Remove ads

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Voting is open for the next 1 day, 10 hours
Reader mode
Lailoken said:
You're not taking the concept far enough. A specialized storage scroll could be a real time-saver for the same reason that Star Trek doesn't have restrooms.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yes. Probably a money maker too.

I know it's kinda squick, and maybe the QMs probably don't want to think about in any detail but...
I really thought that military diapers were a thing IRL. I had no idea they were, in fact, not.

I think most ninja would secretly love great quality of life improvements impacting:

Swamp crotch
Swamp ass
Chafing
Inconvenient Defecation
Inconvenient Urination
Probably helps with cleaning dead bodies too...
 
eaglejarl said:
The most common objections that I get now are:

A) "I don't want to live forever. Everyone should die eventually."
and
B) "It would get boring after a while."


Answer A) scares the crap out of me, especially since once of my close family holds that opinion. The relative in question cannot explain why they have that feeling, but they do.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I mean, I agree with A for sociological reasons. To much power would accumulate in too few hands.

At some level everyone should die for a while and be required to start fresh. The exact details would need to be worked out, but I expect that you need some form of death for society to not stagnate. At least if you want to keep the notion of individual identity around.

Mind that doesn't mean I wouldn't take any version of the pill from 2 up.
 
Last edited:
Orisha91 said:
A lot of morality and social mores become a lot more flexible/breakable without the fear of death and the afterlife.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is actually a thing that theists say to atheists a lot: "Without God, you atheists have no foundation for morality. There's nothing stopping you from raping and murdering."

I find this statement horrifying, since what the theist is actually saying, almost certainly without realizing it (EDIT: and likely without intending it, as it probably doesn't really align with their values), is that they want to rape and murder and only their belief in God is holding them back. God forbid that they should someday lose their faith.
 
Last edited:
eaglejarl said:
This is actually a thing that theists say to atheists a lot: "Without God, you atheists have no foundation for morality. There's nothing stopping you from raping and murdering."

I find this statement horrifying, since what the theist is actually saying, almost certainly without realizing it, is that they want to rape and murder and only their belief in God is holding them back. God forbid that they should someday lose their faith.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think murder and rape would still be in the no-go areas for the vast majority.
I was thinking about more light-weight areas: relationships, entertainment, and hobbies.

For example, personal relationships change; I think you can fall in and out of love more easily.

Or how about the people you hate might be a friend a few centuries down the line. What if you actually really don't need to keep in touch with family, you'll eventually find them or maybe you wanna forget about some.
 
Today on popular and headdesk-worthy arguments...

eaglejarl said:
B) "It would get boring after a while."

Answer B) is just boggling to me, especially because it is absolutely immune to resolution. Pointing out that media is produced far faster than it can be consumed does not help. Pointing out that there are always new things to learn does not help. Pointing out that compound interest will eventually mean that you're rich enough that you don't have to work and can go travel the world or do whatever you want doesn't help.

It's utterly boggling, and also a bit infuriating.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I've always felt that way about people who fear fulfilling their heart's desire/lifelong goal etc. because it will leave them with nothing to do. I have never heard a single person bring up the thought that you can choose a new life's ambition to replace the one you've fulfilled.

Separately, I suspect that part of one of the arguments (or at least, people's intuition that leads to such an argument) is the accumulation of emotional baggage. People who find themselves with a lot of regrets are more likely to project a future in which they accumulate yet more regrets (whether because they have a terrible view of themselves or of the world), leading to ever-increasing misery. Personally, I don't believe this will happen, because eventually a) you are bound to pick up the skill of dealing with negative feelings, and b) someone is going to invent permanent cures for depression and other mental illnesses. But then, I'm fairly optimistic as pessimists go, and I can see where many wouldn't be.
Shard said:
Yes. Could I get regeneration on top of this so I don't also die from Truck accidents?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I think this is unwise. It is absolutely crucial for an immortal to have some way to self-terminate, because it is trivially easy to imagine a situation of eternal imprisonment, accidental or deliberate (or, if someone has way too much time on their hands, eternal torture).
Orisha91 said:
I think murder and rape would still be in the no-go areas for the vast majority.
I was thinking about more light-weight areas: relationships, entertainment, and hobbies.

