead post heat death in both of these scenarios. The only difference is that there's a lot less suffering in one than the other. That's how this is a dilemma, Zentei. Because if life isn't eternal, and everything is going to die, how can it possibly have any "intrinsic value"? Did you just find religion?

You are a fucking moron. The assertion that life is valueless without eternity is precisely the argument religionists use. "How can you beleive life is worth living without an afterlife ", yadda yadda. The answer us that I find life has value because I can enjoy living while life lasts, asshole. Perhaps you should try to do so too.

BTW, way to ignore my other points.

[DrkHelmet]

Absolutely no question about this.
To protect your people, you must be willing to make sacrifices, even forcing others to make sacrifices that they don't want to.

[Surlethe]

Either way, you're evading my point that A and B do not have the exact same outcome.

This is what you get for refusing to realize the difference between individual death and collective death. If the universe would continue indefinately and all sentient life would not be irradicated, then you would have a point. Because although each individual person eventually dies, civilization as a whole has a chance to continue. I'm not talking about the fact that everyone dies of old age or any other crap you'd like to build into a strawman, the universe will eventually reach a point where life is impossible.

No shit. Stop throwing out red herrings. The outcome of the decision is either A or B, and A is definitely not the same as B, in direct contradiction to your statement.

In other words, you would kill everyone so one person doesn't have to suffer. By your "logic", if a woman is going to have a child, you should nuke her city into glass.

That isn't even remotely analogous. If someone had a gun to my head and made me choose between nuking it now and nuking it later (also, I'm in said city), you might have a point. As it is, you're barely making sense.

Option A is death now. Option B is not death now, but some poor fuck gets to suffer forever. You would choose option A. Why?

No, I'm saying because the total extinction of all intelligent life is going to happen anyway (I'm not talking about individual death, in case you don't know) I'm going to opt for the choice that causes the least suffering.

That is, you feel that because Option B entails one poor little guy suffering, it is moral to kill him and everyone else just so he doesn't have to suffer. In case the bullshit in your brain is impairing your thinking, let me spell my analogy out to you. Woman is having a baby: woman is suffering. By your "morality", the suffering of the individual is worth more than the death of the entire town, so carpet-nuking the city is quite all right.

But just to make it more analagous to the original dilemma, let's say someone claps a gun to your head and makes you choose, and you are in the town. Which do you choose?

[Junghalli]

It's a dilema because the universe is going to die anyway and you're only delaying it by inflicting infinite suffering on a single being.

This is such bullshit. Yes, the universe is going to die anyway, in billions of years! You are killing at least six billion people with your decision, and probably quadrillions on other worlds. The very fact that you consider the murder of every sapient in the universe less horrible than the suffering of one man shows that you are obviously either being a prick or so full of shit it's a wonder you're not being swarmed by dung beetles.

It's great that you can say you'd be tortured for billions of years so this universe can keep going through the motions. I wouldn't put any money on you maintaining that resolve during minute five, let alone year three billion and five.

So by your standard nobody should ever join the army and get killed for their country, right? Because what you're essentially saying is that nobody should ever have to suffer for the greater good. Do you even realize what incredibly self-centered logic this is? And no, the fact that I would be pissing myself at the thought of being tortured until the end of the universe does not mean that it would be anything less than a reprehensible idea to buy myself out with the death of all other life. Frankly if I was that monumentally selfish I'd deserve something bad happening to me anyway IMHO.

Let's say a group of people are on a lift that's slowly being lowered into say... magma. There is no possible escape. Now, let's say that someone came along and threatened to drop the lift instantly to the bottom unless one of the victims has white-hot pokers stuck in his eyes. This won't stop the lift, it just won't fall instantly. What's the point?

That is such a bullshit analogy that words just fail me. Life is not valueless because it is temporary. If you think otherwise why don't you just jump the window?

No, I'm saying because the total extinction of all intelligent life is going to happen anyway (I'm not talking about individual death, in case you don't know)

The total extinction of all life is going to happen anyway billions of years from now you smeghead! Billions of years of a living universe means less than the suffering of one man? That is so fucked up I can't even begin to describe it.

