# Smapti is Pitted **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 21, 2014, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907 "2014-05-21T08:14:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 30
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/581 "2014-09-10T12:44:07Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Cite the law that requires me to hold the same opinion as the majority of voters. “Obeying an unlawful order makes you as guilty as the person who gave it” is not a statement of opinion. It is a statement of fact. You don’t get to have your own facts. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/582 "2014-09-10T12:51:02Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Depends. We’re not concerned with your choice of undergarments. That said, this is a more useful direction for you to take the thread. The big bad organleggers who are out to get you weren’t interested in your brain to begin with, so documenting its dysfunction won’t protect you – but raising a few other medical issues might convince them to seek other targets. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/583 "2014-09-10T12:56:27Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > “Obeying an unlawful order makes you as guilty as the person who gave it” is not a statement of opinion. It is a statement of fact. You don’t get to have your own facts. Exactly. Further, allowing soldiers to think for themselves makes _better soldiers_. One of the reasons the early Israeli military so thoroughly outmatched their Arab enemies is because the Arab commanders demanded strict obedience, while the Israeli commanders encouraged junior personnel to think for themselves, question orders when necessary, and show independent initiative. The army **Smapti** describes is a very weak army and wouldn’t stand a chance against a modern force. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/584 "2014-09-10T13:10:14Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > We’re not concerned with your choice of undergarments. > > That said, this is a more useful direction for you to take the thread. The big bad organleggers who are out to get you weren’t interested in your brain to begin with, so documenting its dysfunction won’t protect you – but raising a few other medical issues might convince them to seek other targets. It’s cool though - as long as they have orders to jack his pancreas, no harm no foul, right ? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/585 "2014-09-10T13:54:17Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Cite for my saying the state is God? It’s hard to pick any one in particular from this thread, but I’ll just pull one at random: > [@Smapti](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > “An unjust law,” said R. Daneel evenly, “is a contradiction in terms.” > > Daneel was correct. You endorse the assertion that the state is both infallible and the ultimate source of morality. Ergo, you endorse the elevation of the state to Godhood. QED. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/586 "2014-09-10T13:56:54Z")
> [@Kobal2](#): > > It’s cool though - as long as they have orders to jack his pancreas, no harm no foul, right ? Even more amusingly, one of his paranoid fever dreams was that [the doctors would carve him up because “the senator needs a new kidney”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17396263&postcount=101) – this, both preceded and followed by repeated expressions of a worldview in which he ought to gladly give up whatever “the senator” or any other authority figure might see fit to demand from him. ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/587 "2014-09-10T14:49:53Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > You endorse the assertion that the state is both infallible and the ultimate source of morality. Ergo, you endorse the elevation of the state to Godhood. QED. Well, to be fair, Olivaw’s premise (and presumably **Smapti** ’s as well) is that the very concept of “justice” derives entirely from law. Infallibility is not part of it; laws might be inefficient or harmful to society or poorly written, but they are nevertheless laws, and until they are changed they constitute the definition of justice. Morality likewise doesn’t enter into the idea of justice; laws might be based in human moralities, but morality is not quantifiable. Law is. If we define “just” as “lawful,” then there can be no such critter as an unjust law. I don’t think that \*necessarily \*elevates the law, or the State that enacts and enforces it, to infallibility or godhood. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/588 "2014-09-10T15:15:12Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > On what? In the scenario I described to you – a police officer stops you, leads you to an alley, points to a hobo, and says “kill him”-- this would definitely be breaking the law to obey him. > > So what is the proper response when the law and authority conflict? A cop who would just order a random civilian to murder a hobo is so corrupt that he’s just as liable to murder me for refusing, so I do it. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/589 "2014-09-10T15:16:32Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > “Obeying an unlawful order makes you as guilty as the person who gave it” is not a statement of opinion. It is a statement of fact. You don’t get to have your own facts. Now prove an objective standard of guilt. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/590 "2014-09-10T15:19:45Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Even more amusingly, one of his paranoid fever dreams was that [the doctors would carve him up because “the senator needs a new kidney”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17396263&postcount=101) – this, both preceded and followed by repeated expressions of a worldview in which he ought to gladly give up whatever “the senator” or any other authority figure might see fit to demand from him. It is indeed, as noted in that thread, perfectly legal at this time for a for-profit corporation to vivisect you for parts and sell them to a paying customer as long as you’ve consented to “donate” them. I disagree with that law, which is why I’m not an organ donor and I oppose the efforts of some to make it default or compulsory. