Where are you getting that the Brigadier isn’t truthful? When accused by Anne, he admitted that her accusations were factually true. Given that he hasn’t been in a sexual or romantic relationship (znd has declined opportunities to do so), he can hardly be said to have falsely presented himself as a good potential mate to the women of the town. If he honestly believes that wives are property = an odious belief, but one with fairly recent historical and legal precedent – he wasn’t lying when he said he loved his wife; he was stating the truth as he understood it. And in the revised scenario you were replying to, he not only has not made any threats but has given the specific, practical, selfish reaons he has for abandoning his claim on Anne. And he has done nothing to harm any citizen of the town.
Where, again, comes the social utility or ethical justification for exilin caging, or killing him in the scenario where Anne lives in another town?
(In the original scenario you probably should shtoot him as soon as he turns his back, of course.)
What is the Brigadier’s word worth, if I don’t trust him, though? His importance and/or perceived importance to the settlement means that my authority as Mayor is compromised every day that he continues to be there, because I am no longer able to take him at his word that he won’t stage a bloody coup, in order to assert his ‘rights’. Just because he says he won’t do it, doesn’t mean that I am any longer capable of believing that he won’t do it. Once the Brigadier has announced his odious beliefs vis-a-vis his marital ‘rights’, I now believe that he is capable and/or willing to do anything that he can rationalize in his mind, and just because he claims that it’s in his rational self-interest not to risk discord within the community in order to reclaim his wife doesn’t mean that I am willing to bet the community’s continued safety and viability on the chance that he won’t ever change his mind. It doesn’t even mean that the Brigadier might not convince himself that it wouldn’t risk discord within the community to reclaim his wife.
Which means, either he has to go, or I have to go.
As you stated, the Brigadier was stating the truth, “as he understood it.” What happens when his understanding of the truth changes? What happens when his understanding of the truth results in him deciding that what’s in his rational self-interest is to be the guy calling all the shots? Why should I believe that it won’t?
In the modified sceanario, where Anne is not a citizenof the town and the Brigadier abandons his claim on her because pressing it would be contrary to his own self-interest, why do you fear a bloody or even bloodless coup?
See, we don’t have anything to argue about in the original scenario except for the best way to remove an avowed threat. I think he should be shot as soon as possible, and so, I think, do you. But in the modified scenario he isn’t an avowed threat.He’s never shown any interest in ruling the town. Anne lives elsewhere, so taking over the town would not get him Anne. He’s pointed out the downside of destroying the alliance, and his reasoning is not based on honor so much as rational self-interest.
The only reason I can see to exile him in the second scenario is that you don’t like what he believes. Which you shouldn’t, because his beliefs are odious. But beliefs are not actiond.
Unles the reason you want him dead is that being popular and skilled, he might one day in the future make a play for mayorship. By that logicthe United States should nuke Germany right now.
If you say that his understanding of the truth may change to your detriment, I don’t see how you can discount the possibility that it might change to your benefit. Whose to say that the Brigadier won’t learn to think of wives as persons rather than property? Why is that less likely that the second-scenario Brigadier deciding to ignore his rational self-interest and mount a rebellion?
I counterfactually assume that if I’m mayor, then I have some fair measure of political skill, at least the ability to read a crowd. Elected or not, I got to be mayor somehow, after all.
So, I call an emergency meeting of all of the able-bodied of the town, with the Brigadeer present. I introduce Anne, and tell her story of how the Brigadeer brutalized her and her daughter. I tell them that the Brigadeer admitted all of this to me.
If I gauge that the majority of the town will side with me, “Brigadeer, Anne and her family are welcome in this community. You are not. Take one hunting knife and the clothes on your back, and leave. You have until sundown: After that, if I or any member of this community sees you ever again, we will shoot you on sight. <to the crowd> If any of you disagree, you can take the same deal and join him.”
If I gauge that the majority will side with him: “Brigadeer, I will not tolerate the presence of a rapist and abuser. I am leaving this community, with my fair share of the community’s resources, and Anne and her family are welcome to come with me, under my protection. <to the crowd> If any of you feel the same way, you’re welcome to join us too.”
Either scenario leaves us with a significantly-reduced group, without the Brigadeer’s skills, and likely with him as an enemy. But it’s the best I can come up with.
I already told you why: because even in your ‘modified’ scenario, I still do not trust the Brigadier. He might say that he will abandon his claim, because it is contrary to his self-interest, but I don’t believe him. From my point of view, I can’t afford to believe him. I need to assess whether I can control him, in spite of the fact that I can’t trust him. If I determine that I cannot, then one of us has to get gone.
