Rorschach

[hamishspence]

So, killing 3 million people is "giving humanity a slap on the wrist for its own good"?

I think the point the artist was trying to make was- Ozymandias is a human, but exceptionally smart. Yet he believes himself above humanity- the only one with the ability to make decisions on behalf of the whole species.

[SolkaTruesilver]

So, killing 3 million people is "giving humanity a slap on the wrist for its own good"?

More like poking it strongly, or slapping it strongly on the tush.

Seriously, 3 M people is less than 0.5% of the world's population. This is a 1 for 200 cost ratio here.

[Freshmeat]

Concerning the suggestion that Ozymandias was "flanderized" by the posters here, it is interesting to see the point of view of the artists and writers.

For example:

http://www.watchmencomicmovie.com/10...-interview.php

Unfortunately, that article barely addresses the issue I brought up and despite Gibbon's awareness that the interviewer wants an unambiguous answer, he's still being pretty ambiguous about it. Can't blame him though.

I'm aware of the idea that people consider Veidt arrogant because he took matters into his own hands and killed millions of people. However, I disagree with this making him "highly arrogant" as I don't feel he killed the New York citizens because he 'looked down on them', but because he felt he had to. Nothing more to it. He doesn't seem particularly sorry for them, and perhaps that's why most people consider him callous (and thus, indirectly, arrogant), but his plan was plenty of years in the making, so by the time the story starts, I'm not exactly convinced his apparent lack of emotion means he likes to bat away innocent lives without a moment's thought because he has a God complex or something as much as I feel he's probably already come to terms with what must be done (in his opinion). Even so, being cold and calculating does not necessarily make one arrogant, nor does this it necessarily impair your judgement. He has flaws, to be sure (all things considered, he shouldn't have let Rorschach live, for example), but I don't find this to have negatively influenced his decision to the point where I find myself in disagreement with him.

Still, this is not the point concerning flanderization I was contending. It's what comes next, when we get to the notions that 'saving the world was never Veidt's goal to begin with since he wants to rule the world' and that 'he's an insane psychopath who just wants to kill lots and lots of people'. I can understand (while disagreeing with) the basic concept of disliking Veidt and the implied attitude that he must consider himself better than the New York citizens because he sacrifices them to (try and) save humanity. But anything beyond that just seems rather exaggerated to me.

[hamishspence]

I was thinking more the movie version- cities all across the world (not just in Russia and America) are sacrificed.

This isn't so much "a slap on the tush" as "flogging everybody till they've lost half a pound of flesh and blood, in the hope that they will now be more afraid of the punisher, than of each other"- since blood replenishes itself.

One of the common criticisms of the book version- why would America being attacked by an alien which suddenly disappears, suddenly cause the Russians to do a U-turn and start being friendly to America? Fear of a potential threat to both of them?

[Tyrant]

I was thinking more the movie version- cities all across the world (not just in Russia and America) are sacrificed.

This isn't so much "a slap on the tush" as "flogging everybody till they've lost half a pound of flesh and blood, in the hope that they will now be more afraid of the punisher, than of each other"- since blood replenishes itself.

One of the common criticisms of the book version- why would America being attacked by an alien which suddenly disappears, suddenly cause the Russians to do a U-turn and start being friendly to America? Fear of a potential threat to both of them?

I believe it was supposed to be fear of a threat to the entire planet. Unite humanity against a common, alien enemy and all of that. Make humanity realise that their problems are petty in the grand scheme of things by proving that there actually is life beyond Earth and that life is quite alien. I actually prefer the movie version because he hits numerous cities which helps illustrate that the threat wasn't just a fluke that destroyed New York but something (actually, someone in this case) that can and will destroy cities all across the globe.

[hamishspence]

It also has Veidt not just targeting the nuclear powers- but targeting everybody.

[SolkaTruesilver]

It also has Veidt not just targeting the nuclear powers- but targeting everybody.

... no, he targeted the nuclear powers.

[tribble]

returning this thread to its subject...

I think it's shocking the author was suprised anyone sympathised with R. I mean, if you don't feel sorry for the guy by the end, you probably fell asleep halfway through grave of the fireflies. let's look at how much it sucks to be him, yes?

-Abused by his hooker mom as a kid.
-harassed by the neighbors.
-traumatised so much by the first point he grew up having nightmares about sex. hitting puberty was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, if I couldn't enjoy it I'd be pretty bitter.
-he has exactly one friend, and even he yells at him about how hard it is.
-day by day he sees his world fall apart. from the dressmaker, which I probably wouldn't have handled nearly as calmly, to the end, where a physical god tells him "lol, no, you can't bring a mass murderer to justice." justice was the last thing rorschach had to believe in, and Dr.M took it away.
-he's humiliated by ozzy sue.
-he's framed for murder
-somebody tries to shank him in the lunch line and he gets blamed for the result.
-he gets the cassandra treatment until the very end.
-he's patronised and looked down on by just about everyone.
-and he's ugly.

How, exactly, are we not supposed to pity such a man?

[Dervag]

More like poking it strongly, or slapping it strongly on the tush.

Seriously, 3 M people is less than 0.5% of the world's population. This is a 1 for 200 cost ratio here.

