Areas where you'd respectfully disagree with Chuck

[Dragon Ball Fan]

about his Mask of the Phantasm review and his Better World review too.

I have softened on my opposition to it now but I still have problems with the no killing rule of superhero works. it works in alternate universe stories that either have a finite run or are one shot stories because they don't have the status quo of villains always breaking out of prison or coming back to life. I am even okay with it for most animated adaptations since because of sensory ship, the villains rarely ever kill anyone or ruin lives forever and lethal force isn't that needed. and the Joker was eventually killed in the DCAU anyway.

but there are several things wrong with the now killing rule in superhero stories in general. first, the writers want to show that the legal system and due process work but their unwillingness to keep the most popular villains, who are also the most vile and dangerous, locked up, shows that the system actually does not work

and I can't take stories that address this issue seriously because they always rely on logical fallacies, mostly the slippery slope. if once in a while, the point of the story was that killing would escalate things by making the villains push back harder or acknowledge there is such a thing as justified homicide, I might be okay with it.

and people may dismiss this because it came from Countdown to Final Crisis but on Earth-51 of the Post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint DC Multiverse, Batman finally decided to kill all the supervillains in the world and that lead to that Earth becoming a utopia because the other heroes could now focus on ending war, poverty and famine.

Just because something is a fallacy does not mean that it is untrue - that in itself is a fallacy. It has been proven on the testimonies of numerous soldiers throughout history that killing is something that gets easier the more you do it, and it has also been proven that murderers are emboldened if they get away with their first kill. If Batman puts a bullet in the Joker out of necessity, it is a slippery slope as to whether he'll do the same to the Riddler for convenience next time and that is a provable fact.

And I would argue that the prison system doesn't work in real life either considering that the rate of former prisoners that re-offend is huge. Why don't we just shoot them all? Its quicker, cheaper, convenient, and it'll feel good to the guy with the gun who gets to gun down all of these nasty people.
We don't do that however because it is important that we as the good guys actually prove that we are the good guys. You want to know a real slippery slope? When we as a society find ways to justify murder.

And yes, I am going to dismiss your last example because I cannot stand writers and fans who wank Batman to such extreme levels. Bat-God stories are boring as hell.

if a fallacies aren't untrue, then how come everyone hates using them and calls out others for using them?

and not everyone kills will go straight to killing as their only option, if that were true, any cop that is forced to kill a criminal will automatically become a serial killer instead of just that one instance of justified homicide. maybe it's just because I am not that familiar with the animated versions and only know the Joker as someone who has killed or ruined someone's life forever but I just want Batman to kill the Joker and ONLY the Joker. and not in cold blood, in a justified context. then again, the Joker is so dangerous, he is an eliminate threat to people merely by existing, so, killing him in any context would be justified.

isn't Batman passively murdering thousands of innocent people by letting psychopaths like the Joker, who can never be rehabilitated and never stay locked up, live?

and how is the Earth-51 thing making Batman a Gary Stu? it's the other heroes that solved the root problem of all of the world's troubles after Batman got rid of criminals that detracted them from doing that in the main universe.

and I've always had issue with the moral high ground argument. if Hitler was still alive and I killed him in cold blood, I would still be the good guy by default because that one act of cruelty from me is in no way comparable to the Holocaust.

[clearspira]

about his Mask of the Phantasm review and his Better World review too.

I have softened on my opposition to it now but I still have problems with the no killing rule of superhero works. it works in alternate universe stories that either have a finite run or are one shot stories because they don't have the status quo of villains always breaking out of prison or coming back to life. I am even okay with it for most animated adaptations since because of sensory ship, the villains rarely ever kill anyone or ruin lives forever and lethal force isn't that needed. and the Joker was eventually killed in the DCAU anyway.

but there are several things wrong with the now killing rule in superhero stories in general. first, the writers want to show that the legal system and due process work but their unwillingness to keep the most popular villains, who are also the most vile and dangerous, locked up, shows that the system actually does not work

and I can't take stories that address this issue seriously because they always rely on logical fallacies, mostly the slippery slope. if once in a while, the point of the story was that killing would escalate things by making the villains push back harder or acknowledge there is such a thing as justified homicide, I might be okay with it.

and people may dismiss this because it came from Countdown to Final Crisis but on Earth-51 of the Post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint DC Multiverse, Batman finally decided to kill all the supervillains in the world and that lead to that Earth becoming a utopia because the other heroes could now focus on ending war, poverty and famine.

