To kill or not to kill

Killing, in the infamous words of the largely unrecognized prophet Mackey, “…is bad, mmm’kay”, which is something I agree with wholeheartedly, when regarding the suffering caused to the people left behind by the person who was killed. No question there.

Things go horribly wrong, however, when people start talking about the damage done to the person being killed. Almost every discussion I’m in regarding the theoretical possibility of a justifiable killing spree (oddly enough, this happens more often than you’d think) crashes and burns when some naive ignoranus clumsily tries to explain that any killer ends up on the ass-side of the karmic spectrum not just because of the damage to thirds, but because something very important is also taken from the killee. At that point there is nothing more to do than leave the discussion and get some more beer, as people are now starting to agree with each other that life, in and of itself, is worth living, and when you are killed this so-called “worthwhile life” is taken from you. They laugh, shake hands and pat each other on the back, falsely comforted by the thought that the gut-feeling telling them that killing is bad has just been philosophically proven by their little Circle of Naivety. They might even rejoice in making music.

I would have been in this picture, but I left

Of course, they’re wrong in this assumption, and I’m going to take time out of my busy schedule to prove this once and for all. First we have to lay down some ground rules, however:

First of all, in order to prove that killing someone does not cause the killee direct harm, I will need to utilize the power of the thought experiment. These experiments place severe limits on their imagined reality. These limits are there for a reason, namely squaring off the part of the problem which is actually important to my argument, instead of all the other stuff people tend to pick from a discussion, leading it off into ever-narrowing spirals of bullshit. Thus, failure to accept and adhere to these limits will result in a severe face slapping.

Secondably, however strict the limits in the thought experiment, the mere fact that we’re going to be talking about how killing someone does him no harm means that you, too, will have to do some long and hard abstract thinking. If you are unwilling or unable to do so, please leave now, as -you guessed it- failure to comply and asking stupid questions = ze slapping of ze face. You are of course welcome to stick around, be quiet and watch the other kids get slapped. Good times.

Now then, let’s get this dog and pony show on the road, shall we?

First, take a good look at the schematic below:

Universe A		Universe B
+ beer	- beer	¬ beer
+ life	- life	¬ life

In order for our little thought experiment to appeal to the common man, I have decided to use everyone’s favourite beverage, beer, as the prime example. In our universe, lets call it Universe A, people can own and drink beer, and get completely shitfaced as a result. When they have beer, represented in the schematic above as “+ beer”, this is generally considered as being better than having no beer, represented as “- beer”. With me so far? Good.

Universe A in a nutshell

Universe B on the other hand contains no beer whatsoever, to the extent that the people in it are even incapable of producing thoughts about the very concept of beer (represented above as “¬ beer”, “¬” being the logical sign for “not”). Take a moment to let this sink in.

No. Beer.

This is usually when someone decides they can outsmart me by saying something like “Well, sure, but what if they make beer by accident? THEN they would have beer too righ—” *WHACK!* NO!! BAD READER! What did I say about limits?! NO. BEER. PERIOD.

Sorry about that. So anyway, while the absence of beer looks like it’s gonna suck, this not necessarily the case. Choosing beer over no beer is logical in our universe, but not when choosing between universes. You see, the (non)existence of beer bears no direct consequence for the net worth of the respective universes. For all you know, Universe B has no wars either. Or no Bush. The point is, you don’t know. So, choosing Universe A over Universe B just because Universe A has beer, says nothing about the preferability of Universe A, but more about your fear of the unknown. In order too choose objectively, you have to realize that when you opt for Universe B, you will NOT be missing beer, which means that beer should not be a prominent factor in your choice. Since this goes for every aspect you could possibly think of (again: wars, Bush, ponies or the Crazy Frog, you name it), choosing objectively between universes is impossible, really.

Now, building slowly towards our inevitable conclusion, even when someone is brought from one universe to the next, he will no longer be able to contemplate beer, as the very concept is not legit in that universe. As long as the person would not be told in advance that he would have to “miss” beer, so as to negate any indirect psychological trauma, this person would be done no harm, seeing as how he would not in fact miss beer. In short, choosing “+ beer” over “- beer” is logical within our universe, choosing “+ beer” over “¬ beer” is not even logical theoretically, and really only displays the way someone is rooted in our universe, and is unable to think at a somewhat advanced abstract level. Still with me? The real fun hasn’t even started yet!

Imagine this WITHOUT the beer, and you’ve got Universe B

Now, let’s make things interesting by finally entering life into the equation.

In this universe, we like our lives. Being alive enables you to do all the fun stuff you enjoy so much, like tugging on your wiener, eating steak and pulling the lint out of your belly button. Put in the terms of our little schematic (feel free to scroll back for a second) “+ life” is regarded as better than “- life”. However, in analogy with the beer example, it should be clear that “- life” is not the same as “¬ life”, and that a choice between the two universes based on the existence of life alone will most likely be based on our “we like Universe A because we happen to live in it”-bias. Which is not a bad thing as such, it’s just that it ultimately doesn’t matter, as being dead is not the same as missing being alive. Now, let’s get to the part were we get to kill people without feeling bad.

Analogous to the example with our golden friend, suddenly and painlessly killing someone will bring them into Universe B, where, granted, they will have no life, but there will be no life to miss. So really, the killees themselves are not harmed in this way. Death is a state without experience, which means that projecting the feeling of “missing life” into a state without experience is understandable, but bullshit. After death, there is no such thing as a “worthwhile life”, which was just a projection of your present self into the future to begin with. If I kill someone painlessly and without them knowing they are going to die, they are not directly harmed in the same way that if you plan on drinking beer tomorrow, and I transport you to Universe B where you completely forget about beer, you are not harmed.

CONCLUSION TIME!!

To wrap things up, this whole frickin’ post was really just to make sure that you and all other people who read this don’t ever, EVER, come to me saying that when I feel the need to kill someone I am taking something precious from that person, because there is no such thing as a “worthwhile life”. There’s either life, or there’s not, and the people who are left behind are just collateral damage. Unless maybe Catholics are right and you go to either heaven or hell. This means I’ve got a 50/50 shot of granting someone early access to what is supposedly the greatest place EVAH if you believe the scriptures, which would be pretty nifty. If you somehow end up in hell, well… not much I could’ve done about that now, could I? Remind me to buy you a beer when I get there and we’ll call it even, you little shit.