Was Cho Seung-hui decision rational or irrational?

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by draqon, Apr 19, 2007.

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Was Cho Seung-hui's decision rational or irrational?

  1. rational

    42.4%
  2. irrational

    57.6%
  1. Enterprise-D I'm back! Warp 8 Mr. Worf! Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,898
    I've done the same thing with the red. Emotive reasoning. Now inclusive of judgement outside the grip of reality. Irrational.

    The rational approach to disagreement is negotiation. War in and of itself is emotive (driven by anger mainly)...irrational. Bear in mind that emotive reasoning may have some benefit sometimes...but by definition it is irrational.

    The rational approach to individual oppression is psychiatric care, support of family, friends...stress relief activities, self improvement activities. NOT shooting people that may or may not even know you!

    Like I said to peta9, the poll result is extremely disturbing, almost as much as the incident.
     
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  3. peta9 Registered Senior Member

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    ^I would agree it is not rational to an individual who wants to live. But his act is rational(in his mind) if you are suicidal and homicidal and believe the world is corrupt and beyond redeemable. The tragedy is he needed love; just real, sincere love because that is the most healing at the root or core of the problem than what any stranger can help you manage. Meaning you have to care about yourself first in order for counseling to work anyways. He was too far gone and there was no miracle or type of person who came along that could reach him partly due to his own mental state, thinking process and inner turmoil. It's like a cancer. I think he knew or believed he would never be well or an issue would never be resolved and that may be irrational but the personal consciousness is very different than the outside world. Since he was an outcast so long, he formed his own reality.
     
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  5. fadingCaptain are you a robot? Valued Senior Member

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    Baron,
    "Surely you can view that from a different perspective than just the one, can't you? There are numerous, different perspectives ...why choose only one? Why choose that one? "

    Yes, I can view it from different perpectives. I can empathize and see it from Cho's perspective (as best I can given all I know at least). He was loner, desperate, and mentally ill. He snapped.

    Here is the thing - no matter how I look at it, it is irrational. Maybe if he would have written a companion manifesto on why shooting many random people in any way follows from his ramblings...

    The fact that half the voters think otherwise means one of two things: 1. These people need a review of the definition of rational and a swift kick in the nuts or 2. We are among a large percentage of people that think it is rational to slaughter random people for no apparent reason other than you are mad at "society".

    I am not an asshole. There is a part of me that hurts for the guy. However, it is completely overshadowed by the sorrow that he has caused.
     
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  7. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

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    5,502
    Captain, you have absolutely no understanding of what a shooter has to be mad at society for.
     
  8. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,502
    It isn't that different from the beliefs of the rest of society. There are a lot of so-called normals who can easily think of, and will readily tell you of, groups of people who they think should be "lined up and shot." "Decent" people out of pretty much normal populations will indulge in just this sort of thing with dismal regularity when they are allowed to, just like the soldiers playing their games by burning villages and shooting women and children in places like North America, Cambodia, Viet Nam, Tamil, Somalia, Rwanda, China, and Afghanistan, just to name a few past and current examples.

    Knowing a little bit of history, I think that people are mainly pissed off by Cho's choice of targets and do not hold to any principle that says "people are not for shooting."
     
  9. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,502
    He fought back against a population that was killing him. What did you expect?
     
  10. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

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    5,502
    All of this leads to my conclusion: If you don't want all these shooters, stop creating situations that make their decisions seem rational. It's that simple.

    Ironically, this society uses intimidation and bullying to protect people from being justly harmed for intimidation and bullying.
     
  11. peta9 Registered Senior Member

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    That is very true. I've checked a few asian-american forums and they are not only embarassed by his atrocious deed but by his mental illness and bullying. They sneer, are indifferent or make light of his problems or the extent of pain he may have been in. They even have the nerve to deny they have been bullied because of pride and to disassociate from a "loser", I find there claims to be unbelievable but then if they embraced the cocky american attitude then maybe it's true, just hard to believe. I can see why Cho felt positioned from a purer or higher agenda than the rest of the world full of "debauchery" as well as his indiscriminate attack. The average but comfortable lowlife assumes there are no individuals like Cho. Their fine-tuned sense of individuality is lost on them. Ironicly, Cho is more an individual than most of the pack animals but he was lost and individuals(different) are not really accepted in society. This illustrates one of the lies of society which is the pack represents individualism.
     
  12. domesticated om Stickler for details Valued Senior Member

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    3,277
    You've kinda lost me there Enterprise with All the stuff you've highlighted/tagged as "emotive reasoning".

    Bushido is a code of warrior conduct. It has nothing to do with nationalism. Since you're a sci-fi fan (at least that's what I'm guessing due to your user name), think of Robocop and his prime directives. Bushido is basically the same thing.
    One of those directives includes "achieving a glorious/honorable death". Another is 100% loyalty to the master (follow instructions - give 100% effort no matter what - never surrender). You don't feel Bushido, you follow it.

    In the second, I see you've highlighted the words "religious" "righteously" and "infidels".
    How is being religious supposed to be emotive reasoning? In becoming religious, a person accepts a number of things as facts, and subscribes to another code of conduct.
    "Righteous" only defines something as compliant within a predefined standard, as does "infidel" (which defines someone who does not meet the standard).

    Creating mass hysteria, and achieving eternal paradise are goals, but I'm not really sure why you've mentioned them to support an argument of emotive reasoning. I'm guessing you personally think of these as outrageous and wacky, and must be the result of emotions.
     
  13. domesticated om Stickler for details Valued Senior Member

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    Hehe - good point.
     
