>> >Death Rules! :-) When the state kills someone, it is (usually) extingishing
>> >their memes and possibly their genes. Is this desirable? Does the meme
>> >complex of "If you perform such and such an act, we will kill you." work?
>> > What are our alternatives?
Killing someone extinguishes their memes and genes only if they held
the only instances of them in existence. This is seldom the case. Killing
someone will, however, curb further propagation.
At 09:59 AM 11/7/95 MST, Joel Bradford Klammer replied:
>Regardless of whether the death penalty is a deterrent, the cost
>is that the state will probably eventually execute an innocent person.
>IMO, this is _the_ decisive argument against it.
True, the state will eventually execute an innocent person (probably
already has). But this is a decisive argument against capital punishment
only if you assume a human life has an infinite value. Are you prepared
to defend that assertion?
-- David McFadzean dbm@merak.com Memetic Engineer http://www.merak.com/~dbm/ Merak Projects Ltd.