The only thing I can think of for distance is the comparison between combat footage from infantry in relative close combat, and footage from thinks like apache gunners and the latter tend to be a lot more callous about killing even with the whole American infantry "oorah, get some" thing they have going on. Although whether that's a distance thing or a "my daily job is killing multiple people in a hail of fiery death so I've tuned out of it" thing I'm not sure. . Weirdly I'd argue the opposite. That no one has a "right to life" and the idea we do relies solely on other people agreeing we do. Morality being imaginary and fluid and all that jazz. Which ties nicely into your question in your next post about human nature. Obviously its a back and forth argument with no answer and I would be very interested if we could ever get past the moral conundrum of leaving kids isolated somewhere to find out what does happen without social conditioning, but my 2 pennies is that there'd be a mix. Humans are meant to be tribal so within a certain number we'd help. Outside that number we'd pillage and murder our way through them. Or help for as long as its useful. The way we were asked in my politics class was "imagine there's a coconut tree and another person trying to get it. Do you kill him and take it for yourself, or help him get it and share it?" Me and at least a few other people went with "work together to get it and then kill him and eat it."
Lol, this all reminds me of "All men are created equal." I believe that, but I say it like this, "All men are created equal, and then some influence their equal sign to change into an inequality sign of which they may not be on the greater side of." Example of what I mean: Me=Everyone Else . . . . live 20 years . . . . Me > Everyone Else or Me < Everyone else. If you get the "not equal" sign . . . your'e doomed.
With the gunners on apaches things, I think this is more because they aren't seeing people, so much as images on a screen. It's like a computer game, they are a bunch of pixels that fall over when they die. Scopes aren't creating a digital image so the person still "feels" like a person. We are actually agreeing on the right to life argument. Any "right" that you have is based on what other people agree to give you. It's just the reason that they give it to you.
That begs the question, when someone does something heroic that may end their life, are they doing it because they believe that their life is less valuable or have they calculated the odds and think "pffft, like this is going to kill me". I'll risk my life for the latter, maybe not so much for the former
That's true. I was lumping it in with snipers whom I assume have to have a detachment from killing to be able to do their job. Didn't take the time to think there's more to both than just distance This has reminded me though that it was a headline news story in the UK when Prince Harry admitted in an interview that he'd killed people while he was serving in Afghanistan as an Apache gunner. That was quite facepalm worthy.
Me^acknowledgment of others and willingness to sacrifice the self > Everyone Me^self preservation = Everyone Me^thinking I'm more important than everyone else < Everyone Bam, math works for everything.
thinking about it, theres another situation i would be able to kill in. if my country where ever invaded, or there where a war i considered worth killing for(so not the vast majority of them) i think i could kill. it would really have to be world war three though. i'm not saying that it's wrong to join the army and kill people in afghanistan, i'm just saying i would never do it.
Bees will stop drunken workers from entering the hive...if they persist in trying they get a good hiding [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKNecnrxgdA"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKNecnrxgdA[/ame]
I don't know, it seems like there is an inbuilt inhibition not to harm members of the social unit/pack, but it doesn't seem to overly protect beings outside of the pack. For humans at least pack mentality seems bring out the worst in people, the average person is not likely to smash windows and steal stuff on there on. Create a riot and all of a sudden there are people stealing stuff from shops, bashing people, crying out for blood etc, tho I guess this becomes a heat of the moment thing rather than premeditated. But it seems like being part of a social unit makes it easier to think about us vs them.
A situation just crossed my mind where I would preemptively kill, I was wondering if any of you would do the same (I imagine some would). I live in Idaho, as some of you know there is a klu klux klan presence in the state. If I saw a group of robed up klansmen moving down the street it my neighborhood toward my house or anybody else's, I would pull a gun on them for sure. If they didn't turn back I wouldn't feel bad about opening fire.
Lulz. I would certainly shoot somebody in the face real quick in that scenario, but you couldn't call it preemptive. People have a right to be as bigoted and racist as they want, but if you're in my yard at 2 am raising hell or clearly have violent intentions . . . pew pew pew. My wife is black/dominican by the way, so this is a particularly touchy subject for me. Not only would she be targeted but we're one of dem' ther' interracial couples mucking up the white superiority and all. It's a different kind of hateful stare people give us sometimes, haters gon' hate though.
Sounds like a dodgy homemade suppressor on a semiauto. That sound sure-fire evidence that it wasn't threaded properly on the lathe, BTW My dog also makes that sound when he's had too much hamburger
Wow, at first I read that as "Doggy Homemade Suppository". Which would really make that a "pew pew pew"