  14. draqon Banned Banned

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    35,006
    Irrational statement: It is irrational to assume that anything in this world is irrational

    Rational statement: It is irrational to assume in the first place

    Conclusion: Everything in this world is rational
     
  15. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

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    5,502
    Thank you. I wish it weren't true.
     
  16. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

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    5,502
    It's very easy to become a perpetrator to relieve the stress of being bullied, unless other perpetrators won't let you or unless you are just completely unable to be that way. I used to think that my own inability to be a perpetrator was because I felt for the victim, and when I'm thinking of it right now I realize that it was because I "felt bad" which isn't true empathy.

    This position of a purer or a higher agenda leads to delusion also. I figured out a long time ago that those who are higher, who have wisdom and power, do not express this well by placing themselves on the catbird seat to crap on other people. The higher position is a responsibility and those who have earned it deal with others compassionately.
     
  17. peta9 Registered Senior Member

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    2,326
    The problem is he believed people were corrupt and not worth saving. The problem is you can't make someone value anything. He got this way over a period of time and his collective experiences. That's the unfortunate part. If society doesn't want to clean up their own act, people like this will continue to breed resentment from ill-treatment. Collectively, they can only use punitive measures to counterract it if they want to continue mistreating them.
     
    Last edited: Apr 21, 2007
  18. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

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    23,053
    Well, I do, too, but I don't go out and shoot a bunch of 'em!! I might want to, but I know that it wouldn't change a fuckin' thing. Now if I could set off a few gazillion nuclear bombs spread evenly all over the world, then.....?

    So the entire society should have to change to accommodate only a few nut-cases???? Surely you're joking, right?

    Baron Max
     
  19. mountainhare Banned Banned

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    3,287
    Baron:
    Yes. That's exactly right. Society should accommodate for 'nutcases' (ie. Any disaffected introverts), just like it accommodates for the crippled, the injured, and the physically ill. For the blacks and the gays. For any innately disadvantaged minority. Introverts are disadvantaged in every fashion: In a social context, in education, in their occupation.

    You seem to think that there are only a 'few' nutcases, because only a minor proportion of people go on a killing spree. Sadly, Cho and the Columbine kids are merely the tip of the iceberg. There are of disaffected individuals who feel mistreated, scorned, and isolated. There are a lot of people who have trouble connecting with other human beings, and feel like failures for this deficit.

    You only think it's a 'few' nutcases because only a few people go far enough to kill people, and catch your attention. Most of these miserable people usually suffer quietly, or kill themselves. And you never notice, because the media doesn't trumpet over all the channels. Oh well, at least Cho got your attention by gunning down 33 people. Perhaps if every miserable introvert did that, they'd make you realize how big a problem this is, and finally motivate society to change its behaviour!

    What was that you said about the media leading us about the nose? Yeah, it's quite apt.

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  20. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

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    5,502
    It isn't necessarily true that you can't make someone value anything. You may have to use a different verb for the process, like persuade, or even teach, demonstrate, or show. Thank you. You've just helped me put my finger on a part of a problem that I have been working on.

    Why indeed would we, as Mountainhare mentioned, want to accommodate a few nutcases? It is because the actions of the shooters are the tip of the iceberg, as he said, and their symptoms are the tip of the iceberg of the symptoms that we are having problems with. A sick society produces shooters. Our leadership often wants a sick society because sick people want medicine. With a good line of bull, manure can be labeled as "medicine" and people will swallow it, especially if it's an exotic manure with special properties.

    Sometimes, though, all of the relevant conditions have to be brought closer to a norm that is compatible with life. Those who do not understand this wind up with a desert on their hands and a lot of people who can't do much that's useful.
     
  21. peta9 Registered Senior Member

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    2,326
    If you read the other Vtech and nasa shooter threads, you'll see that the imbeciles of society do not want these people accomodated. They don't care if others are miserable because they want to be able to defecate on who, how and when they please in society. What is really stupid is their resistance to an actually positive move. The serious addressing of social inequities and harrassment makes for a less hostile environment and also for thier children. They don't care and don't take it seriously. As long as people are alive, they don't care about the quality of that life. They just want them to commit suicide or be locked away if they can't take it.

    What's even more cowardly is they rant about what a shooter should and should not have done when the person was and is not in their control. They are so deeply fixated on how the world comfortably revolves around them, they are miffed and their pride offended when it goes awry. They start whining and worse pretend to care about their own by the placing of blame. If it came down to the wire, they would never budge if their comfort zone was threatened because it's not really about the 32 lost, it's about them. There is no purpose of arguing about their rules of engagement of someone who has become a vigilante. They stupidly project reasons why he should or should not have done something which I find fascinating. Their level of mental incompetence, awareness and programming is astounding. They don't realize Cho was an individual and not subject to their personal inclinations or morals. They embarassingly and ignorantly chastize Cho for being a coward by taking innocent lives not just his own when that is their interpretation. They want the shooter to care about others and have the conscience to spare them but not his own. Why would someone who doesn't care if they die, care about a few strangers? Society is really stupid.
     
    Last edited: Apr 22, 2007
  22. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

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    5,502
    Not much more I can say right now, except that it's part of the game. You simply can't have a society that both aggressively destroys its enemies and is peaceful at the same time.
     
  23. Read-Only Valued Senior Member

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    10,296
    Peta, I strongly suggest you move yourself to the top of some isolated mountain and start rasing llamas or such. Because you will NEVER find the type of society you want anywhere on the face of this Earth. You can dream, rant, cry and shout all you want - but it's not going to change anything.

    There are always going to be bullies - we've all dealt with them - and there will always be more nut-cases like your beloved Cho. In the end, he did only one thing of real value - taking himself out of the way. Period.
     

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