Solka, I have a major problem with this, and not just with your use of 2010-vintage population statistics to make a claim about 1985.

The biggest part of the problem is that comparing such massive death and horror to a "poke" or a "slap" is repugnant. "Humanity" is not a single entity that can be lightly chastised by 'only' inflicting terrible harm on a tiny fraction of the species. That's a rhetorical issue, though.

The other problem is that I don't think you can use linear algebra for ethical calculations on this scale. Not when you're talking about extremely large numbers and extremely small probabilities. I can go into why I think so in ore depth, but this post is already far too long; I will expand on it later if you like. The short form of the problem is that if you try to use linear scaling, you wind up with situations where making a chain of individually good reactions to a danger to humanity leads to a bad result (such as causing horrible suffering for the sake of something that, for all practical purposes, won't happen).

My take on the situation...

I may not agree with every single detail of what you said, but I think your overall thesis is very good.

1) You don't survive nuclear warfare. You just don't. It's a silly notion that people have that you might be able to survive the blasts, but what comes after (cancer, nuclear winter, irradiated lands) will kill whatever comes therafter. Nothing will grow on the earth for years, natural widlife will grow quickly extinct.

There is no "after the end".

Well... it's complicated.

For one, the projections of nuclear winter are often badly overstated; the models that have massive world-crushing shrouds of dust come up tend to forget factors that clear dust from the air in favor of pretending that the Earth is a featureless ball of rock with no oceans and no winds. It's a real threat, but not as huge a threat on its own as it's played up as.

For another, radiation. Also a real threat, a terrible one, but not as huge as it's played up to be. It's bad for you, it's going to send cancer rates, infertility rates, and child mortality rates through the roof. But depending on how many bombs actually go off, it won't necessarily mean death for the entire human species everywhere.

For a third, a lot of these problems can be avoided almost entirely if, for example, you can find a hole in the ground and crawl inside for a hundred years. Dig in deep, build something like the Vaults from Fallout, and you've got a real chance of keeping a civilization alive by virtue of having something left after the worst of the fallout has died down.

Nuclear war would be the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone, hands down. But it's not exactly outside the bounds of sanity to expect to be able to keep some people somewhere alive through it, if you're clever and rich enough to prepare ahead of time.

Have we read the same article? It says, black on white, that a REGIONALISED nuclear conflict involving merely 50x Hiroshima-class bombs (15 KT each) would cause catastrophic consequences. It would lower the temperature of several degree, making agriculture extremely hard in all farmland of the world, causing severe world hunger.

That is not plausible. You know how I know? Because it's already happened.

During the 1950's, many nations staged large numbers of nuclear tests, including bombs far larger than fifteen kilotons, including bombs placed deliberately to hurl vast amounts of dirt and dust into the air (such as the Sedan test in the US), including bombs set off underwater that threw up huge clouds of steam. Hundreds of such tests.

There have been deaths from the fallout from all those tests- too many, in hindsight, a lot of the atmospheric tests should have been done in even more remote areas or underground. But there has not been a global climate collapse.

2) What you call for (space travel, etc...) is running away. Ozymandia tried to save what is, not have a cradle for mankind to survive. There is the whole cultural existence of humanity that you might want to preserve (which is also a worthy goal). Nuclear warfare will wipe many of these things too. Not to forget the ecosystem. I am sorry if I sound pessimist, but I doubt very much space colonies have any change of survival in the first century without constant support from Earth. Specially with 80's tech level.

With Dr. Manhattan shepherding them? Sure they do.
___________

The only thing Rorschach became was a public menace. I've seen people go on and on about how Ozy doesn't have the right to make the decisions he made. Who gave Rorschach the right to go around brutalising anyone he deems "evil"?

Only one thing: he's often right, demonstrably so. Most of the people he goes after actually are killers and rapists, and Rorschach had good reasons to think they were ahead of time, which he can use as a defense for his actions.

Even so, Rorschach is a very ethically troubling character, and I agree that he raises a lot of the same problems Veidt does, but on a smaller scale. It's just that he can take refuge in the facts to an extent that Veidt cannot.

Rorschach reacts to threats he knows exist, and can concretely prove to exist, by doing things that he knows will put an end to the threat. Rarely does he kill an innocent person, though he causes a huge amount of unnecessary injury that he deserves to be condemned for.

Veidt reacted to a threat he thought existed (but could not prove to exist) by doing something that might work (or might fail and cause exactly what he was trying to avoid), and that even if successful, might put an end to the threat.

But on account of all those "I think"s and "maybe"s, Veidt killed three million innocent people, people who were in no way to blame for the problem he was trying to solve. Not one or two here and there, but three million. That is a number that most people can't even imagine, death on a scale comparable to a major war or genocide campaign. And he took specific, personal responsibility for all those deaths, and for making sure they actually mattered... without adequate assurance that they would matter.

That's the ethical difference right there. You can't stop by saying "they both do what they believe is right, but one of them operated on a larger scale." You have to look at whether their actions match the amount of knowledge they really have, whether they have explored other avenues of achieving the same goals, whether they show any sign of actually caring about people rather than about some kind of mass abstract ideal People that bears no relationship to the facts on the ground.