I'm going to opt for the choice that causes the least suffering. The end result is entirely the same.

No you fool, you're killing every sapient being in the universe. Are you really so wrapped up in the idea that nobody deserves to suffer for the lifespan of the universe that you cannot wrap your mind around the fact that you're murdering unknown quadrillions of sapients with your choice? Maybe the end result is the same, but the universe still has a couple of billion good years of life left in it and there are a lot of people who'd kind of appreciate a chance for themselves and their descendants to have their time in the sun. You do realize that by your logic I could walk up to you, blow your head off, and then say that I didn't really do anything wrong because if I hadn't done it you'd have died anyway and the end result would be the same?

Now, if this being's suffering were able to somehow sustain the universe once it reaches the breaking point entropy-wise, that would be a different story. The OP said no such thing.

The universe still has billions of years to go before it becomes uninhabitable. During those billions of years vast numbers of people will almost certainly owe their whole existence to the suffering of our one unfortunate man. You really think it isn't worth it? That's more fucked up than a football bat.

Well, what are you waiting for? If you're wanting me to tell you there's some greater purpose to life than the amoral function of experience you're barking up the wrong tree.

Oh no, you're the one who thinks that life has no value because it's temporary, you jump. I humbly opt to cling on to my measly six more decades or so, which you would deprive me and every other person in the whole fucking universe of to spare one man from pain.

Logically speaking, there's absolutely no reason to extend your life, and the only thing that makes you want to do so is the nature of the process that got you here in the first place.

The reason I want to continue living is so that I can continue thinking and experiencing. The fact that I'll die one day, and that one day the universe will die too, only makes the time I have to do that all the more precious. Now I might be willing to give it up to spare another guy from eternal torture, but asking at least six billion other people to do the same is fucking ridiculous. This is a textbook case of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the one, and anybody who seriously thinks otherwise is either an irrational fanatic or has some serious screws loose.

It's not my perrogative to decide if other people should end their lives. That decision is yours and yours alone, but I can't give you any reason not to.

Oh man, the hypocracy is just dripping off this. It's my decision whether or not to continue my own life, but you'd take that decision away from me and everybody else in the universe to spare one man pain?

Again, as clarification: This scenario is forcing me to chose between two options that have the exact same outcome. I'm merely going with the one that's less painful. For everyone.

Hmm, if I shoot you today or leave you to die of old age fifty or sixty years from now it has the exact same outcome. Does that mean I shouldn't go to jail? And don't give me that bullshit about killing the universe would be less "painful". There are at least billions of sapient beings out there who would very much like the chance to continue living, pain and all, and their lives are worth more than the welfare of one individual. To think otherwise is just messed up.

Either you're full of shit or you have absolutely no concept of time. Torture for billions of years (nevermind the "eternity" you seem to believe in) is an unfathomable fate that absolutely no one in all of history is worthy of.

You've got me all wrong asshat. I fucking well know I'm talking about unimaginable suffering here. I know that I'll probably beg for death after five minutes. I know that after sufficient time I'll probably agree to destroy the universe to save myself if somebody asked, because I'd do literally anything to make the pain stop. But at that point I'd agree to damn the entire universe to eternal torment to save myself, because at that point it would just be my own craven instinctual self-interest talking. You were asking for my response as a thinking person, and my response as such is that it would be utterly absurd and unimaginably selfish to buy myself out of personal suffering, even the worst personal suffering imaginable continued until the heat death of the universe, with the blood of at least billions and probably trillions and trillions of other people.

I certainly wouldn't go through it myself, especially if it didn't change anything at the end of the game.

I'm sure the >6 billion people you're choosing to have killed will feel the same way. Fuck you.

[Darth Raptor]

If your assessment of the value of life is true, how the fuck does it follow that we are only under a moral obligation to ensure that it's demise occours painlessly? If you find life is so valueless, I suggest you travel to someplace that legalizes euthanesia and spare the rest of us your bullshit.

