Ethical question

[CrystalShadow]

Funny the number of people that proclaim erasing something from existence entirely is better than genocide.

It's not. It's just more comfortable, because if it never existed, nobody will remember. But it still amounts to the same thing in the end.
With the added horror that nobody will even remember what was lost.

Just think about it; Eradicating something so thoroughly, that even the memory of it's existence is gone?
How is that in any way, shape or form better than genocide? (destroying an entire group of people as thoroughly as you are able to.)

It seems more like genocide taken to it's logical extreme.

It's better in the sense that it never happened in the first place.
It's an odd way to look at it, I know, but that's the logic behind it.
The problem with genocide is the aftereffects, the repercussions, the worldwide retaliation.

Call us twisted and sick if you want, but who would grieve for something that never was?
(Note: I know you didn't say sick and twisted, but that's the general vibe I get for choosing that answer.)

No-one. True. But I guess I have a more abstract sense of this as opposed to the practical implications.

But, the abstract extension to this that informs what I make as my conclusion is perfectly valid when you consider what the motivation to commit genocide generally is.

From a neutral observer's perspective, erasing something from existence is better than genocide because this observer will know genocide happened, but will be completely unaware of that which has been removed from existence altogether.

But, from the perspective of anyone attempting genocide, the whole point of it is, for whatever reason, you feel the world, (or maybe just your group of people, or even just you personally), would be better off if this other group no longer existed.

And what could be better than ensuring nobody even remembers the group you are attempting to get rid of?
Is that not the most absolute success you could aim for?
Is that not precisely what anyone committing genocide would hope for as their ideal case?

So how then, can it be better than the lesser options that anyone actually committing genocide has to settle for?

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

To quote a great robotic butler, "War does not determine who is right. Only who is left"

So yeah. I'd use the weapon. War is pretty much excused from ethics.

 

[drisky]

I don't think there has ever been a true war of attrition, I can't see a future in which the only way to win is to completely destroy the opponent, there is always another option.

 

[midknight129]

This is simply a larger-scope version of the question "If you could travel through time/If you had foreknowledge of the significant events, would you kill Hitler (or other applicable human rights violator) before he rose to power?"

Also, it's related to the following moral dilemma:
"You are standing next to a railroad switch. There are 5 people stranded on bridge A and 1 person stranded on bridge B. Do you switch the train from A to B track, saving the 5 people but dooming the 1 person?" Do you preserve your own culture or preserve the culture of the enemy? It sort of depends; if this is a matter of the enemy being completely aggressive and your country being utterly on the defense, I'd say it's a justified reaction. A country that just aggressively attacks is, on average, going to be less value to the progress of mankind. On the other hand, if YOUR country was the aggressor and found out the other country weren't the weaklings you thought they were... you probably lack morals and ethics anyway and wouldn't think twice about it.

Given the assumption that if you don't use this weapon, your own culture will be, essentially, wiped out; your inaction will likewise cause a culture to be wiped out. So if a culture will be wiped out either way, self-preservation dictates you'd try to preserve your own culture since that would ensure your survival. Note that this is assuming an all-or-nothing scenario. Ideally, there would be peace talks, diplomacy, etc.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

I'd say no. It's one thing to remove the threat, but to remove the culture entirely is a crime that goes beyond even genocide.

This.

What you describe is more or less aborting an entire civilization from time and space.

 

[Russian_Assassin]

Simply wiping out the enemy won't do shit. Sure we might get a few years of peace, but soon a group of people will turn against another group of people and the cycle will begin once anew. Groups will become countries and war will be the natural outcome.

 

[jonyboy13]

People will die in the conflict anyway, I rather that only the enemy will die.

 

[Rayne870]

Assuming the war would never end otherwise and all diplomatic options were exhausted, yup I'd push the button...might even nice about it and give the opposing side a count down warning. "Piss off or get wiped off the face of the Earth"

 

[Eisenfaust]

no, because causality would dictate that a billion different things would change... you might never have been born... your country might have been conquered by the country that took over their country... the infinite complexity of causality would dictate that things would change in unknowable ways, so screw it... hell no... didn't you see that voyager episode?