And when that's factored in... Rorschach isn't a good man by any stretch of the imagination, but in a lot of ways that matter, he's a better man than Veidt.
______-

Nor do I feel he is completely insane, that he wants to blows up New York and establish peace between the USSR and USA only so that he can rule the world by himself or that he actually just wants to accomplish something great and honestly doesn't care about world peace. Don't get me started on the notion that he settled on a plan that involved killing millions because it involved killing millions. Yet all of those have been claimed earlier in this thread. Alternate character interpretation indeed.

I think that Veidt is not completely insane in that sense. But it's quite well established that he has enormous ambitions, and that (not without reason) he sees himself as a heroic and revolutionary figure, one with the power to transform everything around him by hard work and sheer brilliance.

So I think he's... shall we say, predisposed to approve of the idea of committing a vast act, an act that "petty mortals" would regard as a crime, for the sake of a "higher good" that only he can perceive. It's a flaw in his psyche, much like Rorschach's inability to compromise, "even in the face of Armageddon."

[hamishspence]

A big part of it is the difference between a "necessary evil act" and a "morally good act"

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...ecessarilyEvil

If this is any guideline, Ozy thinks of his acts are "evil but necessary" not "necessary, therefore not evil"

The writer most commonly cited as saying "the ends justify the means"- Machivelli- when you actually read the books, tends to use terms like "doing wrong" "doing evil"- etc for these "necessary acts"- his argument is that, to preserve his country a ruler must be able to do evil acts.

[Tyrant]

Only one thing: he's often right, demonstrably so. Most of the people he goes after actually are killers and rapists, and Rorschach had good reasons to think they were ahead of time, which he can use as a defense for his actions.

Manhattan leaves once his connection with Laurie is broken (and Veidt had no part in that) and he is confronted with "evidence" that he is killing those around him (Veidt did do this though). The moment Manhattan is gone, the Soviets begin invading. This leads to the US preparing to nuke them which will lead to a counterattack. I fail to see how Veidt's prediction wasn't accurate given that both sides immediately moved into a war posture and the countdown to nuclear oblivion began.

Nearly everyone at the time belived it was likely that was how it would end (in book and IRL). Veidt wasn't just making it up. In the book, the Soviets immediately engage in invading their neighbors. We have to assume, in book, that the Soviets were waiting for this moment, just as Veidt believed. We can't compare this to what really happened because there are enough differences to skew things. I believe even Rorschach believed the threat was imminent and very real and since everyone seems to put such faith in him that should be proof enough.

Even so, Rorschach is a very ethically troubling character, and I agree that he raises a lot of the same problems Veidt does, but on a smaller scale. It's just that he can take refuge in the facts to an extent that Veidt cannot.

Like the fact that the moment they saw an opening the Soviets moved and the US was moving to respond in the way everyone thought they would? The fact that Manhattan was part of the problem? Etc. Veidt has facts on his side as well.

Rorschach reacts to threats he knows exist, and can concretely prove to exist, by doing things that he knows will put an end to the threat. Rarely does he kill an innocent person, though he causes a huge amount of unnecessary injury that he deserves to be condemned for.

I'm pretty sure everyone could testify that the Cold War was real along with the massive nuclear stockpiles of both sides and the willingnes to use them. The threat Veidt perceived was far from imagined. Once the ball was rolling everything was happening in the way he believed it would and that's all the proof I need that his prediction of future events was very, very likely to play out exactly as he had foreseen.

That's the ethical difference right there. You can't stop by saying "they both do what they believe is right, but one of them operated on a larger scale." You have to look at whether their actions match the amount of knowledge they really have, whether they have explored other avenues of achieving the same goals, whether they show any sign of actually caring about people rather than about some kind of mass abstract ideal People that bears no relationship to the facts on the ground.

And we have no idea what, if any, other avenues either pursued so that is a pointless consideration. Rorschach's knowledge is the result of torture which makes it suspect in it's validity. He happened to be right in most cases, but he could have easily been wrong. We also don't know if Veidt cares about people or not. He could easily be like he is at the end after years of forcing himself to accept the reality of his plan and him accepting it instead of him being someone who doesn't care about anyone. He says he cares and that this was the way most likely to succeed and we don't have enough of the story before the big event to know if he is being honest or not. I don't see the point in saying he's wrong when there's nothing to back it up. For every "why doesn't he do X" I can counter with "maybe they tried that already or it was ruled out by all parties for one reason or another". We can play that game forever because we don't know enough about the backstory beyond what we hear the characters tell us. So, I find it odd that some are willing to basically say one character is lying to us when they have nothing to prove that beyond "he's arrogant". I'm starting to be less and less suprised that people favor Rorschach.

[chiasaur11]

A big part of it is the difference between a "necessary evil act" and a "morally good act"

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...ecessarilyEvil

If this is any guideline, Ozy thinks of his acts are "evil but necessary" not "necessary, therefore not evil"

The writer most commonly cited as saying "the ends justify the means"- Machivelli- when you actually read the books, tends to use terms like "doing wrong" "doing evil"- etc for these "necessary acts"- his argument is that, to preserve his country a ruler must be able to do evil acts.

