Pain was doing Uplift. Some ritual. Hypothesizing but seems like it was changing human nature to fix the problem at it's core, to remove the evil impulses of men or to give the empathy/compassion via ninshu. Since he was doing that, he probably therefore thought the majority of people would prefer such a state of affairs to the status quo. Which makes sense. Offering a villager wealth and security in return for the loss of some of their emotions or having the emotions of their neighbor in their head all the time sounds worthwhile.
People object that Pain did not get consent. To check whether the majority of the populace would prefer it. There would have been complication with Pain asking: OPSEC leaks, issues of trust. Let's assume that he didn't check.
By conscription do you mean a situation where the majority of the populace desire to win a war enough that they are willing to sacrifice a minority to do it? We have not checked with the majority of the population what they want, to justify sacrificing a minority. Yes the major villages (those in power who benefit from the status quo) fought against Pain. They are not the minor villages. And besides it is civilians who make up the majority.
You cite OPSEC concerns with offering the resurrection of their loved ones, just like Pain had OPSEC concerns. There are issues of trust of them believing our word about what's happening, just as Pain would have had issues of trust perhaps of a different variety.
I'm not sure what you mean by a white feather (pacifism?)
Thank you.
1. White feather: As I was speaking of IRL examples, this was in reference to British boys being "gifted" white feathers as a sign of cowardice to shame them into enlisting during WW2. It is less "hard" coercion than what we are discussing here, and I've ironically shot myself with a pithy example after complaining about them...
2. Conscription: I meant literal conscription, not the subset/alternative definition(?) you expanded it into. I'm confused.
3. OPSEC: You are right, even though I hadn't meant it that way initially. We are both constrained in similar ways. The following is an aside:
It would have been exceedingly convenient if there was some way to secretly gather opinions/ideas/consent for this, even if from leaders and such. Maybe in a way that they'd forget it afterwards? Is there perhaps some ninja with such mind-bending abilities, stealth, and general excellence who could achieve such a thing? Could anyone- Itachi. I'm talking about Itachi.
4. Pain: As I said in the first post, it is difficult to accept reducing a complicated context of vastly different magnitudes to: "Pain and Hazo both having their own "good intentions" and not prioritizing consent over success makes them just like one another."
Judges, mothers of young children, and criminals often do that too. They are not the same.
Here are the list of things that we'd have to ignore to seriously argue over only that position, just off the top of my head and including the big glowing billboard that says SCALE:
1. A Good Plan: To what extent are Pain's intentions vs tangible goals align and make sense with regards to one another? For comparison, Hazo is surrounded by people who constantly (as often invited to) waterboard his plans, as well as people who can simply say "no" to him. Pain was surrounded by his boy band of varying yes-men-hood and sanity (and Konan).
2. Uplift: Whether his intentions align with "Uplift" as closely as you say. I think this simply requires substantiation.
3. The ROOT of Evil: We would also have to ignore the discussion whether "evil" is an emergent behavior of fundamental biological and social systems and a resource-constrained environment,
and whether a fixed ninshu network/magic empathy would lead to its elimination. Indeed, IRL many people who best understand others use this to hurt them.
It is possible that in a different environment Pain could have been a more well adjusted boy band lead singer, and maybe even someone who could be a friend. Alas, the world gave the child the mother of all nukes.
As well as being comically/tragically evil (Hello Mr. Ten Thousandth 'Anti-Villain' With the Same General Idea), I think Pain's plan is short-sighted, untested, and ultimately stupid. That he did not ask before trying to turn the world's population into cabbages is not the only problem, just the icing on the nuclear cake. Equating all of that with our current plan is therefore an exercise in contextual annihilation, as well as egregious pathos.
Whether some of my criticisms towards Pain could be laid at the Sage's feet too, I don't know. But I'm leaning somewhat positive.
Edit: I would have had a lot more sympathy for Pain had he first tried his plan on a smaller scale, like with a remote village or a collection thereof - or, idk, Akatsuki. And if the problem with trying it on the Akatsuki is that they couldn't then do their jobs, that nicely illustrates how reversibility and small scale testing to verify your earth-shattering hypothesis are important.
