• frankPodmore@slrpnk.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    137
    arrow-down
    7
    ·
    6 months ago

    You cannot achieve any good by hurting people.

    People are so convinced that if we’re more cruel to criminals, they’ll stop committing crimes, or if we’re harsher to workers, we’ll work harder, or if you’re tough on border controls, immigrants will go away. It does not work and it cannot work.

    • intensely_human@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      6 months ago

      To quote a theorem from one of my engineering courses:

      An optimized system can consist only of optimized subsystems.

      This means any time you’re preparing to make something small worse, for the global good, it’s a mathematical fact you’re about to do the wrong thing.

      • moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        killing nazis makes the ones you weren’t able to kill more steadfast in their beliefs, (so it becomes harder to make them stop being nazis without killing them) and it makes it easier for them to convert others into becoming nazis (such as using it as ‘proof’ that they are oppressed)

      • jh29a@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        6 months ago

        Well, (my vegetarian friend’s least favourite dumb philosophical question:) Is Death Even Actually Painful?

      • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        6 months ago

        I’d argue that cops existing also counts as “doing harm” to the people who would be cops. I remember a while back when I learned about how cops are trained (stuff that causes them to see everyone as a potential criminal who wants to kill them), I felt profoundly sad because as well as the harm that the cops cause as a result of this, it also just seems like a terrible way to live. I honestly feel sorry for cops