Yeah.

Having actually read "The Prince", old Nick seems to actively prefer and encourage some level of moral action. Which was kind of weird to find out.

The big piece of advice I remember was basically "If you're doing something scummy, get it out of the way immediately and don't repeat it, so people can get over it.

[hamishspence]

I was thinking more The Discourses- but yes- it isn't so much "what's necessary behaviour is good behaviour" as "sometimes, it is necessary to do evil things"

The commentaries to The Discourses in the Penguin Classics edition emphasise this:

"But if one is willing, he seems to say, recognize that what for the moment you are doing is evil, and do not fall into calling it good"

[Dervag]

I was thinking more The Discourses- but yes- it isn't so much "what's necessary behaviour is good behaviour" as "sometimes, it is necessary to do evil things"

The commentaries to The Discourses in the Penguin Classics edition emphasise this:

"But if one is willing, he seems to say, recognize that what for the moment you are doing is evil, and do not fall into calling it good"

Of course, this ties into the prevailing ethical model of the era: that certain acts are sins, wrong in and of themselves regardless of any possible circumstances, and that right and wrong are dictates from above rather than being something you can derive from philosophy.

This was before utilitarianism; naive utilitarianism changes the calculations in ethics a great deal. More advanced forms of utilitarianism tend to change it back somewhat by fixing the bugs in the simplified form, but even then things aren't the same.

Manhattan leaves once his connection with Laurie is broken (and Veidt had no part in that) and he is confronted with "evidence" that he is killing those around him (Veidt did do this though). The moment Manhattan is gone, the Soviets begin invading. This leads to the US preparing to nuke them which will lead to a counterattack. I fail to see how Veidt's prediction wasn't accurate given that both sides immediately moved into a war posture and the countdown to nuclear oblivion began.

Well, of course Veidt could predict a nuclear war that he engineered. And make no mistake about it; he did engineer one, because he had to push the world to the very edge of destruction and clear Dr. Manhattan out of the picture (which also pushed the world to the edge of destruction) for his plan to work.

Veidt lit the fuse on the end of the world, depending on his own ability to put it out before it exploded. Whether that means that the world would have ended "anyway" is a different question; whether that means that the world would have ended had he done something less risky is likewise a different question.

Nearly everyone at the time belived it was likely that was how it would end (in book and IRL). Veidt wasn't just making it up. In the book, the Soviets immediately engage in invading their neighbors. We have to assume, in book, that the Soviets were waiting for this moment, just as Veidt believed. We can't compare this to what really happened because there are enough differences to skew things.

I'm not sure I agree, because of a thought experiment. Would Veidt have been justified in doing this in real life? In real life, most knowledgable people thought the world would end in nuclear fire, or at the very least that a stalemate would last indefinitely. If you had told people in 1980 that within fifteen years the USSR was going to cease to exist, they would have assumed you meant that they would be destroyed along with everyone else in World War Three.

Now, it's hard to estimate what the odds of a nuclear war breaking out during the Cold War actually were. Let's say, for the sake of argument that the odds were 5% and that everyone was vastly overestimating the danger, including the peaceniks and optimists.

Would averting the 5% chance of a nuclear war have justified the killing of three million innocent people, as Veidt did?

I believe even Rorschach believed the threat was imminent and very real and since everyone seems to put such faith in him that should be proof enough.

Oh, don't be willfully obtuse. Among other things, I'm very critical of Rorschach, the man's a nut. About the best you can say for him is that he usually has evidence that his methods will achieve his goals, and that the goals are arguably desirable.

I'm pretty sure everyone could testify that the Cold War was real along with the massive nuclear stockpiles of both sides and the willingnes to use them. The threat Veidt perceived was far from imagined. Once the ball was rolling everything was happening in the way he believed it would and that's all the proof I need that his prediction of future events was very, very likely to play out exactly as he had foreseen.

The problem is that Veidt set the ball rolling in the first place; it's easy to get events to go as foreseen if you're pulling the strings. That risk is a large part of my problem with Veidt: it's not just that he killed three million in the hope of saving five billion, it's that he also risked the lives of those five billion in the process. If the Americans had launched sooner, or if the Soviets had gone for a nuclear-supported attack instead of a strictly conventional one, Veidt would be directly and personally responsible for the very horror that he felt it was worth killing three million innocents to avoid.

[Wardog]

Yeah, that's true.

Yes. That's one of Dr. Manhattan's options (two "A"s in Manhattan), though; I was talking about Veidt's options.

Ah, sorry, I didn't explain myself properly.

My suggestion is that Veidt (the master-manipulator and supposed World's Smartest Man) could/should have suggested / persuaded / manipulated Dr. Manhattan into threatening to leave earth.



That way, rather than the sudden disappearance of the US's deterrence causing both side to panic and mobilise for a first strike, hopefully both sides would think "Ok, we're safe now, but in six months time we could be at the brink of nuclear war. So let’s find a solution to prevent that happening."

That solution could be to negotiate a stand down of forces, or an arms limitation treaty, or such like. Or maybe it would just be to boost their traditional deterrent enough to ensure a real-world style stalemate. Indeed, given that everyone - both here and in the novel - are talking about the end of humanity if war breaks out, they presumably did have enough nukes for MAD, but just hadn't realized it. Maybe being forced to think about the consequences of war for 6 months would have made them realize that.

