Think of the children
And how we can use them as bargaining chips.
A terrorist is threatening to detonate a bomb, but his identity is discerned, and it’s found that he has two children. President Settee threatens to imprison and interrogate them, but the terrorist tells him to do his worst. Nonetheless, a voice analysis reveals that the man is worried about his children. The president’s advisers think that if they harmed the children, the terrorist would compromise. Why not send him a video making it seem that one of the children is being beheaded? Why not send him a video of it actually happening? President Settee doesn’t find this idea to his liking, but the advisers notes that the children of terrorists go on to become terrorists themselves. If people could go back in time and stop dictators like Hitler, Stalin and Mao, surely they would? Prevention is better than cure, isn’t it?
This is like Minority Report or various episodes of ST: Voyager when the Federation of the 29th century went nicking people for crimes they hadn’t committed yet but would in the future.
But to get back to the treatment of the children (for the moment), I’m sure there are some fairly evil regimes and some not so evil ones which have behaved just as the president’s adviser suggests. Such regimes are little better than the terrorists they’re seeking to neutralise, but today’s terrorist or rebel is tomorrow’s brutal president. I wonder whether there’s been a single successful violent coup d’etat that hasn’t led to one group of inhuman brutes being replaced by another. While President Settee would, it seems, probably oppose such extreme methods, some theatrical gesture might work in his favour.
Now, the time travel part. Hindsight is wonderful, but there’s nothing we can actually do about Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot etc. who have already done evil. It seems a little dubious to then use this as the reason for killing someone now to prevent something they might do later. We know, for example, that abused children often go on to become abusers themselves, and since abusers are so reviled, shouldn’t we kill abused children to prevent them going down the same path? The idea is ridiculous, of course, but no different in effect from the claim that the children of terrorists become terrorists themselves and should, therefore, be killed before they get started. This is also why the police don’t arrest people because of something they might do (well, not generally) because you could then, in theory, arrest anyone.
It seems insufficient to say that if something is often the case it should be treated as if it’s always the case. It’s like the fallacy of appeal to common practice. Even if most people do X, it doesn’t mean that X is the right thing to do. This can be extended to any instance of X often/mostly/occasionally happening. It doesn’t mean that anyone who might do such a thing should automatically be proscribed.
This is like Minority Report or various episodes of ST: Voyager when the Federation of the 29th century went nicking people for crimes they hadn’t committed yet but would in the future.
But to get back to the treatment of the children (for the moment), I’m sure there are some fairly evil regimes and some not so evil ones which have behaved just as the president’s adviser suggests. Such regimes are little better than the terrorists they’re seeking to neutralise, but today’s terrorist or rebel is tomorrow’s brutal president. I wonder whether there’s been a single successful violent coup d’etat that hasn’t led to one group of inhuman brutes being replaced by another. While President Settee would, it seems, probably oppose such extreme methods, some theatrical gesture might work in his favour.
Now, the time travel part. Hindsight is wonderful, but there’s nothing we can actually do about Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot etc. who have already done evil. It seems a little dubious to then use this as the reason for killing someone now to prevent something they might do later. We know, for example, that abused children often go on to become abusers themselves, and since abusers are so reviled, shouldn’t we kill abused children to prevent them going down the same path? The idea is ridiculous, of course, but no different in effect from the claim that the children of terrorists become terrorists themselves and should, therefore, be killed before they get started. This is also why the police don’t arrest people because of something they might do (well, not generally) because you could then, in theory, arrest anyone.
It seems insufficient to say that if something is often the case it should be treated as if it’s always the case. It’s like the fallacy of appeal to common practice. Even if most people do X, it doesn’t mean that X is the right thing to do. This can be extended to any instance of X often/mostly/occasionally happening. It doesn’t mean that anyone who might do such a thing should automatically be proscribed.
From tomorrow, we’ll be going behind bars for the next few days. This wouldn’t be a good time to drop the soap in the shower.
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