For example, personal relationships change; I think you can fall in and out of love more easily.

Or how about the people you hate might be a friend a few centuries down the line. What if you actually really don't need to keep in touch with family, you'll eventually find them or maybe you wanna forget about some.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Back in the domain of fiction, I once played a VN in which a protagonist gets trapped in a time loop within a small closed space (a summer camp), and because everyone else's actions become so predictable, he ultimately comes to see himself as the only real person. Bad things ensue as he gets increasingly jaded. I can't help feeling that this kind of scenario (you've experienced every type of legal entertainment, so you end up drifting into crime) becomes more rather than less plausible with immortality, with the bonus that people drift into crime a lot more easily than they drift out of it.
 
Velorien said:
I think this is unwise. It is absolutely crucial for an immortal to have some way to self-terminate, because it is trivially easy to imagine a situation of eternal imprisonment, accidental or deliberate (or, if someone has way too much time on their hands, eternal torture).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Full immortality unless I will it.
Velorien said:
Back in the domain of fiction, I once played a VN in which a protagonist gets trapped in a time loop within a small closed space (a summer camp), and because everyone else's actions become so predictable, he ultimately comes to see himself as the only real person. Bad things ensue as he gets increasingly jaded. I can't help feeling that this kind of scenario (you've experienced every type of legal entertainment, so you end up drifting into crime) becomes more rather than less plausible with immortality, with the bonus that people drift into crime a lot more easily than they drift out of it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
There's only one way to find out..
 
MrCogmor said:
Fiction is just someone's supposition not actual evidence.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Yes, it still helps with expanding imagination and providing possible scenarios to consider. It's like watching a 'what if' game that author is playing with himself. Depending on author's intelligence it may come quite near the reality.

The key here is to not forget that ending of a work of fiction is only one possible ending, the one author chose, while there are n other ways the story could have unfold.

That is a base for a lot of fanfictions, actually - you take a story, mess with it in one or several focal points and than write your own story. The process may not stop at all. @eaglejarl as one who wrote fanfiction on fanfiction on fanfiction probably knows what I mean ;)

Velorien said:
Back in the domain of fiction, I once played a VN in which a protagonist gets trapped in a time loop within a small closed space (a summer camp), and because everyone else's actions become so predictable, he ultimately comes to see himself as the only real person.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Was it 'Eternal Summer'?
 
TarzanNn said:
Was it 'Eternal Summer'?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah, though it's localised as "Everlasting Summer" in English. Was disappointed by the cop-out ending, though.
Turns out the person keeping you locked in the time loop was your future self because something something important lesson. No mention of how you'll one day end up with a power like that, either.
 
Velorien said:
Yeah, though it's localised as "Everlasting Summer" in English. Was disappointed by the cop-out ending, though.
Turns out the person keeping you locked in the time loop was your future self because something something important lesson. No mention of how you'll one day end up with a power like that, either.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm actually surprised the devs were able to pull off something remotely coherent at all, since the basic premise was "let's make a VN with all Russian imageboards' mascots. Plus tits".
 
eaglejarl said:
This is actually a thing that theists say to atheists a lot: "Without God, you atheists have no foundation for morality. There's nothing stopping you from raping and murdering."

I find this statement horrifying, since what the theist is actually saying, almost certainly without realizing it (EDIT: and likely without intending it, as it probably doesn't really align with their values), is that they want to rape and murder and only their belief in God is holding them back. God forbid that they should someday lose their faith.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Um, no, that's not what we're saying. As a theist that makes this argument, I am quite clear that this is not what I'm saying. Let me try to explain what I am saying in a clear fashion.

