This falls into the freedom/safety trade-off concept. To what extent and how much freedom are you willing to sacrifice to maintain public safety? It gets even more interesting when you’re talking about freedoms that don’t apply to you. It’s easier for button because the current system screws them over, but they also aren’t the ones Who would be punished under this idea. I’m not trying to make a point with this specifically, but it helps to put things in perspective.
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I think the main point we are differing over is about how bad losing psychic ability is to a person
To me it doesn’t seems like the end of the world, you can walk, talk, see, hear, and do everything any other person can
For you and the others it’s more of a part of your identity
It’s just the matter of what do you value more i guess, that’s different from person to person.
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The psychological impact of this could quite possibly be massive. Having that mental ability is like having a sixth sense, it’s something that’s always at the back of your head, that you’ve trained your brain to rely on, when you strip that away, that’s blindness, in its own way. I myself was born almost completely blind and don’t know what it’s like to have vision I could really rely on, but I’ve talked to guys who’ve gone blind through disease or some other natural problem while growing up, they still remember what it’s like, and they describe it as missing something that should be there, it’s very much not fun.
Just to clarify, I’m using literal blindness as a comparison because there are a lot of parallels you can make here
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On this note,
Content Warning
I’m a-okay with cutting off the penis’s of rapists (unfortunately we don’t do that irl) so that is where we differ. A rapist will always be a rapist.
A ment who abuses their powers will always want to abuse their powers. It’s because they’re power tripping. They’re abusing their power and therefore don’t deserve it. Insert Superman quote.
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I don’t have a good eye sight either, and have tinnitus in my left ear since i was 20, at that moment it felt too sad to have that ringing in my left ear all the time but it is not really a problem anymore
I hardly ever remember i have tinnitus half the time, the only time i hear it is when i am idle. It’s not really Impeding my work so i don’t see it as the worst thing lose in the world considering people go through way worse stuff
I just appreciate what i have now, than crying over the hearing i had back then
Same way i don’t see how losing the psychic ability is that bad, as you said it is like blindness, but not really since you can still walk around see things and stuff. You can still have a normal life.
A lot of people who have disabilities way worse than me also manage to see the good side, i am not saying what they lost is good but just that in case of psychics if others can live peacefully and all i have to do is lose my ability which is not even a life altering part of you like the people who suffer through actual blindness. I would gladly do it myself
Of course its just a fictional debate though don’t take it the wrong way i am just trying to explain how i saw the situation
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I wouldn’t want to go down the same road as the KKK or the Nazis but maybe that’s just me. My point being that certain groups of people view other groups as either being very likely of being rapists or all are rapists
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Nah, I get it, but that explains the reason why I think this is morally wrong. You can’t predict how people are going to psychologically react to it, there are guys who will be fine with it and guys who won’t, and there’s no one size fits all solution. Let them make their own decisions on the matter
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This is where I think I could agree, proactive dampening is something I’m absolutely against, but if you’re talking about ments that have been tried and convicted of major crimes under due process, that gets much more justifiable. I can’t say for sure if I would absolutely support it, but the logic makes sense to me
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So we will have two options or they have other plans and chose to send two young people who had almost no training knowing full well that they had huge chances of being tortured and killed (in fact according to Salomei’s prediction this is almost certain) just because it was more convenient or they had no other plans
In other words, they are either incompetent or have really bad ethics
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I know I shouldn’t take part in this discussion, it’s only going to stress me out because it resembles way too much some real-world stuff, but -
I think this here is the core of the matter.
And regarding the trauma: I’d think it would be way more traumatizing to get blinded, forcefully, on purpose and against your will, because someone else somewhere else looked at someone wrong while you yourself did nothing wrong, than it is to get blinded by your own choice, or even an accident.
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Very cool that you quoted my content warning so that people have no choice to read it. You seem like someone who has never felt powerless seeing as you’re comparing me to genocidal racists. What I said =/= killing millions of Jews… I’m not Reese.
Of course. But if that’s not possible, I’m spiking the water supply. Being able to turn someone into a vegetable just by thinking about it should be a power that no human should have.
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K actually is trained and has experience with this type of mission, no one is forced into anything and button is fully aware of the consequences, this is entirely a matter of, we have several ideas, this one we think is the most likely to succeed, if you don’t wanna do it, no big deal, will try something else
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And that’s where you would lose me, without those safeguards, without that due process, without a system, no thank you
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Funny enough I’m am Jewish but there I changed the post now are you going to response to my point or not
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Dial it down, you two
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Fine though I would ask them to be more careful of being up real life issues if they don’t want others to do the same
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You added your “point” in later. Also, conjecture. I never said:
CW
cut the penis’s off of anyone who might possibly maybe be a rapist.
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Hi all,
Please don’t bring real-world ethical issues or atrocities into discussions about fictional, magical powers: it’s clear that the discussion quickly becomes inflammatory when this happens.