Are you saying we shouldn't strive to make people's temporary lives and inevitable ends as comfortable as possible? No really, what exactly are you saying here? I can't decode the crap.

Also, the Big Rip scenario is not the current benchmark model for cosmic evolution, just FYI.

Really? Big Freeze then? Big Whimper? Will it not end? Please, for the love of all things pleasant tell me I'm wrong. If not, the general uselessness of life stands, the specifics of its departure is the only disparity.

You are a fucking moron. The assertion that life is valueless without eternity is precisely the argument religionists use. "How can you beleive life is worth living without an afterlife ", yadda yadda. The answer us that I find life has value because I can enjoy living while life lasts, asshole. Perhaps you should try to do so too.

No, idiot. You're suggesting that you're someting more than a I/O crap processor. You're not. When one of my skin cells die, is it for nothing? No. The whole organism keeps living. If I myself die, is it for nothing? No, I would have at least contributed in the most minimal sense to the good of the species. If the entire species dies out, was that all for nothing? Probably not, as it still had an impact on events during its tenure that shapes the modern world.

Now, when EVERYTHING dies was it all for nothing? Undoubtedly yes. How can you say it's not? Your desire to continue your life does not give it meaning. It's a motive, not a rational justification.

BTW, way to ignore my other points.

Your entire "point" that a doomed universe has value was entirely predicated on your latter point that life has some intrinsic merit. Get bent.

No shit. Stop throwing out red herrings. The outcome of the decision is either A or B, and A is definitely not the same as B, in direct contradiction to your statement.

The original statement you were responding to, wherein I said that the end result of A and B is the same was included in a post that also said B lasted longer- although that's ultimately meaningless. It's only in "direct contradiction" to itself when it's taken out of context like that.

Option A is death now. Option B is not death now, but some poor fuck gets to suffer forever. You would choose option A. Why?

Because I can't see a reason not to?

That is, you feel that because Option B entails one poor little guy suffering, it is moral to kill him and everyone else just so he doesn't have to suffer. In case the bullshit in your brain is impairing your thinking, let me spell my analogy out to you. Woman is having a baby: woman is suffering. By your "morality", the suffering of the individual is worth more than the death of the entire town, so carpet-nuking the city is quite all right.

That analogy didn't apply earlier, repeating it won't make it so. That analogy only applies if the town is going to be nuked regardless.

But just to make it more analagous to the original dilemma, let's say someone claps a gun to your head and makes you choose, and you are in the town. Which do you choose?

Is the town going to be nuked anyway? Why delay it? What's the fucking point?

This is such bullshit. Yes, the universe is going to die anyway, in billions of years! You are killing at least six billion people with your decision, and probably quadrillions on other worlds. The very fact that you consider the murder of every sapient in the universe less horrible than the suffering of one man shows that you are obviously either being a prick or so full of shit it's a wonder you're not being swarmed by dung beetles.

I fail to see how the length of the fuse makes any difference. If the universe is going to die either way, what's the point of making it do so more painfully?

So by your standard nobody should ever join the army and get killed for their country, right? Because what you're essentially saying is that nobody should ever have to suffer for the greater good. Do you even realize what incredibly self-centered logic this is? And no, the fact that I would be pissing myself at the thought of being tortured until the end of the universe does not mean that it would be anything less than a reprehensible idea to buy myself out with the death of all other life. Frankly if I was that monumentally selfish I'd deserve something bad happening to me anyway IMHO.

You would have a point if there WAS a "greater good", moron. My whole point is that none exists, and any effort to sacrifice for its sake will be ultimately futile. I cannot in good conscience compel someone to do what I wouldn't myself. Sacrifices to make this universe a better place before it goes out are worthwhile, but sacrifices to keep the universe careening towards distruction for no reason are not. Can you seriously not make the connection here? Who are you to say that I or anyone else should go through hell to keep this mess going? If the universe could be saved by this act of brutality I would be all for it. It's not.