Either way, if the plan works, humanity is saved without killing millions of people in NY, so it’s clearly a more moral plan. And it doesn't involve pushing the world to the brink of war as a side effect of removing the one who could stop you, nor does it involve an act that could be misinterpreted as an enemy first strike, so it’s safer.


And if it doesn't work, well, I suppose he could have created the squid anyway as a backup plan, but only used it if the safer and non-murderous alternative fails.

[Tyrant]

Well, of course Veidt could predict a nuclear war that he engineered. And make no mistake about it; he did engineer one, because he had to push the world to the very edge of destruction and clear Dr. Manhattan out of the picture (which also pushed the world to the edge of destruction) for his plan to work.

So Veidt forced the Soviets to amass in excess of 51000 nuclear warheads? That was all him? He forced them to invade Afghanistan and prepare to invade Europe? He forced the US to prepare to respond in exactly the way they always planned to respond? This is silly. He removed Manhattan because he knew Manhattan was part of the problem and that he would likely leave sooner or later anyway. I think it's safe to say he understood Manhattan better than anyone else so if he says him leaving was inevitable I'm willing to believe him. The evidence backs up the claim that he cares less and less as time goes on and Veidt had nothing to do with Laurie leaving him (which is what started the clock with him). He caused an event that was inevitable to happen on a time table that allowed a chance to stop the events that were destined to follow as opposed to just letting it happen and hope for the best.

I'm not sure I agree, because of a thought experiment. Would Veidt have been justified in doing this in real life? In real life, most knowledgable people thought the world would end in nuclear fire, or at the very least that a stalemate would last indefinitely. If you had told people in 1980 that within fifteen years the USSR was going to cease to exist, they would have assumed you meant that they would be destroyed along with everyone else in World War Three.

Comparing it to the real world is more or less pointless. There are numerous differences which cause the situation to be considerably different. More importantly, we know the Soviets next move in the book because they actually take it. We have conjecture on the next step but all signs point to nuclear war, not the economic collapse of the Soviet Union in the very short time after they invade Afghanistan. You can't use the real world end to the conflict (for now) as evidence because the two worlds are not the same. We have no clue what the economic situation for the USSR was. The picture painted by the author says the Soviets were ready to throw down and that's the information we have so all assumptions have to factor that in to be taken seriously.

In short, our situation was different. We lost Vietnam which helped shatter our view of personal invincibility. We provided material support to others to stop the Soviets in Afghanistan. We had a different president who among other things tried to spend the Soviets into oblivion.

But you know, barring all that, if there was the real chance something like this would have worked I'm not convinced it would've been a bad thing. Imgaine the last 25 years with the US and Russians being actual allies instead of wondering where Soviet warheads and other nuclear materials might pop up. A possible true end to major global hostilities. I view that as a worthwhile goal and I'm personally convinced it won't happen through peaceful means in this world.

Now, it's hard to estimate what the odds of a nuclear war breaking out during the Cold War actually were. Let's say, for the sake of argument that the odds were 5% and that everyone was vastly overestimating the danger, including the peaceniks and optimists.

Would averting the 5% chance of a nuclear war have justified the killing of three million innocent people, as Veidt did?

I think you and I have vastly different estimates of how close we were to obliterating each other. I think the huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons coupled with development of numerous delivery systems and failsafe procedures says the US at least was willing to go all the way.

I believe it was far closer to a 50/50 situation, in our world. In their world, I believe it is more like a 75% certainty before Manhattan leaves and a near 100% certainty after he leaves.

Oh, don't be willfully obtuse. Among other things, I'm very critical of Rorschach, the man's a nut. About the best you can say for him is that he usually has evidence that his methods will achieve his goals, and that the goals are arguably desirable.

I'm not being obtuse. My point was that even Rorschach says the world is on the brink and given the level of hero worship others are showing him that should settle any argument that the threat of nuclear wasn't real. I honestly cant believe anyone could read that book and argue that the threat wasn't very real.

As for desirable goals, I always considered the continuing existence of the human race and world peace to be desirable goals.

The problem is that Veidt set the ball rolling in the first place; it's easy to get events to go as foreseen if you're pulling the strings. That risk is a large part of my problem with Veidt: it's not just that he killed three million in the hope of saving five billion, it's that he also risked the lives of those five billion in the process. If the Americans had launched sooner, or if the Soviets had gone for a nuclear-supported attack instead of a strictly conventional one, Veidt would be directly and personally responsible for the very horror that he felt it was worth killing three million innocents to avoid.

And he was trying to eliminate the uncertainty of letting events play out by doing what he did, when he did it. His timeline of events went beyond that moment and featured economic collapse and nuclear war. He did it then because there was still the possibility of controlling it at that point. Later? Who knows, but presumably not.

[SolkaTruesilver]

And he was trying to eliminate the uncertainty of letting events play out by doing what he did, when he did it. His timeline of events went beyond that moment and featured economic collapse and nuclear war. He did it then because there was still the possibility of controlling it at that point. Later? Who knows, but presumably not.