I guess my point is that your distrust seems based on emotion rather than data. The Brigadier hasn’t lied to you in any way. Not telling every detail of one’s life is not a lie. It seems to me that you (wrongly) want to condemn hm to death because you (rightly) dislike what he USED to do.
Also (and here I refer to an earlier post of yours), ANYONE i capable of doing aything they can rationalize in their minds. That is what rationalize means.
I still think ou are punishing him for a belief rather than an action, and that is wrong.
Your assumption about the mayor having political skill is not counterfactual. That is what “mayor” means. A counterfactual (or hypothetical-fighting) assumption would be saying the the mayor is a bigger badass or better engineer than the Brigadier, or tthat you just got bitten by a radioactive spider.
The only problem I have with this plan is that, in exiling the Brigadier with only a knife and his clothes, you are basically trying to execute him without taking responsibility for it. Seems foolish. For either he will get killed in the wilderness by zombies or a gang, or he will make it to another settlement (maybe the hostile one, which you know to exist) and do exactly what he threatened to do.
If you’re gonna kill him, kill him. Don’t faff about.
Does your plan change in the modified scenario from post 91. in which Anne i& Co. live in another town (and so are in no immediate danger from the Brigadier), and he makes no threats against her or the town because he says that keeping the peace between the towns is more imporant than reclaiming her?
It’s absolutely based on emotion. And you’re right, he hasn’t lied. He’s told the truth, “as he understood it.” That’s exactly why I can’t trust him: his “understanding” of the truth frightens me. Now that he has begun to reveal his real nature, who the hell knows what other abhorrent things he “understands” to be true?
If the Brigadier thinks that you can’t rape your wife, “any more than you can steal your own money,” I can’t even trust that he and I are defining “rational self-interest” in the same way. He may very well decide that what’s in his rational self-interest is my head on a pike.
The counterfactual part isn’t in assuming that the mayor has political skills. It’s in assuming that I have political skills. I know that I do not, but in any plausible world where I’m the mayor, I must, counter to my skill level in this world.
And the primary reason that I’m exiling the Brigadier instead of executing him outright is because of his presumed followers. Even if my followers outnumber his, I expect that there are probably still enough of them that they could (and would, if I insisted on his execution) put up a lot more of a fight, and do a lot more damage to us, than I’m willing to accept. By going with exile instead, I’m giving them an out, and an opportunity to leave the rest of the community alone.
And realistically, I don’t expect that he and his followers are likely to die in the wilderness. Even with just a knife, he’s still got his skills, and if his followers were all trained by him, they’re likely tougher than the average wastes denizen, too. That said, though, if he does get killed anyway, it won’t grieve me much.
No, it does not. He has demonstrated that he is willing to commit unprovoked violence against members of his own community. Even if, for various reasons, he has chosen not to do so against anyone else, he’s still demonstrated that he’s willing to do it if it suits him. I can afford a citizen with that attitude a lot less than I can afford an actively-hostile outsider.
If he or you thinks I’m leaving the defences of the town unchanged after he leaves, neither of you is a tactical genius.
We all do.
Do you honestly think we’d benefit long-term by hosting such a poisonous attitude to people in our midst? Diseased shit-thoughts like “women are property” festers if you don’t stamp it out.
The fuck, it’s meaningless.
How many more scenarios are you going to come up with? Were my answers not clear? I already know you don’t agree with me, what is more interrogation going to do?
But OK, I’ll play…
If it’s legal for you to fire her, and she’s expressed them in any way (i.e. you’re not claiming mindreading) then yes, yes you should.
The only meaningful renunciation sis “I pledge not to do X.” That can be policed. “I change my mind on issue X” is meaningless. He could just lie. And I don’t see why you care what he BELIEVES more than what he DOES–except that you believe you have authority to decide what people think.
It’s Tennessee. Legally, I can fire her for wearing the wrong color shoes if I feel like it. By why would I, if she is producing? Her racism isn’t affecting her sales. She has every reason not to let it affect her sales, because the more new business she brings in and the more old bsuiness she retains, the more she gets paid. If she compartmentalizes her behavior, why should I care that she refuses to go toher sister’s wedding because Sis is marrying a black man?
With the additional info that the brigadier might take a deal, I’d probably offer it to him. The zombie apocalypse requires ethical sacrifices of its survivors, and this is one I could manage. Allowing slavery in my community? Not one I could manage.
