Ethical question

[Maphysto]

Make the enemy aware you have this weapon and force them to surrender.

 

[Troublesome Lagomorph]

Wipe them out completely? No.
I would, however use something that would hurt them so bad that they have absolutely no choice other than stopping and reconsidering what they've been doing until that point.
Plus, just think about what would happen if you completely destroyed another nation- you'd likely turn everyone against you. Not smart in the long run.

 

[2733]

I would use the weapon only to eliminate the existence of the weapon itself, assuming it was possible, otherwise I would not use the weapon at all.

 

[Yegargeburble]

If it has no way of permanently changing my country / me, let's do it. If not, then no.

 

[idodo35]

hmmm lets see
destroying all my enemies AND reviving all my allys with no one ever remembering it ever happend
or continue figting for another decade let another million die and maybie lose the war and be wiped out myself (not talking of the chance my enemy will have this oportunity to wipe me out) emmm where is the red big buton again?

 

[Danny Ocean]

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.

Yeah. This is on a whole 'nother level. You're not just killing them all (which is itself atrocious), but you're making it so that they never existed.

No, I wouldn't use it. Miniaturize it and use it to pwn on the battlefield and scare them into defeat.

 

[loc978]

This is an instantaneous destruction of everything and everyone from the opposing nation by means that are beyond your understanding (as you are merely a politician).

As a politician, I see only one ethical solution to this problem. I kill myself and let someone else decide. The only good politician is a dead politician.

 

[aashell13]

Every scifi series i've ever heard of has done at least three episodes on this. it never works. NEVER. so no. i'll just keep on keepin' on with the beans and bullets and such.

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

Blackmail them with it. Destroy one or two of their cities to prove it works. Then tell them you'll do it again if they don't back down.

It worked on Japan, didn't it?

 

[j0frenzy]

I'm going to go with war. I hold some values higher than proving I am willing to kill more for people, such as not becoming the world's new candidate for worst human being ever.

Instead you would be forgotten, along with your country, as a person who was too tied up in ethics to do what is needed to end a war.

There is no guarantee that my country would necessarily lose, just that we would not be using our biggest guarantee of ending the conflict. And even if we lost, that would be fine with me. Besides, I would not necessarily be opposed to using the doomsday device as a threat, but I am not going to indiscriminately kill off an entire civilization past, present and future for to end a war. I don't hold an entire civilization responsible for a war and I would not eliminate everything for a relatively temporary problem.
And if I did lose because I didn't use the weapon, yes. I would rather die in obscurity than go down in history in infamy.

 

[interspark]

absolutely not! the only way to win a war is to stop it! WITHOUT killing anyone, i won't kill hundreds of thousands of inocent people just cos it's easy. there's no "right" side in any war (except perhaps in the holocaust) just two or more grown adults settling their differences with murder

 

[Death God]

Nope. Because from one culture and ethnic, leads to many others. So dooming one would be to doom hundreds of more to come. But I would let them know I had the weapon in hopes of scaring them into submission.

 

[Zaverexus]

Absolutely not.
An entire civilization is never responsible for a war, just a few politicians or extremists with some issue. No one else deserves the punishment that comes from the war.

 

[cthulhumythos]

You have been leading a country at war for a decade when suddenly a weapon becomes available to you. You now have the ability to remove your enemies culture from history, destroying them entirely and guaranteeing the war will never happen. There have already been millions killed in your war. Do you use this weapon to end everything and anything that was your enemy?

Wait are we talking about something that will wipe out there past with time travel bombs or something or is this just complete genocide and burning of cities/culture with super lazers from space?

This is an instantaneous destruction of everything and everyone from the opposing nation by means that are beyond your understanding.

Also assume the weapon is paradox proof.

question.

will it screw up relations with allies and the environment?
if not hell yes.

