This reminds me of Galadriel’s speech when Frodo offered her the ring.
I would write “humans”
I’m here to say it again : death note was mid
High praise for that show.
Why? It dealt with the obvious themes of post 9/11 crime and surveillance with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, the main characters were exaggerated views of what a stupid person thinks a clever person is like, and everything was contrived.
… because of those things you said. Mid being very high praise as it was clearly less than that.
Ooh fuck, they should put ointment on that burn
In its defence, it was intricate and thought out. The craftmanship of the animation was nice.
Just you know, intricate with asinine details, and thought out to arrive at the wrong conclusions.
I stuck with it to the end. I just wanted to see where it went, and was using it to practice spanish.
For me, it was simply boring to the point dropped it after about 5 episodes
I stopped at exactly the halfway point, as there’s clearly a reflection point downwards from that point on. Almost like some invisible hands at the editorial twisted the authors’ hands.
*inflection
I’m pretty sure I have the self control needed to use the Death Note responsibly tbh
I think the premise falls flat when you realize the “Death note” is real apart from the magical book.
People kill other people all the time by writing things down. Tyrants, people working for health insurance companies, etc.
Giving an intelligent, reasonable person with good intentions that power is an improvement on reality.
You also wouldn’t get caught even if you used it irresponsibly…
I’m pretty sure i’d be fine with it. Not because I’m special with perfect morals or sneaky and good at keeping below the radar, but because already nobody cares I exist, and only a handful even know. I’m invisible, and not interested in fame or whatever contrived nonsense, and my sleep schedule is a disaster, so nothing would point to me.
But if the worst people on earth start committing suicide at the end of a video of them divulging their deepest darkest secrets in great detail, you’ll know it was me.
I mean, killing those that want others dead for the crime of existing seems pretty water tight on morals and corruption. Don’t stray from that rule and you should be fine.
That doesn’t solve the issue of you not having perfect information, which the post alludes to.
List of KKK members, done. List of proud boy members, done. They don’t exactly make it difficult to deduce.
Do we really need perfect information for the likes of Trump, Putin, et al?
yeah, light literally monologes about becoming god of the world like…5m after confirming the book is real. dude clearly had issues
So you want others who want others dead for the crime of existing, dead for the crime of existing?
No dumbass, you literally just listed their crime, its not “existing”. If they were just existing they wouldn’t be targeted, they wouldn’t be guilty of genocide.
It isn’t a difficult concept. x wants nightlily dead for being German. y wants x dead for wanting Germans to be dead.
It isn’t recursive.
Exactly. You get it ! You have to be intolerant of the intolerant.
Ah so you’d kill all of the members of Hamas then. That’s what you obviously meant, because you everyone agrees on which people you mean when you say “those that want others dead for the crime of existing.” Completely water tight! Definitely not at all dependent on the arbitrariness of which information you’ve been exposed to.
I dunno. You sound kinda like hamas over there.
I’m just on a list because I was raving about our local hummus guy and apparently I smoked too much and had a lisp.
What about people who make fun of my farts
They already ded, they just still walking.
Looks like you just made the list.
If you gave me the Death Note no one would ever see it again. Not even me.
∗falls to death∗
god that’s dangerous and cosy
I think a lot of people ignore the main issue with Death Note. I don’t view it as depicting how anyone would be corrupted by power.
Light Yagami started out with an overinflated ego and impaired self control by virtue of being a teenager with good grades. He likely was also already a psychopath (though you can’t give that diagnosis to a minor). He’s effectively the male Japanese version of Elizabeth Holmes. That’s what led to him becoming a megalomaniac.
Not everyone starts off with that set of circumstances, and conversely not everyone would go down the same route. But that’s not the story the author wanted to write nor the story the audience wanted to consume. A good person using the Death Note to fix the world would get old really fast because there’s little tension and intrigue. But someone being correpted by power down a path of evil? That’s a story that can be interesting
There are two extra stories that show what could happen. One is of a good person trying to do ‘good’, they killed themselves as soon as they were challenged.
If the story started with Light killing government figures and business moguls world wide, it would have to answer a lot of questions. It was a tighter story keeping it local.
Light Yagami started out with an overinflated ego and impaired self control by virtue of being a teenager with good grades. He likely was also already a psychopath (though you can’t give that diagnosis to a minor). He’s effectively the male Japanese version of Elizabeth Holmes. That’s what led to him becoming a megalomaniac.
Should be noted how Misa Amane isn’t really corrupted, just gulled into Light’s cult of celebrity and used up by his machinations.
I think a few more characters with a hand on the Death Note would have made the story better, to play out it’s influence on the user.
I’d just write the names of the entire Republican Party
if you’re doing that don’t forget the non gop that jump ship and conveniently vote with the gop in minimum quantities to win the vote. or just be lazy and all the politicians that aren’t demonstrably not evil
That is way, way, way too many people. Being summarily murdered from afar should be reserved for people currently engaged in a genocide or major war crimes. Not their milquetoast lackeys.
