A Watchmen inspired but still General moral debate

[Rett Mikhal]

This concerns the end of the novel/movie, so if you don't want to know it, please, cease reading and just for insurance:

SPOILERS[/i][/u]

So everyone and their sister is buzzing over the moral implications of the ending, with Ozy killing millions of people to save billions of people. I find these kinds of discussions interesting. The overall question is: Can killing be justified if it ultimately leads to the retardation or total stagnation of violence?

To answer this question, I pose this situation:

There exists a commune with 50 people, an even mixture of male and female and race. There are small problems and big problems, but on the whole it functions. One member goes off the deep end one day and threatens to kill half the population. Do you kill that man? Of course. One man to save 25, is an easy choice.

Fast forward one hundred years. The commune, devoid of land or food limitations, has grown to 25,000 people, evenly divided. However, the differences between the races have become apparent and Civil War is imminent. One race, headed by a military of 25 Generals, threatens to overtake the other races and slaughter them, which would mean the deaths of almost 20,000 people. Obviously, these 25 people must be exterminated and peace will be restored.

Fast forward fifty years. The population, since the Civil War was averted, has exploded to almost 75,000. Race is no longer an issue as all the races breed without care. Technology increases at an almost exponential rate. However, the population has grown so vast that the need to divide it into sections was inevitable. These sections, all given equal rights to technology and resources via their own ability to make or take them, start to grow at different rates as more or less intelligent people seem to group together. The less intelligent are the most numerous, at 20,000 people, with the remaining 55,000 divided among the average and above average. The less intelligent revolt, tired of their place in this self-made caste system, and threaten to cripple the vulnerable technology which would make the increasingly lazy population starve to death. Naturally, all 20,000 must be destroyed or the entire race of 75,000 will starve. It is so done.

Fast forward 20 years. The population stands at almost 200,000 souls. Technology has increased to the point that warfare in any direction would mean warfare in every direction. The sections have grown secluded and xenophobic since the rebellion 20 years prior. They start to spy on one another, and soon the spies are caught and all out war is declared between two sections, compromising 75,000 people. Again, without their technology, they will starve and will not ask for help due to their xenophobia. The choice is made to cripple their power and thus food supply, to save the population from all out extinction from war.

Fast forward 10 years. The population stands at an alarming 1,000,000 people. The once limitless expansion is now threatened by an exuberant population. The government realizes the population must be made under 800,000 for the food to last until technology can evolve to the point population no longer matters. The order is given to randomly assassinate 200,000 people.

Fast forward one year. The population reaches its peak at 2,000,000 people. The population barrier was a complete failure; starvation and ultimate social collapse are now unavoidable unless the population can be brought down to the million mark. Half the population is blatantly murdered in broad daylight; one million lives are extinguished.



The lesson: How far can you go before you've reached that invisible line you call the limit?

[PoolMan]

Rett, I see your theoretical point, but Ozy's plan isn't to take out "Generals". It's to take out innocents to protect more innocents to convince the "Generals" (ie. world leaders) already in power that the only path to survival is unity against a common threat.

(Incidentally, that's a concept exceedingly well explored in the Ender's Game series... the second the Bugger Wars are done, Earth goes happily back to blowing itself up, until the rise of the Hegemon.)

Anyway, the rest of your hypothesis assumes you know exactly how many, many other humans will behave, and that they will all behave that way. Not impossible, I guess, but likely..?

[TheLuckyOne]

Poolman hits on the major flaw in most scenarios like that, which is that unless you're God (or Dr. Manhattan), you never know how people are going to react, nor can you foresee everything. Yes, Ozymandias' plan seemed to work in the short term... but all it takes is one random variable (Rorschach's journal) and the whole thing could go to hell. For that matter, there was no guarantee that the world would rally together after the "alien invasion"; Russia could just as easily have chosen to capitalize on our confusion to strike preemptively. In Rett's hypothetical examples, how do we know killing those 25 Generals won't galvanize their people into even greater revolt? Or maybe among the one million people murdered was one who, in another two years, would have come up with a solution to the starvation process.

That's the problem with the "killing one to save a hundred" moral argument... arithmitic-wise it makes sense, but people are humans, not numbers. It's a hell of an expensive gamble with currency that doesn't belong to you, and no guarantee of a favorable outcome once that wheel is spun.

-D

[BlackCatWhiteCat]

Also someone pointed out (I believe it was you, Drew, but I can't recall) that the "Let's All Hate Dr. Manhattan" plan is flawed by the fact that he was American and fought for the Americans. Iwould be all too easy for Russia to blame the Americans for Dr. Manhattan's alleged actions (even though America was attacked as well) and then we would be right back where we were. People are always blaming and hating each other. There are people in the world who will always find something to disagree with someone about and hate them for. Neutralize the first complaint and they'll come up with another and so on and so on because that is the nature of so many.

[PoolMan]

Exactly. Which is why Moore's original ending was based around a completely external (if entirely made up) threat. No alleging the aliens were American!

[helioseclipsed]

The movie's ending is a little harder to buy. When I first saw it, I thought it sold it fairly well, but I think that's in part because of how fast it flies through the explanation: you don't have the chance to think about it for too long.

In its defense, the outcome was always debatable even in the book. As well as Ozymandias orchestrated the event, there's too much in the world to expect that it's by any means foolproof. I think that if I lived in that world, where nuclear armaggedon is looming, and then suddenly an alien randomly teleports to our world and causes the deaths of millions, I would question it. The timing alone is very suspicious. That it arrived in New York, perceived capital of American life, adds to it. It goes on.

In defense of the book... I think the idea was more important than the actual reality of it. And if you want to pick it apart, look no farther than Manhattan's last line: "Nothing ever ends." Smart as he is, Ozy is limited by his human perspective. Even he cannot see all ends (little Tolkien paraphrase there, now that I look at it).