Just because something is a fallacy does not mean that it is untrue - that in itself is a fallacy. It has been proven on the testimonies of numerous soldiers throughout history that killing is something that gets easier the more you do it, and it has also been proven that murderers are emboldened if they get away with their first kill. If Batman puts a bullet in the Joker out of necessity, it is a slippery slope as to whether he'll do the same to the Riddler for convenience next time and that is a provable fact.

And I would argue that the prison system doesn't work in real life either considering that the rate of former prisoners that re-offend is huge. Why don't we just shoot them all? Its quicker, cheaper, convenient, and it'll feel good to the guy with the gun who gets to gun down all of these nasty people.
We don't do that however because it is important that we as the good guys actually prove that we are the good guys. You want to know a real slippery slope? When we as a society find ways to justify murder.

And yes, I am going to dismiss your last example because I cannot stand writers and fans who wank Batman to such extreme levels. Bat-God stories are boring as hell.

if a fallacies aren't untrue, then how come everyone hates using them and calls out others for using them?

and not everyone kills will go straight to killing as their only option, if that were true, any cop that is forced to kill a criminal will automatically become a serial killer instead of just that one instance of justified homicide. maybe it's just because I am not that familiar with the animated versions and only know the Joker as someone who has killed or ruined someone's life forever but I just want Batman to kill the Joker and ONLY the Joker. and not in cold blood, in a justified context. then again, the Joker is so dangerous, he is an eliminate threat to people merely by existing, so, killing him in any context would be justified.

isn't Batman passively murdering thousands of innocent people by letting psychopaths like the Joker, who can never be rehabilitated and never stay locked up, live?

and how is the Earth-51 thing making Batman a Gary Stu? it's the other heroes that solved the root problem of all of the world's troubles after Batman got rid of criminals that detracted them from doing that in the main universe.

and I've always had issue with the moral high ground argument. if Hitler was still alive and I killed him in cold blood, I would still be the good guy by default because that one act of cruelty from me is in no way comparable to the Holocaust.

The hatred of fallacies does not mean that they are automatically incorrect though. And I would also say that given numerous internet comments I have read over the years, they are often used solely as a convenient way to close down an argument.

I would say there is a massive difference between a cop shooting a criminal in self-defence and a masked vigilante intentionally targeting a criminal.

By every supervillain, do you mean EVERY supervillain? Because that is Bat-God all the way. Superman doing that? No problem believing that. Ordinary human? Nah, no way. And yes, he is a very smart, tough, skilled, rich ordinary human; but an ordinary human nonetheless.

Nope, you would still be a murderer if you killed Hitler today as you would have to break into a nursing home and strangle an elderly man with his feeding tube. I can't remember the video, but Chuck once addressed this kind of thinking with: ''if you went back in time to rape Hitler's mother before he was born with the justification that it would prevent millions of deaths, then you would still be a piece of shit rapist no matter what good came of it. You are not the hero of this story.''
What you are suggesting isn't as extreme of course, but you are using the exact same logic. ''I have done shitty thing to an even more shitty person therefore I am in the right.''

[Dragon Ball Fan]

about his Mask of the Phantasm review and his Better World review too.