That is such a bullshit analogy that words just fail me. Life is not valueless because it is temporary. If you think otherwise why don't you just jump the window?

Answer the question, fuckstick. It's the most direct analogy to the OP presented thus far. What's the point of jamming the white hot poker in his eye?

The total extinction of all life is going to happen anyway billions of years from now you smeghead! Billions of years of a living universe means less than the suffering of one man? That is so fucked up I can't even begin to describe it.

No, billions of years of a living universe has no meaning whatsoever if it's all erased at the end.

No you fool, you're killing every sapient being in the universe. Are you really so wrapped up in the idea that nobody deserves to suffer for the lifespan of the universe that you cannot wrap your mind around the fact that you're murdering unknown quadrillions of sapients with your choice? Maybe the end result is the same, but the universe still has a couple of billion good years of life left in it and there are a lot of people who'd kind of appreciate a chance for themselves and their descendants to have their time in the sun. You do realize that by your logic I could walk up to you, blow your head off, and then say that I didn't really do anything wrong because if I hadn't done it you'd have died anyway and the end result would be the same?

False analogy, again. I'm not killing anyone, this sadistic deity is because of my refusal to torture someone. To make that analogy apply, say someone made you choose between shooting me in the face and torturing someone else for the duration of my life. You would be perfectly justified to bust a cap in my skull.

The universe still has billions of years to go before it becomes uninhabitable. During those billions of years vast numbers of people will almost certainly owe their whole existence to the suffering of our one unfortunate man. You really think it isn't worth it? That's more fucked up than a football bat.

Yes, the entire purpose of life is to build a better future for everyone. If that goal is not acheivable, then life has no meaning. Do you have some justification for existence aside from your outrage at someone calling a spade a spade?

Oh no, you're the one who thinks that life has no value because it's temporary, you jump. I humbly opt to cling on to my measly six more decades or so, which you would deprive me and every other person in the whole fucking universe of to spare one man from pain.

I'm really sick of this strawman equating the mortality of the individual and the mortality of everything. It's not my fault you're too stupid to grasp the difference. An individual life can have meaning without being permanent, so long as the whole it contributed to remains. When the sum of all life dies, it may as well have never existed.

The reason I want to continue living is so that I can continue thinking and experiencing. The fact that I'll die one day, and that one day the universe will die too, only makes the time I have to do that all the more precious. Now I might be willing to give it up to spare another guy from eternal torture, but asking at least six billion other people to do the same is fucking ridiculous. This is a textbook case of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the one, and anybody who seriously thinks otherwise is either an irrational fanatic or has some serious screws loose.

Again, if this > 6 billion people had an actual future to build, you and I would be in total agreement. How do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few when the many will die? Not just have parts of it die, but cease to exist in every conceivable way? It makes no fucking sense.

Oh man, the hypocracy is just dripping off this. It's my decision whether or not to continue my own life, but you'd take that decision away from me and everybody else in the universe to spare one man pain?

It's not my decision as is. This whole thread is based on it suddenly, magically becoming my decision, idiot.

I'm sure the >6 billion people you're choosing to have killed will feel the same way. Fuck you.

Again, do you have a value to life beyond an irrational desire for experience and outrage at someone pointing out how pointless it is? I'd be glad to hear it, and that's no joke.

[Lord Zentei]

If your assessment of the value of life is true, how the fuck does it follow that we are only under a moral obligation to ensure that it's demise occours painlessly? If you find life is so valueless, I suggest you travel to someplace that legalizes euthanesia and spare the rest of us your bullshit.

Are you saying we shouldn't strive to make people's temporary lives and inevitable ends as comfortable as possible? No really, what exactly are you saying here? I can't decode the crap.

That is because you are a strawmanning idiot. The fact that I am questioning the claim that reducing pain and suffering is our only moral imperative does not mean that I am questioning the reality of that moral imperative.

If our only moral imperative is to make people's temporary lives and ends as comforatble as possible, you should euthanize yourself immediately and spare yourself any future pain (after doing this to anyone else you can get ahold of).