Morality--the idea that some things are wrong for everyone and other things are right for everyone--is either a true idea or it is not. Either killing an innocent and non-threatening person (for example) is wrong for everyone, or it is not.

Morality cannot be mathematically proved. There is no possible series of equations that can prove that it is wrong to commit murder--that is, to kill an innocent and non-threatening person.

Morality cannot be empirically observed. Unlike gravitation and magnetism (for example), there is no empirical experiment which can demonstrate that it is always and everywhere wrong to kill an innocent and non-threatening person.

Perhaps murder is wrong because I dislike it? If it is wrong because I dislike it, then at most I can say that it is wrong for me. Under this model, for someone that does not dislike murder, such as the infamous serial killer John Wayne Gacy, murder is not wrong. This is basically similar to different flavors of ice cream. The most I can say is that a given flavor is wrong for me; I cannot say that it is wrong for you.

Perhaps murder is wrong because it is counter-productive? But then, under any circumstances where murder is not counter-productive, murder is not wrong. For example, Hitler and his Nazis dreamed of a Jew-free Europe, and ultimately, of a Jew-free world. For them, the mass murder of Jews would not be wrong under this model, because it would not be counter-productive to their goals.

Indeed, your story has provided examples of the protagonists, our beloved Hazo and Team Uplift, committing mass-murder and justifying it by appeal to the utility of it. I'm thinking particularly of the sinking of the boat scene, as well as Hazo's consideration of joining in the blood-crimes of Orochimaru because he supposes that ultimately the torture and murder of a few dozen innocent people will lead to some kind of utopia. The Communist revolutionaries in Russia, China, and other countries trod a similar philosophical path.

Perhaps murder is wrong because it is illegal? But murder is not always and everywhere illegal. Under this model, the wrongness of murder depends upon the local criminal statute.

So what is the basis for the assertion that murder (or any other act) is wrong everywhere, everywhen, and for everyone? The only basis that I can see is the decree of G-d. If you do not believe in Him and His law, then the most you can say is that you find murder very off-putting, or that it is usually counter-productive, or that it is illegal, but not that there is anything inherently wrong in it.

In contrast, I, as a believer in G-d, can say that not only do I find murder very off-putting, but also that it is wrong, always, everywhere, and for everyone.
 
Last edited:
eaglejarl said:
Years ago, I started playing a game in which I asked people a certain question. The question changed over the years, evolving based on the responses I got. The progress went something like this:

1) "Here's a pill. [hands them an imaginary pill] If you take it, you will never die. Do you take it?"

2) "Here's a pill. [hands them an imaginary pill] If you take it, you will never die unless you want to. Do you take it?"

3) "Here's a pill. [hands them an imaginary pill] If you take it, you will never age again. You can still die if you're hit by a truck or whatever, but you won't die of old age. Do you take it?"

4) "Here's a pill. [hands them an imaginary pill] If you take it, it will reset your body to whatever age you like and then you will never age again. You can still die if you're hit by a truck or whatever, but you won't die of old age. Do you take it?"

5) "Here's a pill. [hands them an imaginary pill] If you take it, it will reset your body to whatever age you like and then you will never age or get sick again. Yes, that includes not getting cancer. You can still die if you're hit by a truck or whatever, but you won't die of old age or disease. Do you take it?"

6) "Here's a pill. [hands them an imaginary pill] If you take it, it will reset your body to whatever age you like and then you will never age or get sick again. Yes, that includes not getting cancer. You can still die if you're hit by a truck or whatever, but you won't die of old age or disease. Also, the pill has been thoroughly studied and is completely and 100% free of side effects. Do you take it?"

7) "Here's a pill. [hands them an imaginary pill] If you take it, it will reset your body to whatever age you like and then you will never age or get sick again. Yes, that includes not getting cancer. You can still die if you're hit by a truck or whatever, but you won't die of old age or disease. Also, the pill has been thoroughly studied and is completely safe and 100% free of side effects. Also, there are enough pills that everyone in the world who wants one can have one, as can everyone who will ever be born. Do you take it?"

