I was forced offline for the weekend.
Well huhn_m you intentionally misunderstood my post.
I thought you are above such style of disscussing.
Your comments were ridiculous ("chicken", "terminator?")
thus I won't bother to answer them (and 2072 did my job
).
huhn_m:
Btw. this was more aiming on roe than on you 2072 ...
Btw you quoted statements that I clearly directed to Bytefish.
Generally I tried to say smthing beyond trivial (tolerance and all those basic things that everyone agrees on).
Enough of that.
Now about the interesting Crimsons' hipothesis:
say you were in a situation (somehow) where there could not be any reprecussion for an act that would normally be very illegal, but very profitable. the question is, would you take the oppertunity? and why or why not?
Theoretical answer:
I've already wrote that I've got EMPATHY for other beings. Having relativly (to animals) complicated brain I can put myself in someone elses' position and just have a pity for other alive being - we are brothers even with animals and plants (!) in a sense that we are all share the same world and face similiar problems.
I won't do something if I understand it as bad (of course there is a risk of "small intelect", but at least I won't do it blindly "as I was told that in church").
Others expressed it quite well.
Btw in many religions (like in Islam) people are often motivated by the great reward that they'll get for good deeds and that they'll be punished for the bad.
Is it ethical to do smthing just because you'll be rewarded?
OR: Recall what children do when they know that parents aren't watching?
How would many "believers" behave if they'd got to know that God doesn't exist or that people don't have "soul"?
Sociological/Darwin-like answer:
Humans are social beings (like ants, pinguins, ostrich. Oposite to predators, like Pumas, Eagles etc.) thus they have built-in (call it instinct) social behaviours/reactions (inherited from animals). So people unconsciously identify themselves with a "super-organism" (group of people, nation, country, race whatever) thus they (generally) won't like to do something that is against this "super-organism".
Do not limit evolution to single units (well you can even treat human as a "super-organism" - as a colony of cells). Evolution will reward every strategy that will enforce existence of any form. "Selfish" strategy produces chaos and destabilizes environment. "Selfish" strategy is successfull only in minimal amount (thus there are always far less predators than "socials").
but why? why shouldnt we act like animals, when animals in fact represet the logical process of evolution, why do we have things like emotions, which often cause us to do things that are totaly aginst evolutionary principals?
Animal's strategy isn't limited to killing each other (it is rather humans domain).
You oversimplified animals behaviour.
as for your victims, since this is a no-repercussion situation, they wouldnt be able to do anything about what you did to them, assumably they would either be dead or not know who had wronged them, so why do you care if they know?
But you must agree that people are rarely exposed to such situation (no consequences) so they aren't used to it and thus they would try to act like if the limitations weren't removed - the way they got used to (sad but true).
youve just followed basic evolutionary principals and strenghtend the chances of your survial, survival of the fittest at work. you should be patting yourself on the back. so why not?
Evolution is far more complicated than "tougher wins" (everything beyond virus won't behave that simply).
Realistic answer:
No one can say with 100% confidence what he'd do in such extreme situation.
With strong impulses (life threat, extreme pleasure) people act based on primitive instincts and turn off "higher layers". Everyone lerned about "Maslov's piramid of needs"? There are also some (about 7) selfdeceiving mechanisms that work in humans all the time and living without them woudln't be possible - this is psychological knowledge I didn't invent it. I can write about more deeply if you like.
So realistic answer is I wouldn't do it for the first time, maybe for the second, maaaaybe for the third, but I wouldn't depend on me at later occasions.
(How about Egiptian priests @ pharaon's times, Nero, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin, people's behaviour @ holocaust).
And this is also why games like quake are so addictive...
Roeoender.
(I'll ask to some very scientific people I know to have a more objective point of view about it though)