Okay then let me just check my notes on who that would be
the entire Republican party
Neat
I guess now we know why those stories are told as allegories for why we shouldn’t give power over life and death to people. But usually the protagonist needs to slide into abusing their power. Blood thirsty mitherfucker. Smh.
Says the centrist who’s fine with claiming to take the moral high ground so long as they can stay confortable
How many elementary schools do they need to bomb before they’re evil enough for you? How many pointless wars? You good with the actions of ICE, no murders there? Women dying in their cars from pregnancy related issues cool too? These people are mass murderers all ready.
Sounds like you would have let the Nazis go after Hitler died.
To be clear I’m not talking about Bob down the road who voted Trump, sure he’s responsible for enabling this bullshit, but I’m not a monster. I’ll let the responsibility stop with those in the government voting to let this all happen
The bar for summary execution on only your judgement from afar, or mine, should be incredibly high. Much higher than before an official court and out in the open. I have exactly the same opinions about your (rather US centric) list, but I would not want to use the power to murder them on a whim. And if this is the list that you start with, where will you be after sliding into the moral quagmire of where to stop?
Wtf dude you hopped on a thread talking about the Republican party and now you’re upset that it’s US centric. Which Idk how bombing a school in Iran is US centric, but whatever.
My moral quagmire starts when the fascists are dead. Honestly I’m taking this a lot less far than many here would. I’d stop with those actually responsible. I don’t waste time hand wringing about bombing schools and empowering ICE to brutalize the country
That’s why they use fake names. To protect themselves.
Honestly in the right hands that book could do a lot of good very quickly
Same as the death penalty IRL. You can’t know that person x is guilty and that person x not existing will make things better.
Counterpoint - you can know if leader of country x is guilty of killing others if they say they’ve done it quite openly and want to do more of it.
Perhaps, but then you kill that person and the power vacuum that is now created is likely to attract someone so much worse. There is no guarantee the next person will be better than the current one, and if the next one is worse, it would be your doing.
So? You have a death note. You can give every new entrant a 1 month trail run. Eventually people will figure out a pattern. Humans aren’t that dumb.
Then just get rid of the next monster. Eventually the hierarchy will learn and reform, if by no other means than by the individuals corrupting the structure being eliminated
Also there’s the potential you could do a purge of random but known issues within the structure outside of the leader themselves. Wipe out a Lavrenty Beria or Reinhardt Heidrich on occasion to show that it’s not just the leadership position itself being cursed.
Then the replacement uses it as justification to further that endeavor.
Deathnote can kill in any way you want as long as it’s realistic. Not sure how they’d figure it out. Which means that at some point people will start to think divine intervention, especially if ending the war stops the heart attacks / eagle attacks / flag poles falling on said leader, or whatever other symbolism you’d choose.
So many corrupt preachers are gonna get struck by lighting…
Killing a leader doesn’t get rid of the position of power that enabled their misdeeds.
No, the position is occupied by the next monster. And so on. And so on. Dang, that’s such a nifty way of getting rid of sociopaths!
The entire theme of Death Note is that power turns people into sociopaths and that no matter how many “bad people” you kill you will never actually succeed in cleansing the world of evil, but I guess no matter how ham-fisted you make it people will still miss the point. It’s funny that a lot of people complain that Light has an unrealistically naive view of morality and yet this comment section seems to be teeming with people who are equally immature.
Never watched it.
See the problem is Light didn’t use the thing correctly. He could have written, “while suffering from a massive stroke, Senator ___ voted to pass nationalized school lunch.” Sure, the killing people sounds fun, but it’s what they do while dying that could make the world a better place.
Problem is he completely lacked a systemic critique of society and fixated on crime, which he took for granted as the cause of all problems. For Light, all evil in the world comes down to individual moral failings, and by getting rid of the criminals he was eradicating evil.
The entire theme of Death Note is that power turns people into sociopaths
First off, sociopathy isn’t a thing. It’s a made up term a fake psychologist made up to put people on death row in Texas for personal gain. Go listen to the Behind the Bastards episode on it. The actual diagnosis is “psychopathy”
Second, Light Yagami was already a psychopath at the start. Notice how in the show that there were 2 others that held the Death Note and they didn’t go mad with power over it.
yet this comment section seems to be teeming with people who are equally immature.
Look at all of the growing injustice and inequality in the world, spurred on by CEOs, dictators, and billionaires. Just look at health insurance, where hundreds of thousands die each year from denial of care. Look at Elon Musk and DOGE defunding USAID, which resulted in over 100,000 children dying across the world. Look at the destruction and death that Russia has brought to Ukraine to try and conquer them.
Look at everyone in this thread who looks at all of that pain and misery and would want to do something about it. You’re calling them immature? No, you’re the one who’s immature, with all of your bullshit pearl-clutching.
