Poll

You make sound points Harry. Hard to refute.
and I was mostly playing the Devil's Advocate, to be honest.
And yes, we could save billions if we decriminalize/legalize drug usage.
Okay, I'm now 99.1% sure...

So now onto the 0.09% remaining...
One thing I heard was that families of victims of murderers say they feel satisfied when they see or learn that the murderer of their beloved one has been killed via the death penalty or otherwise. Should we take victims' families into consideration? Is it possible for them to get closure when they know the killer is eating nice cooked meals in prison while watching re-runs of Happy Days on TV each night?

I don't think victims' families have any more right to see someone killed as any of the rest of us.

Your making prison sound quite nice though. I'd be happy watching the Fonz.

Harry wrote: "Your making prison sound quite nice though. I'd be happy watching the Fonz. ."

Many of these serial killers are probably quite happy and comfortable in jail.

Since so few sociopaths are caught i the act of doing their heinous crime, it is left to witnesses which are unreliable and see things from their own prospective, I have to say that is the reason that I say no to the death penalty. Even though only a small percentage is found to be not guilty after conviction. That number is still too high in my books. Life should be preserved even if it means letting these people rot in prison. Now, putting the worst on a deserted island and letting them live out their lives will not work, they would find a way to return to society and kill again.

I may be going against the flow here, but I voted 100% YES for the death penalty. I'd even pull the switch if there's no other volunteers. Reason being...there are recidivist offenders out there who are just plain evil and beyond education, rehabilitation, redemption, salvation or any other 'tion'. Beyond hope in other words.

Why spend $100K (est.) a year to keep a proven killer in lockdown when that money could actually go toward saving lives? Seems society is more focused on looking after offenders than the offenders' victims and victims' families. Is there a seconder for that?

A partial seconder, yeah.
But still on the fence on this poll.

Lance Morcan wrote: "I may be going against the flow here, but I voted 100% YES for the death penalty. I'd even pull the switch if there's no other volunteers. Reason being...there are recidivist offenders out there wh..."

Even if it was your own son, Lance?

(A psychopath in the making if ever there was one.)

But Harry, doesn't that sentiment work both ways?
Meaning, would you want a serial killer to live out his days if he'd raped tortured and killed say your daughter or niece?

James Morcan wrote: "But Harry, doesn't that sentiment work both ways?
Meaning, would you want a serial killer to live out his days if he'd raped tortured and killed say your daughter or niece?"

Yes, I'd want them to live out their days. I have no right to decide who should be killed REGARDLESS of their crime. It would only be vengeance to make one feel better - that doesn't make it right.

Mind you, I often imagine strangling Piers Morgan...

Harry wrote: "Yes, I'd want them to live out their days. I have no right to decide who should be killed REGARDLESS of their crime. It would only be vengeance to make one feel better - that doesn't make it right. ..."

I think that'd be impossible to say unless you were in that position. Many a peaceful or liberal a citizen has wanted a murderer of one of their family to die a slow, painful death...And in their eyes it wouldn't be about revenge, but rather justice.

James Morcan wrote: "Harry wrote: "Yes, I'd want them to live out their days. I have no right to decide who should be killed REGARDLESS of their crime. It would only be vengeance to make one feel better - that doesn't ..."

Sure, I understand that. But I'll always say it how I think it, as you know, and I can guarantee as much as I can about anything that, regardless of how I might feel if such a heinous thing happened, I would still believe in forgiveness.

But that's just me 'cos it's my spiritual standpoint, as well as a moralistic one, and there's no shaking my spiritual commitment, despite it forever changing. At the core of my belief is we are all one. If you hurt someone else you hurt yourself. So I couldn't ever condemn someone or feel I had the right to.

The world would be a better place if we all learnt forgiveness and empathy.

I feel like by killing them, we are playing God and if any mistake would be made, it would be horrible. It is similar to Hammurabis code and eye for an eye, when even though they may deserve to die it is not our responsible to perform it because then we are committing a wrong ourselves.

Exactly Allison.

Well, in the very worst instances, can we creatively throw the key away where we "accidentally" forget to feed them :)

Harry wrote: "Lance Morcan wrote: "I may be going against the flow here, but I voted 100% YES for the death penalty. I'd even pull the switch if there's no other volunteers. Reason being...there are recidivist o..."

Umm... Na I'd probably make an exception for him. Mind you, he can be trying at times...

There is truly little difference between these people and animals. Hey, we kept animals in the zoo. Keep them anywhere, in an isolated island? Good. But don't kill them. Feed them with the minimal food forever. There are enough fishes in the water for these little number of people. There are more animal predators in the Earth than human psychopaths, James.

