RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (Full Version)

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[Poll]

Moral value of a foreign life?


We should be able to sacrifice >1 countrymen for 1 foreigner.
  14% (3)
The countryman and the foreigner's life have the same value.
  42% (9)
It is ok to sacrifice some foreigners for one countryman, only some.
  9% (2)
Around 1000 foreigners for one countryman is a fair deal.
  0% (0)
No amount of foreigners justify sacrificing one single countryman.
  33% (7)


Total Votes : 21
(last vote on : 5/29/2013 6:20:04 AM)
(Poll ended: 5/31/2013 12:00:00 AM)


Message

thompsonx -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/3/2013 6:58:08 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster

Thanks for your comments, but I think that the question was clear enough and even if there will always be some noise in a poll, the results are indeed significative.


The results are exactly what the op expected from "carefully crafted" questions[8|]



thompsonx -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/3/2013 6:59:58 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster

So no, I suspect you are utterly, absolutely wrong, for two different, mutually independent, reasons.

Best regards.

I suspect that the poll was constructed to validate ignorant opinions .



thompsonx -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/3/2013 7:06:40 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: BamaD

Real life situation.

WWII
You have the bomb drop it and save your soldiers (and your allies men as well)

or do you refuse to and sacrifice God only know how many of your (and allies) men to avoid killing the enemy.

I say drop it even if it exterminates Japan.


That may be because you are ignorant of the facts of ww2.




SpanishMatMaster -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 1:10:13 AM)

thompsonx, I hope you know that I hid you long ago, and that the last 9 messages, all from you ( [sm=jaw.gif] ) are not for me. Best regards.



Kirata -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 1:46:27 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster

thompsonx, I hope you know that I hid you long ago...

Ahem. Nobody has quoted him. Apparently you're a peeper. [:D]

K.



MrBukani -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 4:28:56 AM)

Whenever you find yourself at the side of the minority, pause ,reflect and contemplate why you are part of the minority.[;)]



SpanishMatMaster -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 5:15:57 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: MrBukani

Whenever you find yourself at the side of the minority, pause ,reflect and contemplate why you are part of the minority.[;)]
:) Not a problem with that. Can help.



jlf1961 -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 5:22:45 AM)

I posted once on this topic and then stopped reading it.

Since then I have been reading the news a few times a day, sometimes the stories are new, sometimes they just go more in depth about ongoing situations.

After a few days of this, I have come to the conclusion that:

1) any life other than your family is not worth worrying about.

2) The majority of humans seem hellbent on wounding, maiming, assaulting, killing or doing some form of harm to one another.

3) Considering that the most popular sports around the globe seem centered on some sort of regulated violence, we might as well just televise gladiatorial
games to the death.

4) If the human race was made in God's image, genetic drift and so called "junk DNA" have perverted the human genetic code where there is no way in hell that we are in God's image, in other words we are a perversion of various genetic codes and far removed from the original.

5) If there is no god, then evolution has reached a point in humanity where we are no longer a viable species, doomed to destroy itself and take the planet with us.

And this is coming from an optimist.



PeonForHer -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 5:38:43 AM)

FR

I'd have voted for the second option if the poll had still been open: the lives of foreigners and those of our countrymen are worth the same. However, I didn't see this as the point of the question. I saw it as to do with how one feels subjectively, not about stated moral codes. It reminded me of a lecture I once had in college about 'news values'. Thus, for instance, one of the Seven News Values relates to proximity:

"Stories about events and situations in one's home community are more newsworthy than events that take place far away. For example, journalists assess the value of a news item reporting tragic deaths by comparing the number of deaths with the distance from the home community. For instance:

if 1,000 persons drown in a flood in a faraway country, the story has about the same news value as a story describing how 100 persons drowned in a distant part of the United States.

In turn, that 100 person story has about the same news value as a story concerning 10 flood victims within our own state.

Finally, a story about those ten victims has about the same value as a story describing a flood which drowns one person in our local community. "

I'd add to that: people care less about a given person's life (or death) if that person belongs to a culture that is very different. Thus the Boston bomb story hit our UK headlines in a way that a similar incident in, say, China or the Sudan, wouldn't.

To the OP: If people can't, or won't, distinguish between their stated morals and their subjective feelings, they're not going to answer this question in a useful way. Many people can't even admit to themselves that there's a difference between their stated morals and their subjective feelings.



SpanishMatMaster -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 6:39:55 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
they're not going to answer this question in a useful way.
It was useful already for me. Maybe your requirements to use it are higher as mine. Writing a treaty of philosophy in order to get a "useful" answer in your opinion, would probably have led to far less statistically significant results. I am very happy with what I got. Very, actually.

Best regards.