But if life is so valueless how is it our only moral imperative to make it as painless as possible? By your logic, what does it matter in the end anyway whether life was painful or not? After everyone is dead, their past suffering is moot, just as their acheivements are.

Also, the Big Rip scenario is not the current benchmark model for cosmic evolution, just FYI.

Really? Big Freeze then? Big Whimper? Will it not end? Please, for the love of all things pleasant tell me I'm wrong. If not, the general uselessness of life stands, the specifics of its departure is the only disparity.

I was correcting your lack of knowledge of cosmology, not arguing that life was eternal. As I pointed out elsewhere, life need not be eternal to have value.

You are a fucking moron. The assertion that life is valueless without eternity is precisely the argument religionists use. "How can you beleive life is worth living without an afterlife ", yadda yadda. The answer us that I find life has value because I can enjoy living while life lasts, asshole. Perhaps you should try to do so too.

No, idiot. You're suggesting that you're someting more than a I/O crap processor. You're not.

Strawman. Good grief, are you on drugs or something?

When one of my skin cells die, is it for nothing? No. The whole organism keeps living. If I myself die, is it for nothing? No, I would have at least contributed in the most minimal sense to the good of the species. If the entire species dies out, was that all for nothing? Probably not, as it still had an impact on events during its tenure that shapes the modern world. Now, when EVERYTHING dies was it all for nothing? Undoubtedly yes. How can you say it's not? Your desire to continue your life does not give it meaning. It's a motive, not a rational justification.

One evaluates life during the time while life lasts, retard. At the end of all things, the concept of the value of life is irrelevant, and claiming that it is valueless because it ceaces to exist at that point is meaningless.

BTW, way to ignore my other points.

Your entire "point" that a doomed universe has value was entirely predicated on your latter point that life has some intrinsic merit. Get bent.

Bullshit. Reread my post with your brain switched on this time:

The importance of all sentient life in the Universe outweighs the importance of a single sentient who will live for the duration of the Universe by a factor of the time-averaged population of the Universe, i.e. it is infinitely more important

Anyway, how the hell is it meaningful to assert that your life has no inherent value if you also claim that your life will have had value if you have made an impact on other lives, if these lives are presumably also inherently valueless?

[Keevan_Colton]

Darth Raptor, you are making the assertion that life itself has no value, therefore, why is suffering or lack thereof (which are a condition of life) of some kind of value?

[Darth Raptor]

That is because you are a strawmanning idiot. The fact that I am questioning the claim that reducing pain and suffering is our only moral imperative does not mean that I am questioning the reality of that moral imperative.

If our only moral imperative is to make people's temporary lives and ends as comforatble as possible, you should euthanize yourself immediately and spare yourself any future pain (after doing this to anyone else you can get ahold of).

But if life is so valueless how is it our only moral imperative to make it as painless as possible? By your logic, what does it matter in the end anyway whether life was painful or not? After everyone is dead, their past suffering is moot, just as their acheivements are.

Conceeded.

One evaluates life during the time while life lasts, retard. At the end of all things, the concept of the value of life is irrelevant, and claiming that it is valueless because it ceaces to exist at that point is meaningless.

So essentially you're saying the same thing I am, that we should work towards making this universe more comfortable before it goes out. Only you say it doesn't matter if it doesn't matter once it's all over?

Anyway, how the hell is it meaningful to assert that your life has no inherent value if you also claim that your life will have had value if you have made an impact on other lives, if these lives are presumably also inherently valueless?

Life has no purpose. It exists because it wants to, and it only wants to because of the nature of the process that created it. Any system of morality we create works within the reality that there is no reason for life. It exists because it "just does". So after realizing that life ultimately has no meaning, we can work towards the irrational goal of continuing it. You can argue that life doesn't need a purpose, and our desire to exist is justification enough to continue existing. I would agree, but I cannot for the life of me wrap my brain around one thing: The notion that the struggle towards this (admittedly irrational) goal is meaningful if that goal fails. I am in complete agreement that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but that can only be a valid outlook so long as life as a whole is sustained. Help me out here.