In other words, he knew the ball would fall eventually. He'd rather nudge it now at a point he thinks he can catch it safiest rather than wait until the inevitable.

[Tyrant]

In other words, he knew the ball would fall eventually. He'd rather nudge it now at a point he thinks he can catch it safiest rather than wait until the inevitable.

Pretty much.

[Dervag]

So Veidt forced the Soviets to amass in excess of 51000 nuclear warheads? That was all him? He forced them to invade Afghanistan and prepare to invade Europe? He forced the US to prepare to respond in exactly the way they always planned to respond? This is silly. He removed Manhattan...

Just stop here for a moment. This is my point: He removed Dr. Manhattan. He went far out of his way to remove Dr. Manhattan, knowing well in advance how the Soviets would react, and that was part of his plan. So before he enacted his grand plan to avert World War Three, he first accelerated World War Three by placing deliberate stress on Dr. Manhattan.

Now, maybe that was inevitable, maybe he was right. But he still chose to induce Jon's departure, and chose to risk the possibility of war breaking out before his plan could (hopefully) stop it. He takes no clear insurance against this risk- such as launching the attack immediately after Jon leaves.

Did he simply forget the possibility? In that case, he is negligent and not to be trusted with the future of humanity. Did he decide the possibility was irrelevant? Then he was grossly overoptimistic; the entire problem is that both nations' nuclear arsenals were on hair-triggers and could be launched any minute. Assuming nothing would happen over a period of days after he'd just singlehandedly removed the biggest anti-nuclear defense in the US arsenal would be ludicrous. And, again, a sign that one is not to be trusted with the future of humanity.

Comparing it to the real world is more or less pointless. There are numerous differences which cause the situation to be considerably different. More importantly, we know the Soviets next move in the book because they actually take it. We have conjecture on the next step but all signs point to nuclear war, not the economic collapse of the Soviet Union in the very short time after they invade Afghanistan. You can't use the real world end to the conflict (for now) as evidence because the two worlds are not the same. We have no clue what the economic situation for the USSR was. The picture painted by the author says the Soviets were ready to throw down and that's the information we have so all assumptions have to factor that in to be taken seriously.

Not really. The calculation is very similar:

There is a significant chance of nuclear war killing everyone. You have no prior knowledge that it will happen, only that it could happen with a certain probability. Given that probability of everyone dying, is it justified to kill a small percentage of humanity in hopes of eliminating the risk?

After all, if it's worth killing three million people to avert a 99% chance of death for everyone, why isn't it worth doing it to avert a 5% chance of death for everyone? The math works the same way; 5% of five billion people is 250 million. So why would Veidt's actions not have been justified in the real world?

(As of 1985, there were roughly five billion people alive, not six).

But you know, barring all that, if there was the real chance something like this would have worked I'm not convinced it would've been a bad thing. Imgaine the last 25 years with the US and Russians being actual allies instead of wondering where Soviet warheads and other nuclear materials might pop up. A possible true end to major global hostilities. I view that as a worthwhile goal and I'm personally convinced it won't happen through peaceful means in this world.

So... Veidt's actions would be justified in real life, then? Including all the various factors that could plausibly go wrong, such as the US mistaking the squid for a Soviet attack?

I believe it was far closer to a 50/50 situation, in our world.

So do I. I posited a much lower probability because I'm trying to make a point: that if you're basing your calculations on probabilities, then even a TINY probability of nuclear war justifies mass slaughter. Do you agree or disagree that such a thing would be are justified?

I'm not being obtuse. My point was that even Rorschach says the world is on the brink and given the level of hero worship others are showing him that should settle any argument that the threat of nuclear wasn't real.

Why? Someone could easily respect Rorschach very much, far more than I do, without considering him a qualified nuclear war theorist.

I honestly cant believe anyone could read that book and argue that the threat wasn't very real.

I, for one, am not. My objection is that the way Veidt tried to solve the problem was comparable to juggling torches in a powder magazine, and the fact that he didn't get everyone killed specifically because of his own actions had at least as much to do with luck as it did with skill. That, combined with the absolutely certain, 100% guaranteed act of mass murder he committed as part of the plan, makes me think that his actions were unethical.

The ends can only justify the means if the means can confidently be expected to lead to the ends, and if the means are the best available. This doesn't qualify.

[hamishspence]

While "the ends justify the means" is usually associated with consequentialism, a lot of the arguments here seem to be based on a subset of deontological ethics.

Specifically- that Veidt has a duty toward the human species as a whole- that this duty overrides any duty toward the individual members of the species-

and that if there is a sufficiently high chance that "killing a few million people will save the species"- that it is "moral cowardice"- dereliction of duty, so to speak- to instead take a different approach to saving the species with much less loss of innocent life, but a lower probability of success.

"One does not gamble with the fate of humanity" was the argument.

It seems unusual. Is consequentualism in fact a subset of deontological "duty based" ethics?