Here’s a bit of a tangent: when the US invaded Vietnam, there were a lot of incidents where troops were ordered to just wipe out villages of people who had nothing to do with the war, including women and children. There was also a high rate of soldiers “snapping” and shooting their officers in retaliation. Those soldiers didn’t “snap”, they were the sane ones.
First off, sociopathy isn’t a thing. It’s a made up term a fake psychologist made up to put people on death row in Texas for personal gain. Go listen to the Behind the Bastards episode on it. The actual diagnosis is “psychopathy”
I was only mirroring the language used by the person I was replying to. Great podcast though, I’m already a regular listener.
Look at all of the growing injustice and inequality in the world, spurred on by CEOs, dictators, and billionaires. Just look at health insurance, where hundreds of thousands die each year from denial of care. Look at Elon Musk and DOGE defunding USAID, which resulted in over 100,000 children dying across the world. Look at the destruction and death that Russia has brought to Ukraine to try and conquer them.
Look at everyone in this thread who looks at all of that pain and misery and would want to do something about it. You’re calling them immature? No, you’re the one who’s immature, with all of your bullshit pearl-clutching.
I agree that something must be done, and I understand where the desire to kill those responsible comes from. I feel the same frustration myself, but I also know that engaging in adventurism won’t solve jack shit. At best it can bring temporary relief, and at worst it can trigger an escalation of the violence/repression it was intended to address. The individuals who are most visibly responsible for the injustice in the world today are merely appendages of a much larger group of powerful institutions which are themselves motivated by incentives that are systemic. What I am doing here is not pearl-clutching; my objection is a strategic one, not a moral one. I won’t shed any tears for dead health insurance CEOs, oligarchs, or dictators, but I will always advocate for organizing with others to address the systemic drivers of injustice rather than acting alone and throwing your life away in an act of impotent violence. It’s better to live for a cause than to die for one.
I’m built different.
Killing people who keep abusing that position of power within an exact amount of time however would either get rid of the position or stop the abuse eventually.
There’s only so many times a person in a very specific position can be struck by lightning or have a heart attack before everyone sees that position as cursed or becomes superstitious about it.
I mean, dictators have historically often met with a rather grisly end (Mussolini shot and hung upside down by his toes, Hitler blowing his own brains out, Gaddafi sodomized with a bayonet) and that doesn’t seem to stop people from pursuing the same power.
If all that happened in the same month I bet it would get some people talking tho.
We’re talking year long consequences, after being in power for years. And then the next leader doesn’t meet said fate.
Every month though? Different story. Especially if it’s something like getting struck by lightning
Eventually you run out of monsters to fill the position (and the supporting positions below). At that point you now have people willing to make positive changes in the world in positions of power
That is not how it works at all, and it’s actually a very childish way of thinking. There is not some finite pool of monsters these positions of power draw from, the positions of power make the monsters. “Power corrupts” is the most common trope in fiction since the advent of fiction for a reason and it’s baffling that so many people still don’t get it.
Insisting that tropes are universally true just because they’re repeated is absurd. It’s something a child would think up.
Go look at history. There’s plenty of examples of people who do the right thing when in positions of power. This is because power doesn’t corrupt - it reveals who people truly are. It’s just that selfish people are more likely to seek out power for personal gain.
Seriously. Also, I can’t imagine what good people I would write down after being corrupted by power that would outweigh the first three names I would choose immediately after getting the book.
our university had a book that actually killed a person via falling on their head. it was encased in this bulky jacket with metal edges. and for whatever reason it was relatively high up the bookshelf and the bookshelf was quite old and falling apart. So one day some dude decided to pull out a book from this bookshelf and it buckled and that bulky jacket book cracked his head open.
I’d run out of pages fast writing down every russian that’s responsible for genociding Ukrainians.
I absolutely could not be trusted with such a book. That being said, I should absolutely have it,
hhmm… sounds trustworthy!
To be fair, no one outside the Epstein list is trully worth my wrath. Maybe some warlords?
Yeah, and dictators, of course. And rapists that got away with it because corruption. And people that participate in genocide. And people that deliberately cause famine to cause genocide. And CEOs of companies that murder people through their policies and actions. And major shareholders of those companies that are pulling the strings. And…
Woah there, I leave the rest of that shit to the law, because otherwise, I know I’d drop 60% of the planet.
you’re saying that like it’s a bad thing xD
Pretty sure that would be the most lethal genocide in human history
If society scales back that much, who will make the good enchiladas? We might have to go back to the mediocre enchiladas of the 1980s.
Do you really want to give up enchiladas
I’m obviously not ready to give up the good enchiladas!
Hoping the ones that make the good enchiladas don’t fall to the Death Note Purge…
The sci-fi version of that is “we built the torment nexus from that famous book ‘don’t build the torment nexus’”