Powergamz1 -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 9:59:21 AM)

Using n<30 from a push poll with blatant confirmation bias, and exclusion of contravening responses is useful research in the same sense that Scripture is regression analysis.




quote:

ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster

quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
they're not going to answer this question in a useful way.
It was useful already for me. Maybe your requirements to use it are higher as mine. Writing a treaty of philosophy in order to get a "useful" answer in your opinion, would probably have led to far less statistically significant results. I am very happy with what I got. Very, actually.

Best regards.





PeonForHer -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 9:59:57 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: MrBukani

Whenever you find yourself at the side of the minority, pause ,reflect and contemplate why you are part of the minority.[;)]



Whenever you find yourself at the side of the majority, pause ,reflect and contemplate why you are part of the majority.[;)]



PeonForHer -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 10:15:20 AM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster
Writing a treaty of philosophy in order to get a "useful" answer in your opinion, would probably have led to far less statistically significant results. I am very happy with what I got. Very, actually.

Best regards.



So, what are your conclusions about these 'statistically significant results' and what makes you happy with what you got? Could you share that with us? I've not seen anything I find particularly counter-intuitive so far and your conclusions could make this thread interesting.



BamaD -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 6:41:15 PM)

United States

Replace this with the news organizations home country and I agree.
This is a universal truth based not on the relative value of life but ratings.



SpanishMatMaster -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 8:00:22 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
So, what are your conclusions about these 'statistically significant results' and what makes you happy with what you got? Could you share that with us? I've not seen anything I find particularly counter-intuitive so far and your conclusions could make this thread interesting.

Well, as I said, I am surprised by the amount of "No amount of foreigners" answers. I suspected it, yes, reading some answers in other threads about geopolitics, but it is nice to get a confirmation with so many answers (22). I also find counter-intuitive the ">1 countrymen" answers, although they could possibly be noise.

Best regards.



Powergamz1 -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 9:26:07 PM)

So you are now claiming that 22 out of the 21 total answers went into that one category alone?

And you think no one is going to bother to scroll up and see how ludicrous that is?

[8|]

quote:

ORIGINAL: SpanishMatMaster

Well, as I said, I am surprised by the amount of "No amount of foreigners" answers. I suspected it, yes, reading some answers in other threads about geopolitics, but it is nice to get a confirmation with so many answers (22). I also find counter-intuitive the ">1 countrymen" answers, although they could possibly be noise.

Best regards.




BamaD -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 10:49:32 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: thompsonx

quote:

ORIGINAL: BamaD

Real life situation.

WWII
You have the bomb drop it and save your soldiers (and your allies men as well)

or do you refuse to and sacrifice God only know how many of your (and allies) men to avoid killing the enemy.

I say drop it even if it exterminates Japan.


That may be because you are ignorant of the facts of ww2.



You are only 180% off.



JeffBC -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/4/2013 11:05:26 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer
To the OP: If people can't, or won't, distinguish between their stated morals and their subjective feelings, they're not going to answer this question in a useful way. Many people can't even admit to themselves that there's a difference between their stated morals and their subjective feelings.

I struggled with that. There is no question that I place SOME value on proximity (among other things). For instance, I value the lives of women and children over men. But the nationality thing I'd rebel against. The women and children thing I accept. I had to figure out how I really feel about it all and how I really feel is that when I look at the death tolls from the Iraq war I count all of them not the US deaths. I hold Bush (and myself) responsible for 200,000 deaths give or take.

It's hard to sort this out because we are "wired" to think about local tribes not global communities. But my higher level intellect understands that technology has changed the world and I can no longer afford to worry about local first. The transnationals that I fight are all ... well ... global. My allies are accordingly global. If we allow them to split us into little geopolitical units we have lost via divide & conquer.



SpanishMatMaster -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/5/2013 12:13:35 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: JeffBC
we are "wired" to think about local tribes

Some more, some less, isn't it?

And it is quite a jump, the one from "local tribe" to "state". There are many, many other possible "local tribes", from the extended family, or the town or city, the geographical region, "county" as you have in the USA, or one of the dozens of States you have there (or a set: "the South, for former Confederates"), or the ethnic or religious group (see the guy who answered about dutch Muslims)... or, by the other side, people who think about the Christian Civilization, or "the "West" or the "developed world".

That's why my question explicitly say "state" and "countrymen" and "foreigners". I wanted to know who draws the line exactly there, or how much.

As for me, I was born in Chile, raised in Spain and live in Germany. And I could not care less about the state somebody lives or his passport, when it comes to morally evaluate his/her life. My mother was born in Bolivia, my girlfriend is Russian. Family of "gypsies" you could say. Global citizens in politically correct language.



JeffBC -> RE: Moral value of a foreign life? (6/5/2013 1:00:35 AM)

Ahhhh... For me the political unit means nothing and I try to fight against the proximity thing but that is very hard to do viscerally. As an nrelated aside, a paper on modern slavery put the value of a human life at no more than 5000 USD anywhere in the world and most places much less.



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