Darth Raptor, you are making the assertion that life itself has no value, therefore, why is suffering or lack thereof (which are a condition of life) of some kind of value?

I don't know. I suppose logic and morality are only truly compatible to a certain extent. Once you get so far, a useful system of ethics has to be based on inherently irrational concepts. Such as life should exist because it wants to, and pain should be avoided because we want to avoid it.

[SAMAS]

That is, you feel that because Option B entails one poor little guy suffering, it is moral to kill him and everyone else just so he doesn't have to suffer. In case the bullshit in your brain is impairing your thinking, let me spell my analogy out to you. Woman is having a baby: woman is suffering. By your "morality", the suffering of the individual is worth more than the death of the entire town, so carpet-nuking the city is quite all right.

That analogy didn't apply earlier, repeating it won't make it so. That analogy only applies if the town is going to be nuked regardless.

Even if it isn't going to be nuked, per se, it will eventually be abandoned, and the buildings demolished or simply eroded away with the passage of time.

So if it's eventually going to be gone anyway, why not nuke it now?

[Darth Raptor]

So if it's eventually going to be gone anyway, why not nuke it now?

You don't know that it will be abandoned and eroded. It may very well be absorbed into the greater cityscape of the planet, and the people who inhabited it may not all die lacking a legacy.

This scenario dealing with an isolated population that is doomed is unique. Moreover, any scenario that deals with the collective death of everything is unique. The destruction of a city cannot compare to the destruction of the universe unless the city is an isolated population that cannot continue to exist on its own.

[Lord Zentei]

One evaluates life during the time while life lasts, retard. At the end of all things, the concept of the value of life is irrelevant, and claiming that it is valueless because it ceaces to exist at that point is meaningless.

So essentially you're saying the same thing I am, that we should work towards making this universe more comfortable before it goes out. Only you say it doesn't matter if it doesn't matter once it's all over?

Life has value to the living. This value should not be evaluated at some arbitrary point but at all points, and the summation should then be maximized when deciding the optimal timeline.

Anyway, how the hell is it meaningful to assert that your life has no inherent value if you also claim that your life will have had value if you have made an impact on other lives, if these lives are presumably also inherently valueless?

Life has no purpose. It exists because it wants to, and it only wants to because of the nature of the process that created it. Any system of morality we create works within the reality that there is no reason for life. It exists because it "just does". So after realizing that life ultimately has no meaning, we can work towards the irrational goal of continuing it. You can argue that life doesn't need a purpose, and our desire to exist is justification enough to continue existing. I would agree, but I cannot for the life of me wrap my brain around one thing: The notion that the struggle towards this (admittedly irrational) goal is meaningful if that goal fails. I am in complete agreement that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but that can only be a valid outlook so long as life as a whole is sustained. Help me out here.

I enjoy life, that is reason enough for me to seek to maximize it's total value from my perspective. Then morality comes into the picture which stipulates that I should procede under the assumption that other sentients think likewise and extend to them the courtesy that allows them to optimize the total value of their lives, and a cost optimization analysis becomes neccesary.

[Junghalli]

I fail to see how the length of the fuse makes any difference. If the universe is going to die either way, what's the point of making it do so more painfully?

Oh, I don't know, maybe so that >6 billion people get a chance to live out their lives, and their descendants get the same chance?

You would have a point if there WAS a "greater good", moron. My whole point is that none exists, and any effort to sacrifice for its sake will be ultimately futile.

So you admit that you're using utterly selfish reasoning here. How nice. Honestly, it scares me that there are people in the world who actually think like this.

I cannot in good conscience compel someone to do what I wouldn't myself.

You would buy yourself out of personal suffering with the lives of every sapient being in the universe? You sir are a monster.

Sacrifices to make this universe a better place before it goes out are worthwhile, but sacrifices to keep the universe careening towards distruction for no reason are not.

