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[Grayson]

Did Wanda really kill anyone?

Probably not directly but there were mutants who lost their lives when they lost their powers.

And Scott can be agitated, but doesn't he have his own country now? Why is he in a sovereign nation attacking the Avengers?

Because the leader of the Avengers came to their home, with a helicarrier filled with other Avengers, and demanded that Scott turn over one of his citizens to their custody because they thought that they knew how to handle a situation that Scott and other members of his race have more experience in dealing with.

Also, what he has completely shit on Xavier's message. He is supposed to try to preach tolerance. Instead he acts like a mutant Malcolm X.

I won't argue that Scott's methods have become a little extreme lately but I would argue that recent revelations have also revealed that Xavier was no saint either.

[BubbaKanoosh]

I said this, if Scott just turned his back and walked away without shooting that ship would've still decloaked.

[BubbaKanoosh]

I think Frag is deliberately ignoring me now..

[PDH]

I think people are underestimating how bad it is to kill billions of people. There's a cognitive bias called scope insensitivity, which is where our emotional responses don't scale up proportionally with huge numbers. In one study they asked people how much they were willing to spend to save 2,000 birds and how much they were willing to spend to save 200,000 birds. They answered $80 and $88, respectively. Even though it's a hundred times worse they didn't give any more of a fuck about it. The additional fuck that they gave had a monetary value of just $8.

We can't reason properly about large numbers of beings. That's why something like a third of the world is starving to death and none of us give a fuck.

There only has to be an extremely small chance of the Phoenix killing another several billion people for it to become pretty much logically and morally obligatory to kill Hope. I'm not saying it isn't bad to stab a little girl to death with adamantium claws, I'm just saying that it's over seven billion times worse to let the earth be destroyed (and that's not the only world under threat from her.)

Every one of those seven billion people has people who love them. A significant number of them are little girls, as well. Sometimes it can really feel like something is fine even when logic tells us that it isn't. That's why you have to put your feelings aside some times, especially when there are billions of lives at stake. That just overwhelms everything else.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

i agree with you on that, but to me being antagonistic is far less egregious than screaming and attacking someone because they are frustrating you. Like Frag said, and even Magneto has pointed this out as well as Scott himself, Cyclops is unwilling to compromise or even talk things out with people any more. He's become an extremist who reacts with violence whenever he feels undermined or questioned.

Cap made it clear that he was there to enforce his will whether the X-men cooperated or not. At that point striking him was academic. He already ensured it would turn to violence unless the X-men did as told. I'm surprised you care so little for freedom and liberty.

[Grayson]

I said this, if Scott just turned his back and walked away without shooting that ship would've still decloaked.

Exactly, the Avengers would have stormed the beach no matter what. It was always a matter of "Give us Hope or else!" Scott punching Captain America just bought the X-Men a little extra time, by surprising the Avengers and giving the X-Men the upperhand.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

I think people are underestimating how bad it is to kill billions of people. There's a cognitive bias called scope insensitivity, which is where our emotional responses don't scale up proportionally with huge numbers. In one study they asked people how much they were willing to spend to save 2,000 birds and how much they were willing to spend to save 200,000 birds. They answered $80 and $88, respectively. Even though it's a hundred times worse they didn't give any more of a fuck about it. The additional fuck that they gave had a monetary value of just $8.

We can't reason properly about large numbers of beings. That's why something like a third of the world is starving to death and none of us give a fuck.

There only has to be an extremely small chance of the Phoenix killing another several billion people for it to become pretty much logically and morally obligatory to kill Hope. I'm not saying it isn't bad to stab a little girl to death with adamantium claws, I'm just saying that it's over seven billion times worse to let the earth be destroyed (and that's not the only world under threat from her.)

Every one of those seven billion people has people who love them. A significant number of them are little girls, as well. Sometimes it can really feel like something is fine even when logic tells us that it isn't. That's why you have to put your feelings aside some times, especially when there are billions of lives at stake. That just overwhelms everything else.

1. I hope you are never in a position of power. That's cold.

2. Your cold logic goes against everything superheroes have ever been about. While a superhero might sacrifice him or herself for the good of the group, they would never sacrifice another. Superheroes will do whatever it takes to beat the impossible odds. Otherwise they should just give in to Doctor Doom or whoever whenever they threaten to hurt or kill others.

[PDH]

1. I hope you are never in a position of power. That's cold.

2. Your cold logic goes against everything superheroes have ever been about. While a superhero might sacrifice him or herself for the good of the group, they would never sacrifice another. Superheroes will do whatever it takes to beat the impossible odds. Otherwise they should just give in to Doctor Doom or whoever whenever they threaten to hurt or kill others.