 

[LitleWaffle]

Nope, for two reasons.

1. You don't have the right to erase a culture from existence.

2. Some people in that area probably also moved elsewhere and had offspring, you would be wiping out more than just that country, many places elsewhere would lose many people.

Also, it can't be paradox proof, for two reasons I can easily fathom.

1.If you used such a weapon on that culture/place, that place never existed, which means you would never have to fire that weapon, which means if you never fired that weapon, that culture would still be around, which it apparently is until you wipe it out.

2. If you wipe out somebody who was there at one point in time and that person was not there in the future so didn't die by the bomb at that point in time, they both died and didn't die. You would be erasing a huge significant portion of history that would have never happened, probably preventing the bomb from being created when it was, which means it never happened, which means history was never erased.

 

[norwegian-guy]

Yep, there are not ethics in war just the side that wins.

By that logic the Nazis didn't do anything wrong since their crimes where actions done in war times.

As for my self. No.
There are actions wich cannot be exused, during wartimes or otherwise.
When people say the terrorists have already won it's because the west have been using highly unethical warefforts wich conflicts with the principles the politicians say we must protect. (I do NOT want to start a quote-discussion here. I just needed to say that.)

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Wait a minute. I have access to Balefire? I'd do it. I would protect my own people at all costs.

 

[Wintermoot]

I would do it, it is the most peaceful answer

 

[bob1052]

Yep, there are not ethics in war just the side that wins.

By that logic the Nazis didn't do anything wrong since their crimes where actions done in war times.

As for my self. No.
There are actions wich cannot be exused, during wartimes or otherwise.
When people say the terrorists have already won it's because the west have been using highly unethical warefforts wich conflicts with the principles the politicians say we must protect. (I do NOT want to start a quote-discussion here. I just needed to say that.)

If the Nazi had won, then what they did would not be called evil because they would be the only ones left.

 

[Ris]

Absolutely not, because:

a) You're describing genocide, only worse.
b) Just because the country is at war with mine, doesn't mean that there aren't millions of innocent civilians in that country who have been dragged into the fray against their will. A government rarely doesn't always reflect the will of its people, does it?
c) I've never understood the "eye for an eye" mentality. A million of your people dead doesn't justify killing a million of their people, that's hypocrisy.

 

[Keava]

Nope.

Assuming the war started at some point there were reasons for it. The usual reason for war is expansion and resources, eventually cheap manpower. Completely destroying the enemy would not be profitable in any way, especially if the war was going for long time.

That, however, doesn't mean i wouldn't make use of that weapon. Through intelligence agents and propaganda i'd spread rumours and information about such powerful doomsday device on enemy territory so they would be more likely to surrender, pay me and provide me with large portion of their resources for next, oh say, 1000 years. Who knows, maybe after a while my country could assimilate theirs and grow even stronger.

Destruction for sake of destruction is sign of stupidity and shows complete lack of long-term planning.

 

[Shirokurou]

Depends on the type of war.
If it's Nazis coming over to kill my not-Arian ass, and enslave the rest, then I'd erase them to oblivion without a second thought.
If the war is something else... Like conquest. Then I need something to take over and rebuild right?

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

LOL at people who think there are "rules" and "justifications" when it comes to war. What an oxymoron. Seriously, no matter what is deemed "justifiable" for fighting, one lesson will always remain so long as humanity deems war a necessity:

War does not determine who is wrong or who is right, only who is left.

This is not to say that self-defense isn't justifiable, but humanity has too long thought of war as a means to justify themselves for their actions. When I look at what humanity is capable of and what is has resorted to (in relation to history), there is such a disparity between the two that there is enough evidence to say we haven't evolved from our primitive roots at all.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Never. I could never eliminate a people from time and space, no matter what the reason was.