Superheroes that are like “if we kill them we’re just as bad as they are uwu” ? Micro dick energy
The only exception is Aang, whose whole “I’m not gonna kill him if i can find another way” thing is less false moral equivalency and more “I’m twelve and I have been through way too much bullshit this year to add ‘commit my first murder’ to the list.”
I do respect superheroes who don’t kill, and I really think “we’re as bad as they are if we do it” is a terrible oversimplification of why someone would come to that moral conclusion.
Three reasons why a hero might not kill:
1. They are not granted by their society a “licence to kill.” Many (not all) people accept that a soldier or a judge might need to kill a wrongdoer in the course of their duties. Those people (should) act under strict rules and processes to determine when a death is just. A society, to be peaceful, usually functions under a guarantee that people won’t on their own judgement decide to off people. Vigilantes don’t usually have state-sanctioned authority, but they do rely on public goodwill to be counted as heroes and not menaces or even villains. A hero, especially an independent, self-proclaimed one, may lack the authority or judgement to serve as executioner. Most just societies require a trial before delivering a sentence.
2. They don’t need to. Paradoxically, or maybe not so much so, the stronger a hero is, the less they need to kill. One of the most common defenses for a murder is “self defense,” the idea that the person making the plea was in so much danger from the deceased that killing them was justifiable. But once you’re a swordsman swift enough to cut bullets or a muscleman strong enough to lift trucks, who’s that big a threat? As your control over your power and your ability to master an opponent both increase (and barring completely wild or uncontrolled abilities, these two are very linked) the easier it becomes to hold back, to subdue with the minimal amount of damage and to render even the worst villains neutralized without going nuclear.
3. The power to kill is bad for their mental health.Not everyone can perform even a “just” killing with a clean conscience. A hero might fear the trauma of killing, and seek to avoid the damage. Or a hero might introspect, and realize that, should they kill today, tomorrow the choice will be easier. Killing an opponent, rather than subduing them, is often the easy way out, and a hero who comes to rely on that solution might find themselves killing more and more, Even if killing isn’t addictive, a hero might still fear that mindset.
Now, a common version of this problem is Batman, who wouldn’t kill the Joker even if the Joker is at maximum edge, dealing out huge terrorist acts and body counts. The best reason for Batman not to kill him isn’t “I am as bad as the Joker if I kill,” but more, “I am a man who uses superheroism as a trauma coping mechanism, and if I start committing extrajudicial killings my mental state and my loose alliance with the police will both deteriorate.”
THANK. YOU.
All of this! And if I may add:
Heroes are not responsible for the future actions of villains.There’s this really (in my opinion, fucked up) prevalent mindset in a lot of superhero franchises that if you, the hero, had the power to stop someone, and instead let them live, and they later caused harm, then it’s YOUR fault. And to me that’s just absolute bullshit.
Heroes are not responsible for the actions of the villains that exist in their world. Even if the villain says, “I’m doing this because of YOU, hero!” they’re still not responsible. Villains have autonomy and the ability to make their own decisions. If they decide they’re going to be villains who run around murdering everyone, well–yeah, that sucks. And yeah, trying to get them locked up or into a hospital is definitely a good thing. But if the hero decides not to kill? That doesn’t make any subsequent loss of life the hero’s fault. The decision to take that life still falls on the villain.
The idea of killing to prevent further harm– ‘preventative murder’ –is all kinds of complicated, morally speaking. It’s not as simple as, “If I kill you, I am definitely saving lives,” it’s “I am making the decision to kill you based on the assumption that you are likely to try to kill again” and that’s…well, like I said: complicated.
I hate to have to call on something so obscure, but there’s an episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys where sidekick character Iolaus is being tormented by Dahok, a demon. He’s shown a vision of a man hanging from a rapidly-unraveling rope bridge over a deep ravine and is given the power to save him. He starts to do so, no questions asked. But then Dahok shifts the vision and shows a young family having a picnic not far away. He tells Iolaus that the man hanging from the bridge is a petty thief, and that if Iolaus saves him, he will happen upon that family and murder them for their belongings.
Iolaus then decides to let the bridge collapse. The man plummets to his death in a ravine. At which point Dahok points out that Iolaus just murdered an innocent man who had not yet done anything wrong. Iolaus argues that he was just trying to protect the family, but Dahok tells him that trying to prevent a future crime doesn’t change the fact that what Iolaus just committed was murder.
