[onethought]

Yes, it should matter, because sane people admit there is a chance they could be wrong. You can walk back ideas, you can’t walk back deaths.

Also unless you’re a government you probably shouldn’t be applying utilitarian ideas of ethics to your actions, you do not have a right to decide on behalf of anyone but yourself as an individual, so even by utilitarian standards you are likely being unethical.

[emodendroket]

Anyway, if we want to apply utilitarian reasoning, taking someone’s ideas seriously simply because he garnered attention through random killings would seem to encourage more people to do violence for various different causes.