We don't kill these animals …. What we did and still do is we keep them away from us. Some of us kill these animals when they attack humans? Think about this, this is stupid, right? Because it is not scientific. Why would someone kills an animal who doesn't know better? Replace the word animal with a psychopath.

And I agree about the cost. It is not that much. Secondly, the issue of financial crisis isn't something that we can't solve. Money is never the real currency. The real currency is production. So a country should've never been in peril if another country could produce enough. We had more space back then when Hitler felt the German's financial crisis. We had less population back then.

So I have this idea how to solve the problems regarding economic systems. I replied to Sash's questions in the blog regarding Capitalism and Socialism.
https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...
I wrote in my book: "Market economy is a more aggressive, expansile form of command economy."
Who had been so famously condemning socialism and communism? The US?
They didn't realize that market economy is more corrupt. With socialism, you have one boss. With capitalism (market economy), you have multiple bosses dispersed all over the world, each of them 'dominates' another country.
But the problem with socialism is: they are retrogressive and antiprogressive. You mau read more on Genesis.

What do I propose will solve these problems? It is similar to one world economy or single world economy but it is not quite that. I propose that the best term for it is The Umbrella System. Market economy doesn‘t work because our society is still divided into countries. What we need to do is to eliminate the nationalities and let all the people do their best under the protection of one umbrella organization. Adopt everything that is good and get rid of the countries and the world will come together as a stateless society under one umbrella organization that is not another form of government. What form of umbrella organization do I have in mind? A scientific organization whose sole mission is to protect civilization. This scientific organization will consist of the bests and the brightests who will brainstorm on matters and their ONLY principle will be to eliminate death and dearth FOR ALL. So don't worry about the Umbrella Corporation in that zombie movie, I forgot the name. Things will not be like that, that movie ruins everything.

This is better.

My ultimate point will come back to: when you start condemning people to death, it just won't work out. This is death we are alking about. Let them naturally, why not. But just don't cause death. It will come back to us. The consequence is way, way more dire than then money problem.

And no, the victims' emotional response is not the answer.

We'd end up killing each other.

Don't we ever learn from movies? You don't need my book for this or all my arguments. Just learn from real life, take a look at the Israelis and and the Palestinians, when will they ever stop if they keep concurring to their emotional responses? When will it stop, Mr. Morcan?

No death, period. Let them feed themselves? Ultimately! They are psychopaths who dislike community? Let them be on their own for once and realize that they are wrong. Let the future psychopaths SEE what becomes of them. Only then you'll make a difference. And you adhere to the no death rule which will serve you with the best possible outcome.

I think I've provided one of the solution to palliate the victims' families' loss.

Killing them … just won't do it.

Killing them is not the answer, maybe some one can find out what triggers the psychopaths and how to prevent the trigger is the real answer.

Yes. On a different note, if we can find out how to program/store memory, we can fix many problems, this includes the death thing.

This is pretty much what I've fetched to Stanford and UH/Case Western. I've met and sat with them in September (they're in different States). I got more response from UH but I haven't heard from them in around a week. I've sent an email to an Oxford Professor and Columbia. These two didn't reply, I started to doubt whether they read emails. It's very hard to get to these people, especially when I haven't known anyone.

Andreas... Sorry mate, but I can't make head nor tail of some of your responses. If I'm reading you right, you presuppose psychos and sociopaths can be reasoned with like normal people. If only that were true...then mmmaybe...we could reason with them, tell 'em they've been naughty and not to reoffend. Meantime the killings continue...

I'd have thought the main rebuttal to my resounding 100% YES vote is (it's my understanding) that in countries and U.S. states that apply the death penalty, murder rates have not declined. Here's an article from the Death Penalty Info Center that supports that particular argument - http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/... - to which I must admit I have no answer...so I shall ponder that one, too.

There is always a chance of course that we as a society might swing too far to the Left or become too liberal...
In which case, are we sure that serial killers who destroy homes, families and communities shouldn't be punished more than just being imprisoned?
Maybe not death penalty, but is there something inbetween?
I quite like Andreas' idea of a zoo for these psycho freaks

Andreas your take here is your personal opinion, probably based on your personal values, emotions, presumptions, no?

If we value humans more than animals, Mr. Morcan -- which I don't think we should -- there should be no death penalty. And again, I'm not fond of morality debate, because most people tend to give their own values, which is happening here. I'm more of a science guy. And believe me, when we get rid of our personal opinions, our personal values, our emotions, our presumptions that we're above the animals and thus some of us are more good than the rest of us, then it is the downfall of humans' pride. I say: get rid of all our pride and listen to science, and this is the highest standard of morality, this is my version of morality, this should be our version of morality, where there is NO grey areas. Thy must not cause death or dearth. It is the absolute morality, if you are fond of morality, this should be your morality. The end.