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/591 "2014-09-10T15:22:50Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > You endorse the assertion that the state is both infallible and the ultimate source of morality. Ergo, you endorse the elevation of the state to Godhood. QED. There is no such thing as the ultimate source of morality. Morals are invented by humans. We made them up, every single one. People come together to form the state in order to establish a uniform code of acceptable behavior for the benefit of all based on their moral consensus, which becomes codified as law. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/592 "2014-09-10T16:02:01Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > A cop who would just order a random civilian to murder a hobo is so corrupt that he’s just as liable to murder me for refusing, so I do it. You wouldn’t run away? You wouldn’t say “yes”, then pretend to kill the hobo? You wouldn’t try and find another cop? What a coward, and an idiot, you are. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/593 "2014-09-10T16:03:09Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Now prove an objective standard of guilt. “Did you play a part in this action or event yes/no” seems like a good, boolean even, starting point. Not to mention purely objective and fact-based. > [@](#): > > It is indeed, as noted in that thread, perfectly legal at this time for a for-profit corporation to vivisect you for parts and sell them to a paying customer as long as you’ve consented to “donate” them. Pretty sure the sale of organs is very strictly verboten, not to mention the transplant committee of exactly zero hospitals will work with a kidney/lung/liver they don’t know the exact provenance of (if only for strictly medical reasons, on top of the few picayune ethical quandaries posed by accepting “a kidney, no questions answered”) In fact, a cursory research reveals that Iran is the only country in the world that allows the sale or purchase of human organs. Which kind of surprised me actually - I figured the casual neofeudal decadence and excess of Saudi Arabia would have been all over that shit. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/594 "2014-09-10T16:03:12Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > There is no such thing as the ultimate source of morality. Morals are invented by humans. We made them up, every single one. People come together to form the state in order to establish a uniform code of acceptable behavior for the benefit of all based on their moral consensus, which becomes codified as law. Your moral system has a terrible, terrible track record in human history for serving human beings and the common good. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/595 "2014-09-10T16:06:51Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > A cop who would just order a random civilian to murder a hobo is so corrupt that he’s just as liable to murder me for refusing, so I do it. And then the cop “discovers” you attempting to murder a hobo, puts two bullets in your skull, and gets to murder a random civilian and be hailed a hero for it, all because you’re too stupid, too cowardly and too fascist to not give him an excuse. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/596 "2014-09-10T16:11:45Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > It is indeed, as noted in that thread, perfectly legal at this time for a for-profit corporation to vivisect you for parts and sell them to a paying customer as long as you’ve consented to “donate” them. > [@Kobal2](#): > > Pretty sure the sale of organs is very strictly verboten, not to mention the transplant committee of exactly zero hospitals will work with a kidney/lung/liver they don’t know the exact provenance of (if only for strictly medical reasons, on top of the few picayune ethical quandaries posed by accepting “a kidney, no questions answered”) > > In fact, a cursory research reveals that Iran is the only country in the world that allows the sale or purchase of human organs. Which kind of surprised me actually - I figured the casual neofeudal decadence and excess of Saudi Arabia would have been all over that shit. Even Iran requires the donor to be _dead_ before organs are harvested, which conflicts with the usual (as opposed to the Humpti Smapti) definition of “vivisect”. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/597 "2014-09-10T16:39:51Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Your moral system has a terrible, terrible track record in human history for serving human beings and the common good. We haven’t addressed my “moral system” in this thread. I am discussing what the nature of the world _is_. The fact that I acknowledge that this is how it is doesn’t mean I like it. I don’t like that I’m going to die one day, but that doesn’t mean I can simply choose to believe I’m immortal. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/598 "2014-09-10T16:40:52Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > And then the cop “discovers” you attempting to murder a hobo, puts two bullets in your skull, and gets to murder a random civilian and be hailed a hero for it, all because you’re too stupid, too cowardly and too fascist to not give him an excuse. So I’m dead either way, then. Why are you giving me crap about my choice in a no-win situation? ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/599 "2014-09-10T16:41:52Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > You wouldn’t run away? You wouldn’t say “yes”, then pretend to kill the hobo? You wouldn’t try and find another cop? What a coward, and an idiot, you are. If my life is being threatened? Sorry, my life is worth more to me than that of some hobo. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2014, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907/600 "2014-09-10T16:43:06Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Even Iran requires the donor to be _dead_ before organs are harvested, which conflicts with the usual (as opposed to the Humpti Smapti) definition of “vivisect”. Too bad that we don’t have that standard in this country, where, as noted in previous threads, it’s perfectly legal to cut up a living person for organs and kill them in the process if a corporate bean-counter decides that saving their life wouldn’t be profitable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907.md?page=29) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smapti-is-pitted/688907.md?page=31)