I kept adding things in to deal with the most common objections because I was curious what it would take to get the percent of "Yes" answers above 50%.

I still haven't managed it.

The most common objections that I get now are:

A) "I don't want to live forever. Everyone should die eventually."
and
B) "It would get boring after a while."


Answer A) scares the crap out of me, especially since once of my close family holds that opinion. The relative in question cannot explain why they have that feeling, but they do.

Answer B) is just boggling to me, especially because it is absolutely immune to resolution. Pointing out that media is produced far faster than it can be consumed does not help. Pointing out that there are always new things to learn does not help. Pointing out that compound interest will eventually mean that you're rich enough that you don't have to work and can go travel the world or do whatever you want doesn't help.

It's utterly boggling, and also a bit infuriating.


This has been your random weekend conversational detour. We now return you to your regularly scheduled ninja deathworld.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I was saying yes from fairly close to the beginning, up until it was mentioned that everyone else would be getting it too. That brings up a whole lot of questions about how we're going to deal with overpopulation, whether socioeconomic status will become even more entrenched than it already is, etc.
It's a lot easier to delude myself into thinking that me being immortal wouldn't end up being terrible for the world than it is to delude myself into thinking that the current world leaders(or whoever replaces them after worldwide immortality hits) would be a good group of people to make immortal. The pill would probably have to fundamentally change the way society (especially government) works for that to work out well.
 
Raxner said:
Morality--the idea that some things are wrong for everyone and other things are right for everyone--is either a true idea or it is not. Either killing an innocent and non-threatening person (for example) is wrong for everyone, or it is not.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I think you're likely running into a definitional conflict here. When you say "morality" you mean something different from other people, which leads to the confusion seen here.

For one thing, you're saying "without a deity, there's nothing stopping [you] from committing [bad acts]" while you really mean "without a deity, there's nothing stopping every theoretical person in every theoretical situation and every time from doing [bad acts]" which has a very different meaning.

The first statement would carry the implications that EJ was making to most people if you replaced "belief in a deity" with, say, "being in handcuffs" or something similar. The latter, however, is likely an actual claim that I think many atheists would agree with you on, especially if you choose to stick to the realm of "human understandable things" like "observable actions" and maybe, at best, "active thoughts" (for self-evaluation), because it's all too easy to come up with plausible examples for many explanations for why the acts we currently view as bad aren't universally so, along with a whole host of historical evidence showing that among behaviors we currently think are bad were, likely nearly every historical culture and religion did not view them all as bad.

That either means that somehow you were lucky enough to happen to be born at the exactly most correctly moral-believing time, or at least some of the things you think are universally bad aren't as universal as you think, neither of which is especially indicative of am intelligence that created and is a fundamental aspect of reality, as most religious beliefs would profess.
 
Raxner said:
So what is the basis for the assertion that murder (or any other act) is wrong everywhere, everywhen, and for everyone? The only basis that I can see is the decree of G-d. If you do not believe in Him and His law, then the most you can say is that you find murder very off-putting, or that it is usually counter-productive, or that it is illegal, but not that there is anything inherently wrong in it.

In contrast, I, as a believer in G-d, can say that not only do I find murder very off-putting, but also that it is wrong, always, everywhere, and for everyone.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
A problem with the argument you make is that from this argument it logically follows that atheists should have a much higher murder rate than theists. If we look at the actual statistics, this is not the case.
You may want to try using a different example instead, one which is more morally grey and actually does have higher rates among atheists than theists. At which point the question becomes whether that action is actually bad or not, but that's not something I can really answer.
 
Sentient Tree said:
You may want to try using a different example instead, one which is more morally grey and actually does have higher rates among atheists than theists. At which point the question becomes whether that action is actually bad
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Which brings us to the issues of homophobia, abortions, euthanisation, substances usage, and others. I don't think we should wenture in this area, at least not in this thread.
 