I have softened on my opposition to it now but I still have problems with the no killing rule of superhero works. it works in alternate universe stories that either have a finite run or are one shot stories because they don't have the status quo of villains always breaking out of prison or coming back to life. I am even okay with it for most animated adaptations since because of sensory ship, the villains rarely ever kill anyone or ruin lives forever and lethal force isn't that needed. and the Joker was eventually killed in the DCAU anyway.

but there are several things wrong with the now killing rule in superhero stories in general. first, the writers want to show that the legal system and due process work but their unwillingness to keep the most popular villains, who are also the most vile and dangerous, locked up, shows that the system actually does not work

and I can't take stories that address this issue seriously because they always rely on logical fallacies, mostly the slippery slope. if once in a while, the point of the story was that killing would escalate things by making the villains push back harder or acknowledge there is such a thing as justified homicide, I might be okay with it.

and people may dismiss this because it came from Countdown to Final Crisis but on Earth-51 of the Post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint DC Multiverse, Batman finally decided to kill all the supervillains in the world and that lead to that Earth becoming a utopia because the other heroes could now focus on ending war, poverty and famine.

Just because something is a fallacy does not mean that it is untrue - that in itself is a fallacy. It has been proven on the testimonies of numerous soldiers throughout history that killing is something that gets easier the more you do it, and it has also been proven that murderers are emboldened if they get away with their first kill. If Batman puts a bullet in the Joker out of necessity, it is a slippery slope as to whether he'll do the same to the Riddler for convenience next time and that is a provable fact.

And I would argue that the prison system doesn't work in real life either considering that the rate of former prisoners that re-offend is huge. Why don't we just shoot them all? Its quicker, cheaper, convenient, and it'll feel good to the guy with the gun who gets to gun down all of these nasty people.
We don't do that however because it is important that we as the good guys actually prove that we are the good guys. You want to know a real slippery slope? When we as a society find ways to justify murder.

And yes, I am going to dismiss your last example because I cannot stand writers and fans who wank Batman to such extreme levels. Bat-God stories are boring as hell.

if a fallacies aren't untrue, then how come everyone hates using them and calls out others for using them?

and not everyone kills will go straight to killing as their only option, if that were true, any cop that is forced to kill a criminal will automatically become a serial killer instead of just that one instance of justified homicide. maybe it's just because I am not that familiar with the animated versions and only know the Joker as someone who has killed or ruined someone's life forever but I just want Batman to kill the Joker and ONLY the Joker. and not in cold blood, in a justified context. then again, the Joker is so dangerous, he is an eliminate threat to people merely by existing, so, killing him in any context would be justified.

isn't Batman passively murdering thousands of innocent people by letting psychopaths like the Joker, who can never be rehabilitated and never stay locked up, live?

and how is the Earth-51 thing making Batman a Gary Stu? it's the other heroes that solved the root problem of all of the world's troubles after Batman got rid of criminals that detracted them from doing that in the main universe.

and I've always had issue with the moral high ground argument. if Hitler was still alive and I killed him in cold blood, I would still be the good guy by default because that one act of cruelty from me is in no way comparable to the Holocaust.

The hatred of fallacies does not mean that they are automatically incorrect though. And I would also say that given numerous internet comments I have read over the years, they are often used solely as a convenient way to close down an argument.

I would say there is a massive difference between a cop shooting a criminal in self-defence and a masked vigilante intentionally targeting a criminal.

By every supervillain, do you mean EVERY supervillain? Because that is Bat-God all the way. Superman doing that? No problem believing that. Ordinary human? Nah, no way. And yes, he is a very smart, tough, skilled, rich ordinary human; but an ordinary human nonetheless.

Nope, you would still be a murderer if you killed Hitler today as you would have to break into a nursing home and strangle an elderly man with his feeding tube. I can't remember the video, but Chuck once addressed this kind of thinking with: ''if you went back in time to rape Hitler's mother before he was born with the justification that it would prevent millions of deaths, then you would still be a piece of shit rapist no matter what good came of it. You are not the hero of this story.''
What you are suggesting isn't as extreme of course, but you are using the exact same logic. ''I have done shitty thing to an even more shitty person therefore I am in the right.''

again, there is such a thing as justified homicide. Superman beat Doomsday to death to stop him from killing any more innocents, yet, he still goes on an on about how he must never kill.

and Chuck's example about raping Hitler's mother is different because his mother is an innocent in that example, Hitler is not in mine.

again, I don't want the heroes to kill in cold blood, just in self defense or in defense of others. again, Batman and other heroes who refuse to kill are arguably the biggest murders of all by sparing psychopaths who will always escape prison and kill innocents again.