Trying to account for future crimes in order to justify taking a life is a moral quagmire. And killing because of past crimes is punitive revenge–something heroes generally try to avoid and leave to the justice system (which, in theory, is far enough removed from the situation to be impartial and make a decision based on facts, not emotions).
Condemning heroes for doing their best to stop as much damage as they can without stepping over the line into taking a human life is perhaps not as simple as “they’re wussies, haha.” It has to do with how much power over other life individuals should have, and frankly, heroes are already walking a pretty fine line when it comes to how much authority they have to make judgement calls outside the law (see also: Captain America: Civil War).
So yeah. Wanting to stay firmly on one side of a complicated moral divide is not necessarily something I condemn superheroes for.
exactly 1 minute ago i had absolutely no idea what the plants sesame seeds and peanuts came from look like and i am shocked and surprised
for some reason every time I see pineapples growing I laugh out loud. Like, the punchline is it’s a pineapple!!!!!!!!! it’s a pineapple
An Interesting Fact About Peanuts, while we’re on the topic of food-plants:
Peanuts-you-eat grow underground, but they are NOT part of the peanut plant’s roots. Peanut plants are ambitious little fuckers and plant their seeds themselves. They flower like any perfectly reasonable legume, but once the flowers have been pollinated the plants do something called “pegging” (no really), in which they drill the stems where the flowers used to be into the ground. And that’s where the peanuts you eat form. Like so:
I’m going to pull myself together to endorse this Extremely Interesting Fact, but it’s going to be a real struggle
Ain’t botany fun?
I grew a pineapple so I definitely can confirm how pineapples are grown.
This came back around to my dash again, so thank you @theordinaryjd for this excellent pineapple, which has once again provided an excellent punchline.
I just… look at it!! it’s a pineapple! that’s so great!
A decade ago, when there were still people laughably insisting that the
internet was the worst thing that ever happened to musicians, I kept
pointing out examples of artists who were creatively embracing the
internet to great success – connecting with fans, building new business
models, and succeeding. And every time I did that, people would
complain that this example was an “exception” or an “anomaly.” And, they
had a habit of qualifying any success story – even if the
qualifications were contradictory. For example, if I highlighted an
independent artist’s success, people would say “well, that’s just a
small independent artist, they have nothing to lose, no big rock star
could ever succeed that way.” And then, when I’d highlight a big rock
star having success embracing the internet, I’d be told “well, it’s easy
for him, he already had a huge following.” It got so silly that back in
2008 one of our commenters coined “Masnick’s Law” to describe this phenomenon:
Masnick’s Law states that in any conversation about musicians doing
something different to achieve fame and/or fortune someone will
inevitably attempt to make the argument that “it only worked for them
because they are big/small and it will never work for someone who is the
opposite,” no matter how much evidence to the contrary might be readily
available.
Over the past few years, I thought this kind of “exception” thinking had
mostly died out, but it showed up again recently. We posted famed
science fiction author Ken MacLeod’s excellent opinion piece
arguing that, even though he’s a big supporter of copyright and against
anyone pirating his books, he’s absolutely against the EU’s plans for
Article 11 and Article 13 in the EU Copyright Directive. The key line:
“Far greater than my interest in copyright is my interest in a free and
open internet – or, failing that, in keeping the internet as free and
open as it is now.”
Straw-man argument, since he has a big publisher to both pay him and
defend his property rights. He’s not an indie who markets his own work
on the internet and has to fight mass piracy on his own. He doesn’t need
copyright protection when he has distribution sending his fans to pay
for his work (while the same fans might pirate the indies).
He is the one who wants big publishers to continue to dominate and
profit, while the indies want direct access to the public and the
elimination of the middleman that is this man’s meal ticket.
Of course, that’s nonsense. That comment is based on the idea that you
need to “fight” mass piracy, rather than looking for ways to build a
successful business model that involves connecting with your true fans.