No death for any soul sir. And no destroying Earth. I'm sorry. There is a line. But we keep closing our eyes because we're very keen to say that we are good and God is shaped like us, isn't it? like the ISIS, like the US, like our future neighbour who can shotgun you if you kill his 1 billion dollar pet. God is right so we can kill, and banish the lesser soul like Neanderthals', just like we kill the animals. And now you want to kill another Homo sapiens?
Sorry sir. There must be a reason why death penalty doesn't work. I might have just shone a light upon one or two reasons for it: here we can see that your reluctance to draw the line on morality will destroy you.

Draw the line on morality before another governments draw the line for us and says it is OK to kill if they have the reason. Believe me, with the resources being lessened everyday, people will arbritarily take lives on their own hands, this is why the scriptures are so fond of the Armageddon concept, isn't it?

They say that the end of the world can't be eluded, because they are so unwilling to draw the line. They prefer playing God instead and wrote down and planned the killing and destruction of their own. Who wrote the holy scriptures again? God? Or is it Homo sapiens?

I feel pity for the Neanderthals. And the next species will feel pity toward us too for playing God. I feel pity that any of us think that the survival of human is good/God, because saying that it is good is why you condemn another living evil/Satan. Science says that the universe thus God doesn't care for the existence of humans or any species before us. It has been proven. So stop determining good and evil, and face facts instead. And that fact is the one that will secure the survival of Homo sapiens! I'm not saying that I'm the next species. I am Homo sapiens. And God forbid that any Homo sapiens playing God will result in our extinction.

There is no good or evil. Never say that you are good. This is where the destructions start.

Sash wrote: "Andreas your take here is your personal opinion, probably based on your personal values, emotions, presumptions, no?"
Absolutely the opposite. It's science. I'm not the one here on shaky moral grounds and personal values. I'm scientific and I refuse to play god and say that I'm good. I never and will never say that I'm better. Others certainly still thinks they are good or better than the rest of others. This is what is in the holy scriptures. They say that thet are good, worse, better than the others. And you wonder why you fall down one person at a time like a domino set. Because some ones think they are good.

Draw the line on morality now.

So the poll now becomes:
Do you feel safer with the clear line on morality or do you feel safer with death penalty?
Start voting.

Andreas - stick with the poll question.
No need to try to reinvent the wheel ;)

No, James. I wasn't reinventing the wheel ... :)
Perhaps what you'd like to point out was that part of the statement in the original post had "death penalty for the most heinous crimes."
Of course, when I talk about death penalty I mean the death penalty, which is for the most heinous crimes. No other death penalty than the one for most heinous crimes, we don't hang someone who commits something less than heinous like protesting the government anymore, right?

So they are pretty much the same poll.

I'm not so stubborn that i reinvent the wheel. If someone can enlighten me that I'm wrong, I'll say yes to death penalty.

Andreas, you're totally scientific, there's no wrong or right, no good or evil, and you're not better than others?
But, God would have liked you more than those killers? Hmmm...

"I'm not the one here on shaky moral grounds and personal values. I'm scientific and I refuse to play god and say that I'm good. I never and will never say that I'm better. Others certainly still thinks they are good or better than the rest of others."
Don't you see the irony of your own words? Yeah, you will never SAY you are better than others but, your words will implicitly SAY and imply this and are saying this.
If we are trying to reach a better understanding by taking each and every angle into consideration, we are playing God? We can't have opinions? You don't even have acceptance for anything else or for opinions.
Being able to see beyond good/evil, right/wrong is philosophy, not science. Assuming to achieve this eternal peace, and the ideals you're talking about, even though there's no good or evil, through education or science, or believing in the removal/diminishing of opinions is the most unscientific thing, at least I've ever heard.

Sash said: Don't you see the irony of your own words? Yeah, you will never SAY you are better than others but, your words will implicitly SAY and imply this and are saying this.

Nope. It doesn't matter if I'm right or wrong. What matters is life.
See how my statement actually supports my point of rejecting death penalty? There's no irony there.

The absolute thing is life, and less absolute than that is resources.

Sash wrote: "Being able to see beyond good/evil, right/wrong is philosophy, not science."
Exactly. Because right and wrong is nonexistent. Why bother?

Sash wrote: "Assuming to achieve this eternal peace, and the ideals you're talking about, even though there's no good or evil, through education or science, or believing in the removal/diminishing of opinions is the most unscientific thing, at least I've ever heard.