I can buy the lesson about not killing in the Justice League cartoon because Superman getting to the point where he might end up like the Justice Lord Superman was built up over a time. but by most writers' logic, if Superman kills he will go from the shining ray of hope Superman to Lord Superman INSTANTLY.

[clearspira]

about his Mask of the Phantasm review and his Better World review too.

I have softened on my opposition to it now but I still have problems with the no killing rule of superhero works. it works in alternate universe stories that either have a finite run or are one shot stories because they don't have the status quo of villains always breaking out of prison or coming back to life. I am even okay with it for most animated adaptations since because of sensory ship, the villains rarely ever kill anyone or ruin lives forever and lethal force isn't that needed. and the Joker was eventually killed in the DCAU anyway.

but there are several things wrong with the now killing rule in superhero stories in general. first, the writers want to show that the legal system and due process work but their unwillingness to keep the most popular villains, who are also the most vile and dangerous, locked up, shows that the system actually does not work

and I can't take stories that address this issue seriously because they always rely on logical fallacies, mostly the slippery slope. if once in a while, the point of the story was that killing would escalate things by making the villains push back harder or acknowledge there is such a thing as justified homicide, I might be okay with it.

and people may dismiss this because it came from Countdown to Final Crisis but on Earth-51 of the Post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint DC Multiverse, Batman finally decided to kill all the supervillains in the world and that lead to that Earth becoming a utopia because the other heroes could now focus on ending war, poverty and famine.

Just because something is a fallacy does not mean that it is untrue - that in itself is a fallacy. It has been proven on the testimonies of numerous soldiers throughout history that killing is something that gets easier the more you do it, and it has also been proven that murderers are emboldened if they get away with their first kill. If Batman puts a bullet in the Joker out of necessity, it is a slippery slope as to whether he'll do the same to the Riddler for convenience next time and that is a provable fact.

And I would argue that the prison system doesn't work in real life either considering that the rate of former prisoners that re-offend is huge. Why don't we just shoot them all? Its quicker, cheaper, convenient, and it'll feel good to the guy with the gun who gets to gun down all of these nasty people.
We don't do that however because it is important that we as the good guys actually prove that we are the good guys. You want to know a real slippery slope? When we as a society find ways to justify murder.

And yes, I am going to dismiss your last example because I cannot stand writers and fans who wank Batman to such extreme levels. Bat-God stories are boring as hell.

if a fallacies aren't untrue, then how come everyone hates using them and calls out others for using them?

and not everyone kills will go straight to killing as their only option, if that were true, any cop that is forced to kill a criminal will automatically become a serial killer instead of just that one instance of justified homicide. maybe it's just because I am not that familiar with the animated versions and only know the Joker as someone who has killed or ruined someone's life forever but I just want Batman to kill the Joker and ONLY the Joker. and not in cold blood, in a justified context. then again, the Joker is so dangerous, he is an eliminate threat to people merely by existing, so, killing him in any context would be justified.

isn't Batman passively murdering thousands of innocent people by letting psychopaths like the Joker, who can never be rehabilitated and never stay locked up, live?

and how is the Earth-51 thing making Batman a Gary Stu? it's the other heroes that solved the root problem of all of the world's troubles after Batman got rid of criminals that detracted them from doing that in the main universe.

and I've always had issue with the moral high ground argument. if Hitler was still alive and I killed him in cold blood, I would still be the good guy by default because that one act of cruelty from me is in no way comparable to the Holocaust.

The hatred of fallacies does not mean that they are automatically incorrect though. And I would also say that given numerous internet comments I have read over the years, they are often used solely as a convenient way to close down an argument.

I would say there is a massive difference between a cop shooting a criminal in self-defence and a masked vigilante intentionally targeting a criminal.

By every supervillain, do you mean EVERY supervillain? Because that is Bat-God all the way. Superman doing that? No problem believing that. Ordinary human? Nah, no way. And yes, he is a very smart, tough, skilled, rich ordinary human; but an ordinary human nonetheless.