[Dervag]

Not necessarily, but there's probably some overlap. You can reasonably argue that if you expect some outcome to have a huge positive result, then you have a duty to carry it out. The problem comes in things like:
-How positive does the predicted outcome have to be?
-How much due diligence is called for in checking your predictions before actually carrying them out?
-Does the amount of diligence called for depend on how significant and dangerous the actions you carry out are going to be?
-When we calculate whether an action leads to good or bad net results, are the relationships involved linear? That is, is a 10% chance of X happening exactly ten times as good or bad as a 1% chance of X happening, and exactly one tenth as good or bad as a 100% chance of X happening?

[SolkaTruesilver]

Not necessarily, but there's probably some overlap. You can reasonably argue that if you expect some outcome to have a huge positive result, then you have a duty to carry it out. The problem comes in things like:
-How positive does the predicted outcome have to be?
-How much due diligence is called for in checking your predictions before actually carrying them out?
-Does the amount of diligence called for depend on how significant and dangerous the actions you carry out are going to be?
-When we calculate whether an action leads to good or bad net results, are the relationships involved linear? That is, is a 10% chance of X happening exactly ten times as good or bad as a 1% chance of X happening, and exactly one tenth as good or bad as a 100% chance of X happening?

Idea for the mind:

Do you think that if, in the YEARS of planning his action, Ozymandia would have found a less costly (but just as likely to succeed) plan to undertake, he would have taken it?

I think he would have. He wasn't out to kill people for kill's sake, he wanted to save humanity.

[chiasaur11]

Idea for the mind:

Do you think that if, in the YEARS of planning his action, Ozymandia would have found a less costly (but just as likely to succeed) plan to undertake, he would have taken it?

I think he would have. He wasn't out to kill people for kill's sake, he wanted to save humanity.

I don't. Not really.

For him? It was all about eternal glory. And more important?

Not saying I'm halfway as smart. (Nor, for that matter, that smart is anything less than a good thing). Just saying "I'm smarter than you! Trust me!" is not a blanket excuse for every sin.

[Dienekes]

Idea for the mind:

Do you think that if, in the YEARS of planning his action, Ozymandia would have found a less costly (but just as likely to succeed) plan to undertake, he would have taken it?

I think he would have. He wasn't out to kill people for kill's sake, he wanted to save humanity.

He however was out to outdo Alexander and Ramses, and cut his own Gordian Knot. That's part of why many don't trust him to have always made the less costly or more sane choice. He very much wanted to solve a problem by cutting it in half and not actually solving it.

If his motivations were given as different, most people would probably agree that if he had found a better plan he would have taken it. However, as it is we do not have that assurance. We have the tangled logic of a potential lunatic.

[Randel]

Okay, I've cooled down a bit since my last posts and I'm not really planning to argue to much over the ethics of the situation. Instead I'll just point out a few flaws in Ozymandias' plans... most using the movie version.

1). In the movie, Ozys plan was to use a generator created by Dr. Manhattan to simulate his power and vaporize New York and several other cities around the globe in order to unite everyone against a common enemy, namely Manhattan. What if that had gone horribly wrong?

Soviet Operator: Sir! Moscow has been completely vaporized! There is nothing left... it looks like the energy signature is that of their Doctor Manhattan superman!

Soviet Official: Those dirty Americans and their superman. It was all a trick to launch a surprise attack! Fire all of our nuclear missiles! Let them know that they can't hide behind their blue man!

*meanwhile in America*

American Operator: New York has been vaporised... it looks like it was done by Doctor Manhattan.

Nixon: That... he must have switched sides and is working for the Soviets.

American Operator: And according to our scanners the Soviets have launched ALL their missiles at us!

Nixon: NOOO... launch a full retalitory strike! Well show those commies that we won't go down without a fight!

American Operator: Wait... we're getting more reports... Beijing was vaporized as well, New Jersey... London! Manhattan is destroying the entire world!

Nixon: Triangulate his position and launch our remaining warheads! That should slow him down while we hit him with our secret weapon... the Tachyonic Intristic Field Anti-Dicombobulator!

American Operator: What the... what does that do?!

Nixon: No idea... but I know what it doesn't do... leave survivors! *close-up of Nixons face as a Dun Dun Dun plays in the background*

American Operator: ... is that safe?

Nixon: Listen, do you want some giant blue naked guy to nuke our country and turn us all into square circles or anti-protons or something? No? Then fire that superweapon!

*Meanwhile back at Ozys Arctic Base, everyone is watching the video screen*

Ozymanias: ... interesting. It seems that countries on the brink of nuclear war get more trigger happy when entire cities get wiped off the face of the earth. Eh heh... I was eh... kinda hoping that everyone would just sorta stop what they were doing and learn to get along. Eh... my bad.

*Everyone else just scowls at him. Rorschach cracks his knuckles.*

Nite Owl: THAT WAS YOUR PLAN?!

2). In the Movie, Ozy got his weird generator thing from Manhattan who teleported it in from the secure governement facility he was staying in. It was then teleported to Ozys base where a whole team of expert scientists examined it and hooked it up to the machine... somehow without understanding that it was designed to disintegrate entire cities all over the world.

Ozy then proceeded to poison all the scientists and vaporise their corpses... before he actually tested the machine to see if it worked.

