[eatbitseveryday]

> ending another human's life leaves any possibility of redemption for a person

You realize the volunteer soldiers that enter a battle to kill other humans also fall under this scope? Yet in many countries we celebrate their return and service, despite what they may have done.

I agree these are not quite the same thing, in how a deed is carried out, but the end result is in fact the same.

[jacquesm]

It's called the department of defense for a reason, even if in plenty of cases the military is used offensively.

Volunteer soldiers that go abroad to try to annex another country at the behest of their local overlord are looked at differently then volunteer soldiers that defend their country from annexation. It's not that the 'end result is in fact the same', it's that circumstances matter. In some cases killing another person is acceptable, in most others it is not.

That's why we have so many very specific terms to describe the different situations in which one person kills another, and which of those applies is a big factor in whether we see the killer as having acted justifiably or not. Reiser is on the extreme side of that scale in terms of not having acted justifiably, then he compounded that by his stance during the subsequent trial.

[account42]

> Volunteer soldiers that go abroad to try to annex another country at the behest of their local overlord are looked at differently then volunteer soldiers that defend their country from annexation.

Are they? Americans seem to think very highly of their veterans ... who all fought in distant wars in countries that were not an serious immediate threat to the US.

[edgyquant]

Context matters

[scotty79]

> You realize the volunteer soldiers that enter a battle to kill other humans also fall under this scope?

Yes. And I strongly believe there's something wrong with their brains. Not so wrong as with the brains of murderers. But to let someone's words override your innate blocks against killing is some weaknes of the brain, easily exploitable with disastrous consequences for humanity.

It makes wars feasible.

[jacquesm]

I strongly disagree with you on that one. I can totally see myself volunteering to come to the defense of a country against invaders, I can absolutely not see myself volunteering (or even being conscripted) into helping some country to invade another (or to enlarge their territory).

I'm a conscientious objector against military service which at the time that I did so still carried a prison sentence and even if I ended up not going to prison (through some luck and a sympathetic police officer) I was more than willing to do so rather than to be used as a tool. So that takes care of the second part of that statement, the first has so far not been put to the test (and let's hope it stays that way).

[shepherdjerred]

+1

I would never serve for an offensive war, but for example I would have been proud to serve the Allies in WW2.

[nyolfen]

i think if you take a look at human history, the animal kingdom, etc, you will find that in fact it is you who has something strange going on in your brain

[scotty79]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/28/natural-born...

Humans and other primates are more prone to this deficiency of the brain than other mammals.

But even so, only 2% of humans were killed by other humans. And since many killers usually kill more than one person killers are a miscule minority even in such deficient species as humans. Even with all the cultural pressure that glorifies killing in the "right circumstances".

Given that anyone who volunteers to be a killer has something wrong in him. Falls on the far end of some spectrum.

[fl7305]

> anyone who volunteers to be a killer has something wrong in him

Consider the native american indian warriors who volunteered to defend their land against the invaders. Or jews in Poland who volunteered to defend against the Germans in WW2.

Does your statement apply to them as well?

[scotty79]

Of course. Some of them.

Not everone who joins the army is a volunteer killer. Some people just want to help. Treat wounds. Recover wounded. Scare the enemy away. Some tentatively accept that some people might die in the process. People tend to accept that in war people die. They are more like armed robbers who'd love to have their goals met without killing anyone but some are accepting that someone might die in the process. But fraction of people are killers. They participate in the process in order to kill. Those are the most deficient ones. They are present in every place where people die, on both sides.

[bombcar]

Some fraction signing up so they can gun someone down, sure, those people have bad motives and should be found and excluded.

But being willing to say "I'd kill to protect X if there is no other option" is not that.

Someone who becomes a surgeon so that he can kill a patient now and then and get away with it obviously has something wrong. Someone who becomes a surgeon and now and then causes a patient to die unintentionally (even if they intended to do the surgery, knowing it could result in death) is not the same.

[fl7305]

Are you a pacifist who thinks that it is never OK to take a life, no matter the circumstances? In that case I understand what you think, even if that is not my way of thinking.

If you are not a pacifist, then I don't understand how you think a peaceful society should act when an aggressive neighbor tries to kill all of them?

[lannisterstark]

This is such a naive point of view. Imagine seeing somebody getting assaulted, genocided, murdered in front of your eyes and then closing your eyes for the sake of 'peace,' or the idea of it that you have in mind anyway.

You should tell the Polish people in 1940s that they should only treat wounds and not fight back.