Incidentally, though, during the zombie apocalypse the concept of private property is gonna be really attenuated. I give less than a half a shit what he considers to be unquestionably his property. If his taking a bunch of shit from the community is gonna mean that little Sebastian and his big sister Leah and their moms Abigail and Jodi are a lot likelier to die, his private property rights can kiss my mayoral ass. Moral compromises are gonna start with compromising on private property.
By “unquestionably” his private property, I meant that the stuff in question (let’s say its his tools, his knives archery gear, and his equestrian gear and his horse) was for the most part his before he joined the town, even before the zombies rose. Nobody in town helped him acquire or make it, and while the stability of the town has helped him retain it, no one in the town helped him make an of it except for the arrows. He carves hte shafts himself in off arrows, but takes the arrowheads from the town’s common stock. He was the one who taught the townspeople how to carve arrowheads, but because doing so is very time intensive, it’s something done by people who cannot do guard duty, much less the other technical work he does. He’s not taking anythng that was acquired on a scavenger mission except perhaps his clothes.
Wait, I thought his word was completely trustworthy…
because if it isn’t, then what’s his pledge worth?
I can’t decide what he thinks. I can decide what kind of openly expressed thinking is important to have, and what will poison my community from the inside.
Well, if money’s all that matters to you, I’m never going to convince you?
I don’t know, it depends on the kind of society you want to live in, I guess - I want to live in one where racism, sexism, homophobia etc are rightly and properly regarded as social anathema. You apparently want to live in one your worth is entirely dependent on your economic output…
Not in any post-apocalyptic community I’m in charge of, no. Well, no, you own your own clothes and toilet items, and use-knife - but tools, weapons, animals, real estate would all be common property - so no, he wouldn’t have his own horse, or archery gear or anything. If they were his before, he’d have to give them over to the common stores.
Wait, “carving arrowheads” is an example of the kind of skill you think is so special? I take it this was all before I joined the community, because carving arrowheads is neither difficult to learn nor all that time-consuming, assuming they’re not dumb enough to insist on fancy broadheads.
Although why are we suddenly in the stone age and carving arrowheads? Why aren’t we smithing them?
The Great Man theory of history is bunk, and you’ve constructed a microcosmic example of why that’s a trusim. Nobody’s irreplaceable. Especially not someone whose major skillset seems to be “Fights good, knows some stuff”
You are deliberately misreading what I wrote. I explicitly say that carving arrowheads is NOT a special skill. The Brigadier CAN do it himself but does not. I was ceding that the arrows are something that he relies on the community for, just like baked goods. His special skills are the fore more technical things. He’s the guy who knows how to take apart a scavenged machne intended for a pre-apocalypse purpose and use the parts to build stuff that is useful now. That’s a matter of insight as well as knowledge and is difficult to transfer. In a city of 400,000 there would be dozens who could do that, but not in a town of 400.
But he’s the one who taught them how, you also said.
You also said making arrowheads is time-consuming, but like I said, it doesn’t have to be. I could teach anyone how to make stone arrowheads at a rate of dozens an hour. Never mind metal ones…
Seems to me more like he’s keeping them at stone age levels of tech in order to be the Big Man.
What’s your point? I have never claimed that making arrowheads is one of the Briagadier’s special skills. I’ve said that others can do it, so he doesn’t. You’re talking lke one of te people in WALKING DEAD threads who say that Rick should have dealt with the mob of zombies in the ravine by firebombing them from the air.
As for keeping the town at a Stone Age level of development – that hardly benefits them. He’s not keeping a harem. He’s not fucking even a single woman. Civilizaion has fallen; the technological infrastrcture has fallen. He’s not teaching peple how to make bullets because they haven’t the material resources.
My point is you’ve deliberately set him up as some sort of irreplaceable person because it suits your hypothetical, but to me it’s not an ethical dilemma because I don’t believe he is truly irreplaceable, he does nothing I a*nd most of my real-world acquaintances *can’t already do, so for me it’s a choice between “keep the poison in my community” or “spit out the poison” - I don’t see a real downside to losing him at all.
Maybe if he was a mutant who pissed gasoline and shat C4, then he might be irreplaceable…
Or a doctor (but what’s a doctor worth without modern drugs and infrastructure)?
The orginal scenario was less an ethical dilemma than a practical one. I said the Brigadier should be killed for making the threats. The ethical dilemma only cae in the modified scenario, in which the Brigadier makes no threats, makesa renweed pldge of lyalty tothe town, and has no reasonto attack your town anyway.
And I don’t think anyone is irreplacable. I called the Brigadier the most valuabe member of hte commnity.
Ad with that I’ve done for the day. m eyes won’t hold up to any ore reading.