Sentient Tree said:
A problem with the argument you make is that from this argument it logically follows that atheists should have a much higher murder rate than theists. If we look at the actual statistics, this is not the case.
You may want to try using a different example instead, one which is more morally grey and actually does have higher rates among atheists than theists. At which point the question becomes whether that action is actually bad or not, but that's not something I can really answer.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Technically no. Ignoring legal differences, it only follows that theists whose deity or deities have ordained that murder is always morally reprehensible will have a lower murder rate when compared to non-theists (Edit: Who also share this belief due to intrinsic reasons). Which may or may not be true, since I'm not a theologist and don't know how many situations various deities would permit the killing of otherwise innocent or unthreatening individuals.
 
Last edited:
Icehawk78 said:
I think you're likely running into a definitional conflict here. When you say "morality" you mean something different from other people, which leads to the confusion seen here.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

More accurately, I am trying to clear up @eaglejarl's confusion. He seems to understand the statement that he paraphrases as "Anyone that does not believe in G-d will commit murder, torture, and other such crimes, not being deterred by belief in G-d." He notes that this statement only makes sense if we assume that people want to commit murder, torture, etc., and are merely deterred (or not) by external factors. He states that this implies that the theists are saying about themselves that they indeed wish to commit such crimes, and would, absent belief in G-d.

My point is that he has simply misunderstood our argument, and that he is attacking a straw man. The statement that "Without G-d there is nothing to stop you from committing murder or other crimes" does not unpack to the above meaning. It unpacks to "Without G-d, there is no coherent reason to regard murder or other such acts as universally wrong. Therefore, the choice to commit them or not to commit them becomes
a matter of personal preference and local conditions, fundamentally similar to the choice to eat or not eat ice cream."

Icehawk78 said:
For one thing, you're saying "without a deity, there's nothing stopping [you] from committing [bad acts]" while you really mean "without a deity, there's nothing stopping every theoretical person in every theoretical situation and every time from doing [bad acts]" which has a very different meaning.

The first statement would carry the implications that EJ was making to most people if you replaced "belief in a deity" with, say, "being in handcuffs" or something similar. The latter, however, is likely an actual claim that I think many atheists would agree with you on, especially if you choose to stick to the realm of "human understandable things" like "observable actions" and maybe, at best, "active thoughts" (for self-evaluation), because it's all too easy to come up with plausible examples for many explanations for why the acts we currently view as bad aren't universally so, along with a whole host of historical evidence showing that among behaviors we currently think are bad were, likely nearly every historical culture and religion did not view them all as bad.

That either means that somehow you were lucky enough to happen to be born at the exactly most correctly moral-believing time, or at least some of the things you think are universally bad aren't as universal as you think, neither of which is especially indicative of am intelligence that created and is a fundamental aspect of reality, as most religious beliefs would profess.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Now you are entering the question of whether or not G-d exists, and if He exists, whether or not He indeed constructed some form of morality/ethics and made it a fundamental aspect of reality. We disagree about this. I know that. That is, however, a totally separate issue from EJ's misunderstanding of the theistic critique which he dismisses.
Sentient Tree said:
A problem with the argument you make is that from this argument it logically follows that atheists should have a much higher murder rate than theists. If we look at the actual statistics, this is not the case.
You may want to try using a different example instead, one which is more morally grey and actually does have higher rates among atheists than theists. At which point the question becomes whether that action is actually bad or not, but that's not something I can really answer.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I don't know what statistics you are referring to. Do you have a reference for me? In any event, I acknowledge that belief in G-d does not translate to perfect adherence to His law, even as understood by the believer. If it did, I would never sin! My point is that the concept of "I have done something morally wrong" only makes sense if I believe in G-d. If I don't believe in Him, I cannot even ask myself the question of whether such-and-such an action is morally wrong and have that question make sense.

I think that bringing the discussion to moral issues that are subject to significant debate in our society would be counter-productive, as we would then find ourselves debating "is this particular action good or bad," rather than "what does it mean for something to be good or bad?"
 