Nope, you would still be a murderer if you killed Hitler today as you would have to break into a nursing home and strangle an elderly man with his feeding tube. I can't remember the video, but Chuck once addressed this kind of thinking with: ''if you went back in time to rape Hitler's mother before he was born with the justification that it would prevent millions of deaths, then you would still be a piece of shit rapist no matter what good came of it. You are not the hero of this story.''
What you are suggesting isn't as extreme of course, but you are using the exact same logic. ''I have done shitty thing to an even more shitty person therefore I am in the right.''

again, there is such a thing as justified homicide. Superman beat Doomsday to death to stop him from killing any more innocents, yet, he still goes on an on about how he must never kill.

and Chuck's example about raping Hitler's mother is different because his mother is an innocent in that example, Hitler is not in mine.

again, I don't want the heroes to kill in cold blood, just in self defense or in defense of others. again, Batman and other heroes who refuse to kill are arguably the biggest murders of all by sparing psychopaths who will always escape prison and kill innocents again.

I can buy the lesson about not killing in the Justice League cartoon because Superman getting to the point where he might end up like the Justice Lord Superman was built up over a time. but by most writers' logic, if Superman kills he will go from the shining ray of hope Superman to Lord Superman INSTANTLY.

As I am not going to convince you, I am going to end this by saying that I do not agree. The good guys kill in self-defence and trust the law, they don't hunt people down and summarily execute them without trial, especially as unaccountable masked vigilantes. Say what you like about Civil War, but Tony Stark was in the right.

[Yukaphile]

Actually, I have to agree with Dragon Ball Fan here. When you take into account the sheer scope of people who have got away with their crimes, and those who demonize their innocent victims, victim-blaming for all the wrong reasons, while ignoring the sheer travesty that is a person getting away with stuff like rape and murder in this life, while claiming to feel sorry, but refusing to turn themselves in, well then, would you honestly care if they'd wound up killed? I wouldn't. I agree with DBF, in Chuck's scenario, Hitler's mother would be an innocent. People who deliberately seek out others to personally wound or kill them with their own hands are not innocent, unless they're trying to survive and take deliberate steps to minimize the suffering. Like someone who's stealing to eat and only kills if caught, and tries to warn them first.

[FaxModem1]

About the luddism in Insurrection- it's nice to have someone call out the insufferable Ba'ku, and it's pretty aggravating how the film automatically assumes that letting them run the entire briar patch is the only moral choice available. At the same time, I'm not sure the basic concept is quite as ridiculous as Chuck makes it sounds. The hippie variation can be pretty silly, but a lot of great writers and thinkers- ranging from famous monastics to Tolstoy to Tolkien- have given serious consideration to similar ideas about technology, industry, and how man relates to the inevitable march of progress.

I might be a little unfair here in assuming that Chuck was dismissing all those ideas rather than this one specific instance, but it just seemed a little overly dismissive.

It's out of place in Star Trek. It's an appeal to the past, to isolationism, and Romanticism in an Enlightenment work in which growing up as a people and embracing our differences together while using technology to improve our lives makes a better society.

Wanting to throw it all away because of nostalgia is a powerful drive, and progress should be made with care, but the 'simple life' is hard, back-breaking, and one of suffering, disease, death, and struggle. Tolkien's appeals to it were in reaction to his horror at World War I, and forgetting how technological improvements made the quaint English farm life easier.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

about his Mask of the Phantasm review and his Better World review too.