If the opinions is diminishing life. We should remove it, don't you agree? Should Utopia be unscientific? Or should the oblivion type of Utopia (afterlife) be unscientific? I choose to not end. Would anyone choose to end?
I'll be writing my closing later. I'll explain the meaning behind " "There is no good (right) or evil (wrong). There should be no death or dearth." Pls wait. Meanwhile, pls ponder what's wrong with this picture:
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/im...

Since it's all just science, I so hope that Andreas would invent a "No Death or Dearth" formula and inject everyone with that.
Chemical mixture for eternal peace!
Peace forever!

The problem with the picture is:
They are holding guns instead of flowers.
There's no halo over their heads.
There's no divine holy light in the picture.
And it should be-STAR PEACE.
The LOVE awakens.
Is it?

The wrong thing is: they each claim to be right and claim the others to be wrong.

It is wrong to assume this.

In the process of doing that, they take away the thing that matters: life and resources.

Science wins, Sash. Philosophy is crap. It should listen to science.

I gotta go with philosophy myself.
But science should definitely be in the mix too.
I think philosophy is seriously underrated and philosophical thinking is what is lacking in much of world leaders' decision making. Remember, the foundations of democracy we enjoy in the West now are largely due to philosophers in Ancient Greece who debated similar subjects to this poll in similar ways.

Right and wrong isn't scientific. And if we defy science, we extinct.

Shall we still adhere to philosophy?

Please answer no. I beg you.

Andreas wrote: "Right and wrong isn't scientific. And if we defy science, we extinct.

Shall we still adhere to philosophy?

Please answer no. I beg you."

Ain't about THIS or THAT.
The big subjects are always a case of THIS AND THAT. Meaning you cannot reduce this subject, or any other similarly complex subjects, to just philosophy or just science or just mathematics or just whatever. It's always a case of combining all streams and approaches to knowledge, in my opinion.

And therefore, saying that philosophy is still valid as per my Ancient Greece example, is not to defy science but rather support it and compliment it.

We have complex, multi-layered, multi-dimensional problems, no one thing can be the solution or answer.

Philosophy is crap? Hahahaha.

Sash wrote: "We have complex, multi-layered, multi-dimensional problems, no one thing can be the solution or answer."

Bang on-the-money.

James Morcan wrote: "Sash wrote: "We have complex, multi-layered, multi-dimensional problems, no one thing can be the solution or answer."

Bang on-the-money."

;)))

Sash, James, I don't have any intention to stop being your friend after this. I think I sense some hostility. Am I wrong? Because I sense that the argument has become hostility except when Sash said "We have complex, multi-layered, multi-dimensional problems, no one thing can be the solution or answer. "

My answer to this is: Sash, all the concepts that we can possibly think of or subconsciously dream of will cease to exist for us if we die.

Philosophy and science shouldn't be separate. New philosophy should say: right or wrong doesn't exist.

What you are defending is the old philosophy which is not scientific, and therefore it doesn't work. It will cause a lifeless universe. Because in the end, the universe will win?

So far, yes, it wins: we haven't found life on any other planet.

I'm gonna rest my case now. Because this debate of who is right or wrong has created a tension in me and you, and it's the different kind of tension. It's the one that makes our stress hormone spike and this can propagate death. So I'll just do my closing:

The universe doesn't care for right or wrong. It has and will always not care. If you put a nice cat and a dinosaur in a room, we can almost be sure that the cat will die first. The universe isn't gonna differentiate between who is good or who is bad. But you, humans, choose to acknowledge right and wrong (good or evil) and save the cat and kill the dinosaur.

See how creatures (bacteria, cat, dinosaurs) defy the universe. Humans are not different from animals, though we should've been.

The universe doesn't care who will die first: the girl or the rapist. Good guy dies too. And so does the bad guy. Do you see President Lincoln here? President Lincoln died as much as Hitler died. Or is he less dead than Hitler? Did God save Lincoln? Why did Lady Diana die first and not any of the crook that was born before her?

Universe doesn't care. Now, I want to make the universe work for us.

Now. I'm here to share with you something so that if God were up there, he could say: I gave them the universe. Finally, the humans got it. They didn't get it before what with the religious scriptures that they claimed to have heard from God or from the big ape species before them, and their moral values that have killed many.

I will show you why understanding the law of nature will support our survival.

The statement is simple:
There is no good (right) or evil (wrong) -> this is science and science matters for the universe.
There should be no death or dearth. -> this is what will make the universe matter for us.