Last edited:
Raxner said:
My point is that he has simply misunderstood our argument, and that he is attacking a straw man. The statement that "Without G-d there is nothing to stop you from committing murder or other crimes" does not unpack to the above meaning. It unpacks to "Without G-d, there is no coherent reason to regard murder or other such acts as universally wrong. Therefore, the choice to commit them or not to commit them becomes
a matter of personal preference and local conditions, fundamentally similar to the choice to eat or not eat ice cream."
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
The point I was making us that your interpretation of that statement is anomalous.

Compare: "Without these handcuffs, there is nothing to stop you from committing murder or other crimes"

If you would interpret the above statement to mean something other than "you are handcuffed because we have a reasonable suspicion to believe that you are likely to commit murder or other crimes without them", you're free to do so, but that is definitely an abnormal reading of that statement. EJ (and myself) are simply treating those as equivalent statements, from a linguistic perspective.

Given that this is only a disagreement about the meaning you intend to convey, and communication is a two-way process, I'm mostly just informing you that many people who hear you say the shorter statement, especially if they are non-theists, are likely to hear a very different statement than the one that you are actually trying to make, and thus you'd be better served by instead making the longer statement, which now accurate conveys to both participants what your intended meaning is.

And then they can disagree with whether they think your statement is a bad thing, rather than you both talking past each other.
 
Icehawk78 said:
Given that this is only a disagreement about the meaning you intend to convey, and communication is a two-way process, I'm mostly just informing you that many people who hear you say the shorter statement, especially if they are non-theists, are likely to hear a very different statement than the one that you are actually trying to make, and thus you'd be better served by instead making the longer statement, which now accurate conveys to both participants what your intended meaning is.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
That is fair. But of course, I didn't make the shorter statement, did I? @eaglejarl did, as his understanding or paraphrasing of a theistic critique.
 
Raxner said:
Now you are entering the question of whether or not G-d exists, and if He exists, whether or not He indeed constructed some form of morality/ethics and made it a fundamental aspect of reality. We disagree about this. I know that. That is, however, a totally separate issue from EJ's misunderstanding of the theistic critique which he dismisses.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I don't necessarily think that's a misinterpretation.
 
Raxner said:
In contrast, I, as a believer in G-d, can say that not only do I find murder very off-putting, but also that it is wrong, always, everywhere, and for everyone.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
In other words, the only real difference is that you're able to assert your morality as universal. What does that change?
  • It shouldn't change your own behaviour — whether you believe murder to be subjectively or objectively atrocious, you'll still want to minimize its presence in the world, still consider murderers bad people in need of rehabilitation/containment/punishment, et cetera.
  • You won't be able to change others' behaviour. Stating "my morality is universal, so you must stop what you're doing" won't work if the other party doesn't agree with your model. If they do agree, then it doesn't matter whether said model defines morality as universal or not. If they don't agree, well — a hypothetical murderer whose indoctrination with the society's subjective morality failed is interchangeable with a hypothetical murderer whose indoctrination with a religion's objective morality failed, so whether the model includes universal morality or not continues to not matter.
    • Unless you want to assert that your religion as a whole is a more powerful tool of indoctrination than the cultures of secular societies, which would lead to less murderers in religious societies. In that case, why do you believe that?
  • This won't prevent corruption of ideals. A hypothetical non-religious actor who started off as moral would be able to convince themselves to start murdering innocents for the sake of greater good, yes, but said actor is again interchangeable with a hypothetical religious actor who falls into heresy or convinces self God granted them a special permission to kill.
    • Unless, again, you believe that religion-based moral beliefs would be more tenacious than their secular counterparts.
I don't think this position offers any advantages, moral or practical. From my point of view, it's just a nifty but non-actionable philosophical belief.
 
Last edited:
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Voting is open for the next 1 day, 10 hours
Remove ads
Back
Top