And, of course, the impact on independent artists will be even more
serious than those signed to big publishers/labels/studios/etc. Indeed,
Ken’s own Twitter feed pointed me to an independent musician in the UK,
Stephen Blythe, who has written about why Article 13 will make life worse for him
as an independent musician. After detailing his situation as a
musician, he explains that if you want to get your music out there, so
that you can build a fanbase, you need to get your music onto the “most
popular music” sites. And to do that you have to use a special third party:
If an independent artist wants to get their music out there into the
world, to the most popular music sharing sites, they need to use some
kind of recognised distributor – as direct submissions are either
impossible, or extremely restricted. A pile of these have sprung up,
including Amuse, RouteNote, DistroKid, etc. Some charge a subscription
fee per year, some take a cut of any revenue generated, and some of them
don’t even have a website – operating just from an app. The concept is
simple: You send your music to them, and they distribute it digitally to
the various partners. One of these partners is YouTube.
But it turns out that those services, as part of their “value add” will “enforce copyright” for you:
What isn’t made clear by these distribution networks is that by
submitting your music to YouTube, you essentially give the distributor a
licence to enforce your copyright on the platform using the ContentID
system. This automatically detects any music uploaded along with a
YouTube video (including short clips), and flags it up as unauthorised.
To many this might sound great. Stop people stealing your stuff!
The problem of course is that there is very often no way to denote
authorised uses or channels with these common distribution services.
He then details two separate scenarios of artists being harmed by this
kind of “enforcement” including one that happened directly to himself:
An artist (A) is asked by a fellow musician (B) if they would be
interested in a collaboration. The process is simple: B will supply A
with some vocal samples that A can then chop up and use however they
wish. A gladly accepts, and comes up with a whole electronic composition
that brings the vocals to life. B loves the track, and asks if they can
use it on their upcoming DIY release. A agrees. B’s friend runs a small
label who agrees to put out the album, and they use a distribution
service which sends the album to all the major partners automatically –
including YouTube’s ContentID system. A few years later, A is producing
short video blogs and decides to use one of their old tracks as
background music. It gets flagged up as a copyright violation
automatically, which A disputes – but the appeal is rejected by the
distributor, who has no knowledge of how the track came about in the
first place.
He then explains that in a world where everything involves a massive
ContentID-like filter, you create a terrible situation for independent
musicians, who are at the mercy of much larger companies with no
flexibility:
Independent musicians are at the mercy of a system which locks them
out from negotiating their own contracts without major label backing,
and they therefore have to rely on gatekeepers which provide an
inadequate level of information and control over their own music.
Artists who are starting out lack the information required in order
to make informed decisions about their interaction with such services,
and can inadvertently give away their ability to exploit their creations
commercially due to how the systems are constructed.
The ContentID approach to copyright enforcement gives huge clout to
the first entity to register a piece of work within their system – which
is rarely going to be the artist themselves.
This model has no room for the ad-hoc, informal, and varying ways in
which independent musicians create and share their works online.
Or, in short:
The current ContentID system works on a first-come, first-served basis.
It puts huge power in the hands of intermediary distribution services
which do not provide a service that can ever give artists the amount of
control over their licenses they would require to fully exploit their
creations. The nature of the beast means that informal collaborations
between like-minded folks can unexpectedly tie up their creative
expression years down the road. Article 13 will only expand these
systems, which will inevitably be less sophisticated on other platforms
than ContentID. Independent artists lose the ability to share their work
even further.
I’d argue it goes much further than that. First, the major record labels see everything stated in the paragraph above as a benefit of Article 13.
Giving huge power to the middlemen gatekeepers puts them back in the
position they were in year’s ago, where they get to decide who gets
distribution and who doesn’t. That system created a world in which
musicians had to hand over their copyright and nearly all of the revenue
generated from their works in exchange for a pittance of an advance
(which was really just a loan). So, putting more gatekeeper power back
in their hands is the goal here.
Second, and even more concerning, is that Article 13 is premised on only
the largest platforms being able to comply – meaning that there will
be less competition on the platform side and fewer and fewer places
for independent artists to distribute their work, should they wish to
do so. That gives them fewer options and less ability to build a
fanbase, unless they get plucked out of obscurity by a giant gatekeeper
(again, going back to the way things were a couple decades ago).
Now, I’m sure that someone will pop into the comments and point out that
this example doesn’t count because it’s just a “small, independent
artist,” and that his concerns don’t matter to “real” artists (meaning
major label ones), but, haven’t we played that game long enough?