The debate has got both heated and into the weeds so please move on. The thread is going on slow mode for a short time so people can cool off.
Thank you.
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Too long
I agree with this, but then I’m of the opinion that the government can’t be trusted, especially the “security” agencies that can disappear you without any due process. Giving anyone that much power never ends well for some. That said…
Leaving the door open for ments to enter people’s heads without consent is just as dangerous. Button is the prime example, obviously, but the same applies to those with scores of 1 or 2. They’re sitting ducks. Personally, I think that’s why the truth about what happened to Button needs to be broadcasted everywhere. People need to understand the danger ments pose to society, and the fact that they can literally turn people into puppets.
Does that mean that all Ments are bad and abuse their powers? No. You said you were anti-gun control–so am I, for various reasons I won’t get into here. But I think these two issues are more similar than others seem to believe.
I don’t see the Ments as the “ones with the guns” and non-Ments as the unarmed victims. Instead, the Ments–to me–are the equivalent of giants as opposed to normal people. So what I’m talking about is empowering Button and those who aren’t walking nuclear bombs–evening the playing field so they won’t automatically be victims of whatever Ment decides to abuse their powers. I’m for giving Button and others their own mental “guns”, so to speak.
And if this problem was more widely known, I think at least some people would be more focused on defense against Ment powers, rather than lobotomizing Ments who have broken no law. And speaking from a more business-oriented POV, there’s a shit ton of money to be made in that–open up the market to “defense against Ments”, aka “mind protection”. After all, that’s what all of this boils down to.
What Ments are able to do is downright frightening to me. Someone combing through my thoughts, knowing what my dreams and fears are, and turning me into a fucking puppet is flat out evil, IMO. And if the government ever decides to make use of these people, they’ll be using them against their political enemies, at best, and at worst, it’ll become The Minority Report. A Ment says you might commit a crime because you had a brief not-serious thought of bumping that lollygagging asshole in the parking out of your way, and all of a sudden, you’re in prison for a damned crime you never even committed, simply because you had “wrong” thoughts.
We all have a right to our own private thoughts. Ments take that right away. For Button, it may not (always) be intentional, but it’s there. And it’s wrong. But to condemn all of them for what they might do is just as wrong as if they’re used to do that to non-Ments.
You can’t annihilate, de-brain, imprison, or otherwise punish an entire group of people just because of what they might do. What you can do is build protections against possible attacks and be ready to fight back. And I think a lot of people in that world would be all for having some protections.
I’ve seen people argue that “Button’s the only Zero, so there’s no reason for anyone to look for something to fix that”, but Ments aren’t just a threat to Button’s security and peace of mind, so there is plenty of reason for a fix. If there was enough public outcry for “protection” against Ment intrusion into lower-scored minds, companies would be falling all over themselves to make that protection.
This is where Vengeance could actually do some good–let the world know these people’s stories, so they know it’s not just Zero who is impacted, get the public aware of the problem and rile them up until they cry for a solution (hell, the government uses this against people constantly, only they create the problem and solution before they ever start riling people up). And then let the R&D begin. I know my Button would happily be a guinea pig for such a thing–imagine a chip that provides a passive mental barrier to Ment intrusion, with an active “attack” should a Ment try to pierce that barrier. If Ments were getting knocked on their ass and ending up mindblind for a few days after trying to get into someone’s head uninvited, they’d be a lot less likely to try it again.
This is why I like approaching it from a self-protection position, rather than taking the power away from Ments. Ments should have freedom to exist, but they should not have the freedom to invade anyone’s mind at will. They should not have the freedom to turn anyone into a puppet, even if the person they target wasn’t born with natural protection against their attacks.
When Ments read people’s thoughts–or even emotions–and they control them, they are taking the other person’s freedom away, and that should be punished. The one who controlled Button–we know who it is–should lose their freedom over it. They should be isolated and locked away. Period. They took away Button’s autonomy with zero regrets. I don’t give a shit if it was for a good reason or not. It’s inexcusable, and they should suffer the consequences.
That’s why I agree with this…
I agree with all of this. But the ones who don’t abuse their power shouldn’t be punished just for existing.
tl;dr: I think the focus should be on giving non-Ments protection and defenses against Ment powers being used against them. And I have no problem with that protection being, for all intents and purposes, a booby trap that blows up in the Ments’ faces and leaves them mindblind for a few days so they can see what it’s like. Kids learn that touching a hot stove hurts if they don’t listen. Adults can learn the same way, when appropriate, and I think a lot of Ments need this lesson.
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That sounds reasonable. I’d also develop some technology the ments can use, if they so choose, to avoid accidentally invading someone’s mind etc., and potentially have some public areas (like schools and banks and government offices) utilize technology that blocks using ment abilities (areal effect, not permanent).
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