I watched a movie - it was so-so. But raised an interesting philosophical question.

Let's say that a place existed where one could go and wish someone to be dead. And it would happen immediately.

It might be anticipated that many people would use this and many people would die. But then at some point, people would stop. And not only that, people would become inherently virtuous.

An artifact of: 1) only the relatively virtuous would not have someone wishing them dead; 2) to avoid making someone wish them dead, people would inherently behave well towards others (perhaps similar in concept to mutually assured destruction?).

Perhaps this is somewhat already true for the religious wanting to enter heaven and avoid hell. For the atheists, perhaps this would be a more pragmatic version?

Thoughts? The premise is flawed?

Nope.

A virtuous person would have many evil persons who would go to the wishing place and send them to the cornfield.

The virtuous person would not go to the wishing place and send anyone to the cornfield.

The evil will not become virtuous by means of the cornfield wishing place simply existing and being used.

The evil person will permit other evil persons to exist as a status quo, but a virtuous person will always arise, and the cornfield gets fed.

Evil will wish evil and the cornfield will prosper.

Might need a bigger cornfield.

Sounds like the Haitian culture to me. Voodoo is still practiced there. The citizenry certainly does not appear virtuous.

So, no change to humanity and we all end up dead, just faster....

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
But then at some point, people would stop. And not only that, people would become inherently virtuous.

These two assumptions are both flawed
1. Why would they stop?
2. What would lead you to believe that they would be virtuous as opposed to just fearful?

quote:

An artifact of: 1) only the relatively virtuous would not have someone wishing them dead; 2) to avoid making someone wish them dead, people would inherently behave well towards others (perhaps similar in concept to mutually assured destruction?).

1. It is more likely that the best game players would not be wished dead
2. It is exactly like MAD...it wouldn't be based on virtue, but on fear...that is how tyrants rule

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
It might be anticipated that many people would use this and many people would die. But then at some point, people would stop. And not only that, people would become inherently virtuous.

To paraphrase Heinlein- "A charmed society is a polite society."

quote:

But then at some point, people would stop.

That point would be when they ran out of people.

Lord Acton's Dictum: "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Everyone would be terrified of everyone else. You would only be safe if you were the only one left.

Justifiable Paranoia + Power of Life and Death = ?

Not an environment that would bring out the best in humanity.

Let he that is without sin cast the first stone…

Watch the movie Forbidden Planet.

Forbidden Planet is an excellent suggestion for this particular topic. Of course, I'm also interested to know to which movie konata is referring. Why keep it a secret?

Movie is not important. Wasn't trying to keep it a secret but it's incidental to the question / premise it posed. It's called Cursed (Korean title).

The premise I believed was flawed. People are inherently self serving and self preserving. It's what makes evolution work. And yet it would be nice to think that, while mutually assured destruction wouldn't make us any less so, it would make us be polite. Get rid of all the evil and paranoid ones. If the ones remaining don't really care (ie - same mentality as "I don't want to carry a gun, if I get robbed, so be it") then perhaps that becomes stasis. What would drive someone in this case to act and/or violate mutually assured destruction?

Just kind of curious what the likely outcome would be. I think the outcome would be bad.

What are the rules of this death-wishing place? Must you know the person, have some sort of identifier of said person, or just a generic description and the place somehow finds and kills everybody matching that?

Is this one death per customer per visit, or can the death-wishing person make as many wishes at a time as desired?

Different answers to these and similar questions will dramatically alter the dynamic, but I don't see this inherently making anyone behave better. I see this pushing people who desire to harm others for whatever reason to do exactly that more aggressively. Particularly if people are allowed multiple wishes per visit.