I have softened on my opposition to it now but I still have problems with the no killing rule of superhero works. it works in alternate universe stories that either have a finite run or are one shot stories because they don't have the status quo of villains always breaking out of prison or coming back to life. I am even okay with it for most animated adaptations since because of sensory ship, the villains rarely ever kill anyone or ruin lives forever and lethal force isn't that needed. and the Joker was eventually killed in the DCAU anyway.

but there are several things wrong with the now killing rule in superhero stories in general. first, the writers want to show that the legal system and due process work but their unwillingness to keep the most popular villains, who are also the most vile and dangerous, locked up, shows that the system actually does not work

and I can't take stories that address this issue seriously because they always rely on logical fallacies, mostly the slippery slope. if once in a while, the point of the story was that killing would escalate things by making the villains push back harder or acknowledge there is such a thing as justified homicide, I might be okay with it.

and people may dismiss this because it came from Countdown to Final Crisis but on Earth-51 of the Post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint DC Multiverse, Batman finally decided to kill all the supervillains in the world and that lead to that Earth becoming a utopia because the other heroes could now focus on ending war, poverty and famine.

Just because something is a fallacy does not mean that it is untrue - that in itself is a fallacy. It has been proven on the testimonies of numerous soldiers throughout history that killing is something that gets easier the more you do it, and it has also been proven that murderers are emboldened if they get away with their first kill. If Batman puts a bullet in the Joker out of necessity, it is a slippery slope as to whether he'll do the same to the Riddler for convenience next time and that is a provable fact.

And I would argue that the prison system doesn't work in real life either considering that the rate of former prisoners that re-offend is huge. Why don't we just shoot them all? Its quicker, cheaper, convenient, and it'll feel good to the guy with the gun who gets to gun down all of these nasty people.
We don't do that however because it is important that we as the good guys actually prove that we are the good guys. You want to know a real slippery slope? When we as a society find ways to justify murder.

And yes, I am going to dismiss your last example because I cannot stand writers and fans who wank Batman to such extreme levels. Bat-God stories are boring as hell.

if a fallacies aren't untrue, then how come everyone hates using them and calls out others for using them?

and not everyone kills will go straight to killing as their only option, if that were true, any cop that is forced to kill a criminal will automatically become a serial killer instead of just that one instance of justified homicide. maybe it's just because I am not that familiar with the animated versions and only know the Joker as someone who has killed or ruined someone's life forever but I just want Batman to kill the Joker and ONLY the Joker. and not in cold blood, in a justified context. then again, the Joker is so dangerous, he is an eliminate threat to people merely by existing, so, killing him in any context would be justified.

isn't Batman passively murdering thousands of innocent people by letting psychopaths like the Joker, who can never be rehabilitated and never stay locked up, live?

and how is the Earth-51 thing making Batman a Gary Stu? it's the other heroes that solved the root problem of all of the world's troubles after Batman got rid of criminals that detracted them from doing that in the main universe.

and I've always had issue with the moral high ground argument. if Hitler was still alive and I killed him in cold blood, I would still be the good guy by default because that one act of cruelty from me is in no way comparable to the Holocaust.

The hatred of fallacies does not mean that they are automatically incorrect though. And I would also say that given numerous internet comments I have read over the years, they are often used solely as a convenient way to close down an argument.

I would say there is a massive difference between a cop shooting a criminal in self-defence and a masked vigilante intentionally targeting a criminal.

By every supervillain, do you mean EVERY supervillain? Because that is Bat-God all the way. Superman doing that? No problem believing that. Ordinary human? Nah, no way. And yes, he is a very smart, tough, skilled, rich ordinary human; but an ordinary human nonetheless.

Nope, you would still be a murderer if you killed Hitler today as you would have to break into a nursing home and strangle an elderly man with his feeding tube. I can't remember the video, but Chuck once addressed this kind of thinking with: ''if you went back in time to rape Hitler's mother before he was born with the justification that it would prevent millions of deaths, then you would still be a piece of shit rapist no matter what good came of it. You are not the hero of this story.''
What you are suggesting isn't as extreme of course, but you are using the exact same logic. ''I have done shitty thing to an even more shitty person therefore I am in the right.''

again, there is such a thing as justified homicide. Superman beat Doomsday to death to stop him from killing any more innocents, yet, he still goes on an on about how he must never kill.

and Chuck's example about raping Hitler's mother is different because his mother is an innocent in that example, Hitler is not in mine.

again, I don't want the heroes to kill in cold blood, just in self defense or in defense of others. again, Batman and other heroes who refuse to kill are arguably the biggest murders of all by sparing psychopaths who will always escape prison and kill innocents again.