The universe is a better place if it contains intelligent beings. The universe may be careening toward destruction in billions of years, but that's a very different thing from destroying it today. This is like saying that blowing up a cyclonic torpedo in downtown NY and destroying all life on Earth right now is just peachy because the Earth will become uninhabitable when the sun turns into a red giant. It in no way whatsoever negates the fact that it's killing billions of people who would otherwise live.

Can you seriously not make the connection here?

It's not that I don't understand your argument, it's just that I think it's bullshit.

Who are you to say that I or anyone else should go through hell to keep this mess going?

And who the fuck are you to take away every sapient being's right to life just to spare one man from personal pain?

If the universe could be saved by this act of brutality I would be all for it. It's not.

The universe is doomed in billions of years, so let's just kill it now and get it over with! Because as we all know something that's temporary isn't worth sacrificing for... oh wait a minute, everything is temporary, I guess that means nothing is worth sacrificing for. So nice to see the human animal at its craven, selfish worst.

Answer the question, fuckstick. It's the most direct analogy to the OP presented thus far. What's the point of jamming the white hot poker in his eye?

No, a far better analogy would be choosing between having one man tortured to death and releasing some sort of painless lethal radiation over an entire city. This is still a moral dilemma to be sure, but the people who are in the city getting nuked would kind of appreciate the chance to live out their lives, no?

No, billions of years of a living universe has no meaning whatsoever if it's all erased at the end.

Right. There will come a time when nobody remembers who I was or what I did, so my life is therefore without any value? Welcome to tortured logic 101-today's lesson, how to justify buying yourself out of hell by killing the entire universe!

False analogy, again. I'm not killing anyone, this sadistic deity is because of my refusal to torture someone.

Ooh, look, he's dodging now. The fact that somebody else is doing the killing does not exonerate you from responsibility, since you're the one who made the choice.

To make that analogy apply, say someone made you choose between shooting me in the face and torturing someone else for the duration of my life. You would be perfectly justified to bust a cap in my skull.

Yes, if it's just you. That's my whole point. It kind of starts to fall apart when you ask me to kill more and more people to spare that one man. How about if I kill five people? Ten people? A hundred? A million? How many human lives are worth it to save that one guy from a lifetime of pain? Surely, there must be an upper limit.

Yes, the entire purpose of life is to build a better future for everyone. If that goal is not acheivable, then life has no meaning.

There can be no better future for anyone of the universe dies! If the universe dies nobody has a future at all!

Do you have some justification for existence aside from your outrage at someone calling a spade a spade?

You're killing the entire universe to buy one guy out of suffering and you expect me not to be outraged?

I'm really sick of this strawman equating the mortality of the individual and the mortality of everything. It's not my fault you're too stupid to grasp the difference.

The welfare of >6 billion people are worth more than the welfare of one man. I don't know how I could put this to you any more simply. If you can't accept this you're either being a complete prick or an irrational fanatic.

An individual life can have meaning without being permanent, so long as the whole it contributed to remains.

And eventually... the whole it contributed to will have changed so drastically that it might as well not have existed. Eventually, as you are so fond of pointing out, the universe will end in heat-death. Hence all life must be basically valueless... you see the problem?

When the sum of all life dies, it may as well have never existed.

I'm sure that will be great comfort to the billions, if not quadrillions of people you're killing to save one man. Fuck you.

Again, if this > 6 billion people had an actual future to build, you and I would be in total agreement.

They have billions of years in which to build some kind of future, which you would deprive them of.

How do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few when the many will die?

You're argument hinges on the fact that the many will die eventually. By this logic nobody need ever have to sacrifice for the greater good. Thank you for proving that you are a callous monster.

It's not my decision as is. This whole thread is based on it suddenly, magically becoming my decision, idiot.

Nice dodge.

Again, do you have a value to life beyond an irrational desire for experience and outrage at someone pointing out how pointless it is? I'd be glad to hear it, and that's no joke.

The desire to experience and live is value enough. The desire of many billions of people to experience and live trumps the desire of one man not to experience eternal pain.

[Darth Raptor]

My position is not defensible by any useful system of ethics.

Conceeded.