First off, I would assume that government officials at least kept some sort of tabs on what Manhattan was doing, so they knew he zapped something to Ozys place in the arctic. Plus, all those scientists probably had families or at least somebody who knew who they were and what they were working on... hopefully somebody in the government cared about their superman sending magical technology to civilian labs where scientists could poke and prod at it. And hopefully they would notice when all those scientists up and vanished shortly afterwards... and around the time all those cities vanished.

So unless every single person in the government is grossly incompetent or just doesn't keep tabs on their local demigods activities then somebody would have records of what Manhattan did and those records would have been moved around as soon as Manhattan left for Mars.

Plus, since Ozys plan involved taking Manhattans generator and making him leave Earth... but not the later before the former and within the time span of a few days or less... then his whole thing is really risky.

3). In the book Ozy teleports that giant squid into New York City and kills everyone and gives others nightmares and stuff. He got the squid from a whole massive team of genetic engineers and moviemakers and stuff. He also killed all the people who worked on the project by blowing up their ship.

Now... if he wants to keep up the facade of there being some sort of alien invasion then it might actually be necessary to make another giant squid. But since he just killed everyone responsible for making the first one... how the heck is he going to make another? Does he have a cupboard full of monster squid embryos and he'll just cook up a few by himself and shove them through the teleporter on his own? If he plans to get ANYONE to help make another one then how many seconds will it take them to figure out that the monster thing looks exactly like the one that fried a city?

4). As for the squid... that things psychic backlash thing explicitly says that it kills pretty much everything in the city and gives people nightmares. WHO WOULD BE AROUND TO SEE THAT ITS A SQUID? For all the US knows, New York just stopped responding as everyone in the city screams in agony and dies. Did they have remote cameras that could fly over there to look at the thing? Would the US just think that maybe the Soviets had invented some sort of freaky suitcase neutron bomb thing that kills people by frying their brains?

American Operator: Grahhha!?! My brain is on fire! Its as if three million souls screamed in agony before their heads exploded! There are maggots eating their way out of my liver!

Nixon: It must be one of those Soviet nightmare bombs! Or some kind of gas! Launch the nukes before they have a chance to hit Washington!



So yeah... I'm sorry but during a Cold War where two nuclear superpowers have WMDs pointed at eachother and are expecting eachoether to fire WMDs, and they both know that teleportation is possible, and each have hair triggers set to nuke eacheother off the face of the earth... I get the impression that setting off WMDs is more likely to cause a huge disaster than it is to make everyone hold hands and play nice.

[SolkaTruesilver]

He however was out to outdo Alexander and Ramses, and cut his own Gordian Knot. That's part of why many don't trust him to have always made the less costly or more sane choice. He very much wanted to solve a problem by cutting it in half and not actually solving it.

You don't understand. The Gordian Knot had to be cut in half. It was the only solution available. It was about lateral thinking, the one no one had thought before. It wasn't about the violence tendency of Alexander, but his capacity to escape the natural tendency of man to see things in a pre-set ways.

People in the Cold War were seeing it as "Us or them winning". It never occured to them that peace would be achieved. Ozymandia saw beyond that paradigm, and managed to win it.

To be honest, the ending of Matrix Revolution really struct home to me for the same reason. It never occured to me that peace could occur between the Machines and the Men, while it stared me in the face all along. I thought the story would have to be stuck in a binary solution, with either one winning over the other.

Same could be said about any war our society has been in, you know. They always tell you "it's us or them", and you are led to believe that it can only end with only one party surviving.

For him? It was all about eternal glory. And more important?

Why you say it was about eternal glory? You just say that as a matter of fact, while there is nothing in the book/movie to support your claim. You are giving an intention to Ozymandia where there are none.

[Dienekes]

You don't understand. The Gordian Knot had to be cut in half. It was the only solution available. It was about lateral thinking, the one no one had thought before. It wasn't about the violence tendency of Alexander, but his capacity to escape the natural tendency of man to see things in a pre-set ways.

People in the Cold War were seeing it as "Us or them winning". It never occured to them that peace would be achieved. Ozymandia saw beyond that paradigm, and managed to win it.

I believe you're confusing, "was solved that way" with "had to be solved that way" It was solved by being cut in half. We have no evidence to indicate that it had to be. Same goes for the comics situation.

[SolkaTruesilver]

I believe you're confusing, "was solved that way" with "had to be solved that way" It was solved by being cut in half. We have no evidence to indicate that it had to be. Same goes for the comics situation.

No one knows. But sure as hell, hundred of peoples tried it. One succeeded. This was the solution, the end.

It was clever thinking, not cheating. Same goes for the comic. Something had to be done, he done it. You can only second-guess what should have been done.

[Dienekes]

Yhea. I have edited my post after considerations. My bad. Please remove your quote, and it will never have happened

It is done good sir.

No one knows. But sure as hell, hundred of peoples tried it. One succeeded. This was the solution, the end.

This is a logical fallacy.

Because something was done one way does not mean that it was the only solution.

[SolkaTruesilver]

Because something was done one way does not mean that it was the only solution.

But it is futile to wonder if there was other solution. The gordian knot is only famous and has reach our time by way of tale for a single reason:

the way it was solved.

The whole point of the myth is that it has been cut.