I can buy the lesson about not killing in the Justice League cartoon because Superman getting to the point where he might end up like the Justice Lord Superman was built up over a time. but by most writers' logic, if Superman kills he will go from the shining ray of hope Superman to Lord Superman INSTANTLY.

As I am not going to convince you, I am going to end this by saying that I do not agree. The good guys kill in self-defence and trust the law, they don't hunt people down and summarily execute them without trial, especially as unaccountable masked vigilantes. Say what you like about Civil War, but Tony Stark was in the right.

for the last time, I am not talking about heroes hunting down villains on a whim, I'm talking about justified homicide.

and again, how come Superman killed Doomsday but then turns around and says he can never, ever kill?

[Yukaphile]

Batman should have killed Joker a billion times over. But then that's also a staple of DC Comics, is their heroes are so unstable, if they kill even once, they go to the dark side and become like Darth Vader. What irks me is the episode of the animated series where a rich man puts out a bounty on the Joker, and then Batman has him brought to the Joker that he's tied up, and says he must do it himself, if that's what he wants. The man can't kill the Joker, and does nothing practical to stop him and violent crimes that he won't quit, only donates financing to victims of violent crimes causes, but then, Batman knew he'd do that all along. Oh really? That's shielding a known murderer and torturer... just so... ugh. At some point, you gotta look at the cost-benefit of leaving someone alive versus killing them if they won't stop hurting others, if they escape the law and the institutions over and over, if the legal system is too gutless to condemn them to death. And remember we saw in All-Star Superman they put Lex to death, so there's no reason they can't execute the Joker except under the "he's insane" excuse. Joker should be dead after what he did to Batgirl, period. And I can't blame her getting revenge on him in the New 52.

[MightyDavidson]

I disagree with Chuck's idea that sparing Loghain and bringing him onto your team in Dragon Age Origins is a good idea. The man has proven incredibly untrustworthy to that point in the game and weakened Ferelden in the face of one of the greatest threats it ever faced and for that matter, weakened it in general. His actions caused the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of people and endangered millions. He's not worth sparing, execute him.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

About the luddism in Insurrection- it's nice to have someone call out the insufferable Ba'ku, and it's pretty aggravating how the film automatically assumes that letting them run the entire briar patch is the only moral choice available. At the same time, I'm not sure the basic concept is quite as ridiculous as Chuck makes it sounds. The hippie variation can be pretty silly, but a lot of great writers and thinkers- ranging from famous monastics to Tolstoy to Tolkien- have given serious consideration to similar ideas about technology, industry, and how man relates to the inevitable march of progress.

I might be a little unfair here in assuming that Chuck was dismissing all those ideas rather than this one specific instance, but it just seemed a little overly dismissive.

It's out of place in Star Trek. It's an appeal to the past, to isolationism, and Romanticism in an Enlightenment work in which growing up as a people and embracing our differences together while using technology to improve our lives makes a better society.

Wanting to throw it all away because of nostalgia is a powerful drive, and progress should be made with care, but the 'simple life' is hard, back-breaking, and one of suffering, disease, death, and struggle. Tolkien's appeals to it were in reaction to his horror at World War I, and forgetting how technological improvements made the quaint English farm life easier.

The fact that its so completely out of step with typical Trek philosophy is part of what would make the idea worth exploring. How seriously can we take Trek's philosophy if there's no counterpoint?

In the real world almost everyone is happy with advances like medicine and sanitation, but we also spend a good deal of time fretting about the possible negative effects of social media and AI. That's nothing compared to the replicators, holographic technology, and the removal of monetary incentive to work, all of which appear in the TNG era. And yet we're supposed to believe that no one in the Federation has reservations regarding the psychological/cultural/spiritual implications of all that? There's more to it than simple nostalgia.

There's a lot of different tacks you could take. Most of them wouldn't need to be wholly anti-technology. It's unfortunate that the Ba'ku were so horrible, because its worth exploring some of those issues, even (maybe especially) if you ultimately come down on the Federation's side.