It works:
1. Hitler and the Jews: Would Hitler have killed if he had known this? Nope. It's caused by Hitler's false belief that he was right (good) and Jews were wrong (evil).
2.The Israelis and Palestinians.
3. Any, any conflict that might happen in life: Let's say someone hits your car, who is right and who is wrong then? Here, I propose that there is no right and wrong as there is no good or evil. You and the other driver will adhere to the policy "no death or dearth" instead. If we adhere to this, no conflict will ensue and both individuals will come to an agreement that is mutually acceptable as common purpose.
4. The future Utopia in previous comment: The "No Death or Dearth" principle is not a doctrine, because once we have achieved defeating death and dearth, nothing will be evil anymore. The true freedom is nigh. And we can achieve this.
The bacterias, dinosaurs, Homo erectus, Denisova hominins, Homo floresiensis and Homo neanderthalensis, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo rhodesiensis didn't achieve it. If we don't achieve this, the next form of life will. Or the next one after that. Or the next one after that.
So this is actually a discipline that will safeguard us and will guide us toward the true heaven, whatever definition of heavens you want: no dearth (you can create food anytime, jewels, unlimited supply of energy), no death (a paradise of sex where every creature will never die). Or would any of us prefer an oblivion type of paradise after death?

•••

I sense some hostility. I have to rest my case here.

No hostility from me. Not sure how you picked that up from mentioning that philosophy might be a necessary ingredient

There's no hostility Andreas. We can agree/disagree. No hostility. Everybody is contributing their inputs here. I voted for "UNSURE". My intention is only to improve my understanding.

1. Hitler may have been one who did what he did under his false beliefs and same cannot be said for all the killers or criminals.
2. The Israelis & the Palestinians. They are not fighting just for right or wrong but, for a piece of land. They just use the right/wrong for justifying themselves. You can't claim all are unconscious there.
4."once we have achieved defeating..." till then it's a doctrine?

This is a tough question for me to answer. I do believe there has to be a punishment that equals the crime. However, is the death penalty the answer? For some, it would be, an eye for an eye. For other the death penalty is the easy way out. Life in Prison without the possibility of parole would be a more realistic punishment. Here in Califonia, there are approximately 750 on death row awaiting execution; however, all executions are on hold. Many of those on death row have been there over 20 years, costing millions of taxpayer dollars in legal costs along.

Harry wrote: "Dear Mr. Canmore,

Thank you for your enquiry regarding my little opinion on stringing up nutters.

I concur that the elite are psychopaths. Gotta be.

The prison system needs changing. We all know..."

I agree with you that the prison system needs to overhauled.

With regards to the number of "Psychopaths" in the U.S. Prison System, the number is greater than the 1% you stated. The Bureau of Justice System conducted a study, in 1998, on the number of inmates suffering from mental illness.(I realize the study is rather old, but it wouldn't surprise me the numbers are higher today.) The study concluded there were an estimated 283,000 inmates suffering from some form of mental illness. In death row, it was estimated 5-10% has a serious mental illness.

Interesting stats Michael, but being mentally ill does not mean a psychopath. In fact, many mentally ill are the antithesis of psychopaths as they are extremely sensitive and have a heightened sense of compassion.
Psychopaths, by contrast, have zero compassion.

Yeah, 1 in 4 people in the UK are mentally ill, so that's something else.

James Morcan wrote: "Interesting stats Michael, but being mentally ill does not mean a psychopath. In fact, many mentally ill are the antithesis of psychopaths as they are extremely sensitive and have a heightened sens..."

James, one doesn't need to be a psychopath in order to kill someone. As I stated earlier, 5 to 10% of California's death row population has a serious mental illness. That leaves over 700 inmates that don't. It would be interesting to see how many of those 700 are "extremely sensitive and have a heightened sense of compassion." If this was the case, they wouldn't be where they are now.

Michael wrote: "James, one doesn't need to be a psychopath in order to kill someone. As I stated earlier, 5 to 10% of California's death row population has a serious mental illness. That leaves over 700 inmates that don't. It would be interesting to see how many of those 700 are "extremely sensitive and have a heightened sense of compassion." If this was the case, they wouldn't be where they are now. ..."

Yep am aware of those things. But keep in mind when it comes to the general US prison population, which your first set of stats mentioned, keep in mind some/many of those crimes would be "victimless crimes" e.g. drug usage. And so mental illness in that scenario could include hallucinations or paranoia or depression and various symptoms that are not psychopathic and could still include people who are very compassionate and only a threat to themselves.

Now, when you make the jump to people on death row, that's a whole different beast and I think it's a given that all of those inmates (apart from the wrongly convicted) would be psychopaths given only the absolute worst criminals in society end up on death row.

Pretty sure also that the psychopathic state is not necessarily related to mental illness.