1. It's colder to kill everybody because your intuitions - the result of billions of years of selfish evolution - teach you that the millions of brown people in the other tribe (or the billions of purple people on the alien planet) are not as important as the few white people standing next to you. Evolution is not concerned with giving us appropriate moral intuitions so it didn't. It gave us selfish intuitions that helped propagate the relevant genes in the ancestral environment.

When you base your decisions entirely on your emotions what you are really basing them on is the mindless process that gave us gang-rapist ducks and countless other natural atrocities. There's no reason to think that evolution would supply us with emotions that can be trusted to make moral decisions and every reason to think that it would do almost the opposite of that in nearly every case.

2. In a superhero story the author can decide how the story plays out. They can just have them magically discover 'another way' to save everyone. In real life you don't have that option, you have to just do the best you can.

So generations of people have grown up being told that you should let everybody die because one person who is close to you is more important than everyone else put together. This is selfish to the point of obscenity. Every one of those billions of people is just as deserving of life and happiness as the others. They all have people who care about them just as much.

If human lives are worth saving, and I think they are, then I want to save as many as I can, regardless of how far away they live. If I could save everybody, I would. Failing that, I will try to save as many people as possible.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

1. It's colder to kill everybody because your intuitions - the result of billions of years of selfish evolution - teach you that the millions of brown people in the other tribe (or the billions of purple people on the alien planet) are not as important as the few white people standing next to you. Evolution is not concerned with giving us appropriate moral intuitions so it didn't. It gave us selfish intuitions that helped propagate the relevant genes in the ancestral environment.

When you base your decisions entirely on your emotions what you are really basing them on is the mindless process that gave us gang-rapist ducks and countless other natural atrocities. There's no reason to think that evolution would supply us with emotions that can be trusted to make moral decisions and every reason to think that it would do almost the opposite of that in nearly every case.

2. In a superhero story the author can decide how the story plays out. They can just have them magically discover 'another way' to save everyone. In real life you don't have that option, you have to just do the best you can.

So generations of people have grown up being told that you should let everybody die because one person who is close to you is more important than everyone else put together. This is selfish to the point of obscenity. Every one of those billions of people is just as deserving of life and happiness as the others. They all have people who care about them just as much.

If human lives are worth saving, and I think they are, then I want to save as many as I can, regardless of how far away they live. If I could save everybody, I would. Failing that, I will try to save as many people as possible.

You're not talking about letting someone die. You're talking about proactively killing them.

This is a story, not real life, so you need to abide by the established rules of the universe, not say "in real life superheroes couldn't save the day every time." In real life, there are no superheroes. Here, there are, and they must do as they always do - defeat impossible odds to save the day.

[S.F. Jude Terror]

Don't be a buddy bear, PDH.

[PDH]

You're not talking about letting someone die. You're talking about proactively killing them.

The results are the same either way and as a consequentialist, that's what I'm concerned with. The goal is to stop people dying. If I want billions of people to not be dead, what must I do?

A big part of the reason that people don't get consequentialism is that instead of thinking, 'I just killed 7 billion people,' they think, 'I just saved one girl.'

This is a story, not real life, so you need to abide by the established rules of the universe, not say "in real life superheroes couldn't save the day every time." In real life, there are no superheroes. Here, there are, and they must do as they always do - defeat impossible odds to save the day.

But I don't think that's a very moral message. If they're aiming for, 'try to save as many people as you can' then they missed. If you tried to apply that advice in real life there would be situations where you made the world a much worse place than it would otherwise be because of important differences between fiction and reality.

But I will say, "IF we knew that the laws of physics had a special exception in them for sufficiently heroic people such that they could always 'find another way' THEN, if we were reasonably confident about that, it would be wrong to sacrifice one person to save billions."

So, if you think that applies to this story, I will say the X-Men are in the right. That would make the Avengers a bunch of cunts, though.

[ReturnoftheMack]

The Avengers weren't there to kill Hope, just take her off-planet. They would've sacrificed their lives for her there.

[ReturnoftheMack]

I said this, if Scott just turned his back and walked away without shooting that ship would've still decloaked.

We can't know that.

[ReturnoftheMack]

I think Frag is deliberately ignoring me now..

I would never do that.

[ReturnoftheMack]

Someone should show this thread to a certain annoying poster that this is how a fun debate is.

But then he might show up so I guess this is better.