No way of knowing for sure. All you know is that it is paradox proof and will eliminate the enemy. Your generals haven't told you more.

in that case i say no until i get more information. as a politician worth my salt, it'd be more than foolish to commit ethnic genocide without remotely understanding the consequences such an act, aside from aforementioned ethnic genocide.

 

[Zaverexus]

Absolutely not.
An entire civilization is never responsible for a war, just a few politicians or extremists with some issue. No one else deserves the punishment that comes from the war.

 

[Zaverexus]

Absolutely not.
An entire civilization is never responsible for a war, just a few politicians or extremists with some issue. No one else deserves the punishment that comes from the war.

 

[Cheesus333]

I think I probably would. Then I would let my population believe that they had never existed anyway and bear the burden until I died. In fact, I'd probably kill myself after that. But at least the war would be over and my people would be safe.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Spoiler: snipping all of this

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?

Because with genocide it still happened, and even if they were successful at it, it would take more than just the genocide to cause that much of an erasure. There will still be remnants of what happened. And just because one power wanted that genocide and erasure to happen, doesn't mean that everyone did, thus making it neigh impossible to completely remove someone/thing in that manner. Heck, look at the internet. Good luck trying to remove all the pieces of information that a power wouldn't want to be in public domain.

And I still think that it is a lesser evil because the 'evil' wouldn't have happened. You can talk about a neutral observer watching this, but unless they happen to have something to shield themselves from the quite literal rape that happened to the timeline, it's a moot point. (And while I can concede that a technology being able to remove something from the timeline might eventually exist, I can't even fathom how you'd be able to guard yourself against it.)


Oh, and not trying to start a tangential conversation here, but for the record I still can't believe that the US nuked Japan even when Japan was trying to surrender. What happened was unjustified as far as I am concerned, but I have a sneaking suspicion that a weapon like this would be used for the same reasons as why the US nuked Japan. To see just how powerful this technology is and then go "OH SHIT! Alright... Um... Ya, let's globally ban the use of these... >.>"" "

OK, this is getting somewhat confusing, but I was implying the 'neutral' observer WAS NOT, shielded from the change in the timeline.
In other words, said neutral observer wouldn't know the erasure had happened at all.

If anyone could see the erasure happen, that would create a totally different scenario.

But, here's another problem:

Say someone succeeds in doing this... How would the perpetrator of this act even know they'd done it?
Erasing something from existence entirely, would imply erasing your own knowledge of it's existence.

If not, you would be the one person around that could be tormented by the knowledge of what you had done.
If not even that survives, well who's to say this hasn't happened already a million times or more?

And, if genocide is only bad due to it's consequences... That leaves massive holes in all kinds of things to do with morality in general.

many illegal and immoral acts have highly ambiguous consequences. And there are certainly acts considered immoral that have better consequences than the supposedly morally superior choices.

Arguing from consequence alone is fraught with problems. (As, I suppose, is arguing from intent alone.)

 

[PurplePlatypus]

Yes because wiping out an entire culture to the point where it never happened and anything associated with them never happened would go swimmingly, nothing would be lost, no consequences. As long as we get to sleep soundly after we ruthlessly wipe out an entire group of people and everything associated with them.

And arguably more lives, than would have been lost in the war, would have been destroyed, stopped from happening, however you want to put it. After all no country and culture is a closed system. At least with a situation put in front of you predictions can be made. Something like this though, it would be difficult and maybe imposable to guess at the consequences and how truly far reaching they would be.

And for what? How about a little context. It really does matter you know, wars a fought for a number of reasons and depending on that there are a number of victories. What could this war possibly be that it would warrant even thinking about just getting rid of it like that?

Hell man, you want to talk about a monster. It?s not that other group of people who apparently warren this; it?s the one who would even consider something like this. There are always going to be innocent victims in a war, people who should never have been involved. Talk about taking that to the next level, saying fuck it and involving ridiculous amounts of people who defiantly should not to bear the consequences of this. The people in the past, the people in the present and everyone who might have came to be after the war.