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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
I would kill people that don't deserve it (no one deserves it really), but those people, or rather groups of people, are inherently intertwined with the maintenance and proliferation of global power structures that feed off of inequality and suffering.
Their sudden absence will have unforeseeable consequences of course, but the world will be incredibly more based without them.
Getting murdered sucks. Being friends or family of someone who got murdered sucks. Using the Death Note inflicts great suffering.
As long as the Death Note user remains anonymous they can avoid any sort of accountability, while they can hold others accountable to whatever standards they wish. Using the Death Note creates inequality between the holder and everyone else.
Well, yeah. I believe in rehabilitive incarceration. Of course they likely wouldn't be let out ever again, and given their control of their countries military; killing them would likely be the only option (unless we had a death note >:3).
*Like they would have mandatory cognitive therapy which would create opportunities for them to right their wrongs as much as possible by communicating their new thought processes to their 'followers'.
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 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.
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.
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...
80 Comments
sundray@lemmus.org · 46 pts · 20h
If you gave me the Death Note no one would ever see it again. Not even me.
waltersf@bookwyr.me · 20 pts · 19h
∗falls to death∗
raman_klogius@ani.social · 12 pts · 17h
Hazmatastic@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 19h
Honestly in the right hands that book could do a lot of good very quickly
binarytobis@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 12h
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.
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca · -1 pts · 12h
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.
Lumisal@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 11h
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.
Schmoo@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 7h
Killing a leader doesn't get rid of the position of power that enabled their misdeeds.
Colloidal@programming.dev · 6 pts · 4h
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!
Schmoo@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 4h
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.
eggpl4nt@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2h
I'm built different.
Colloidal@programming.dev · 1 pts · 4h
Never watched it.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 4h
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
Schmoo@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 1h
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.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 5h
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.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 4h
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
ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 11h
Then the replacement uses it as justification to further that endeavor.
Lumisal@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 10h
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.
WoodScientist@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 9h
So many corrupt preachers are gonna get struck by lighting...
Pollo_Jack@lemmy.world · 23 pts · 11h
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.
IronBird@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 10h
yeah, light literally monologes about becoming god of the world like...5m after confirming the book is real. dude clearly had issues
Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de · 5 pts · 8h
That doesn't solve the issue of you not having perfect information, which the post alludes to.
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 7h
Do we really need perfect information for the likes of Trump, Putin, et al?
Pollo_Jack@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2h
List of KKK members, done. List of proud boy members, done. They don't exactly make it difficult to deduce.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 9h
What about people who make fun of my farts
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 5h
They already ded, they just still walking.
SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca · -2 pts · 8h
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.
nightlily@leminal.space · -4 pts · 8h
So you want others who want others dead for the crime of existing, dead for the crime of existing?
Pollo_Jack@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2h
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.
GreyCat@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2h
Exactly. You get it ! You have to be intolerant of the intolerant.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 21h
I'm here to say it again : death note was mid
Zorque@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 20h
High praise for that show.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 17 pts · 20h
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.
Zorque@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 18h
... because of those things you said. Mid being very high praise as it was clearly less than that.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 10h
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.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4h
Ooh fuck, they should put ointment on that burn
Gutek8134@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 18h
For me, it was simply boring to the point dropped it after about 5 episodes
raman_klogius@ani.social · 5 pts · 17h
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.
alsimoneau@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 9h
*inflection
Aeao@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 17h
The sci-fi version of that is “we built the torment nexus from that famous book ‘don’t build the torment nexus’”
QueenHawlSera@piefed.social · 16 pts · 19h
I'd just write the names of the entire Republican Party
Grass@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 18h
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
alsimoneau@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 9h
That's why they use fake names. To protect themselves.
logi@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 12h
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.
arrow74@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 11h
Okay then let me just check my notes on who that would be
the entire Republican party
Neat
logi@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 7h
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.
arrow74@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 6h
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
logi@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 6h
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?
arrow74@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 6h
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
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 4h
Says the centrist who's fine with claiming to take the moral high ground so long as they can stay confortable
kayzeekayzee@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 12 pts · 20h
I'm pretty sure I have the self control needed to use the Death Note responsibly tbh
oatscoop@midwest.social · 8 pts · 9h
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.
lastweakness@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 14h
You also wouldn't get caught even if you used it irresponsibly...
snoons@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 14h
I would kill people that don't deserve it (no one deserves it really), but those people, or rather groups of people, are inherently intertwined with the maintenance and proliferation of global power structures that feed off of inequality and suffering.
Their sudden absence will have unforeseeable consequences of course, but the world will be incredibly more based without them.
Tiresia@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 12h
The issue is that with a death note, you're a global power structure that feeds off inequality and suffering now.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4h
How would that have any connection to a Death Note? You can't just throw that accusation out there without logic backing it up
Tiresia@slrpnk.net · 1 pts · 1h
Getting murdered sucks. Being friends or family of someone who got murdered sucks. Using the Death Note inflicts great suffering.
As long as the Death Note user remains anonymous they can avoid any sort of accountability, while they can hold others accountable to whatever standards they wish. Using the Death Note creates inequality between the holder and everyone else.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 4h
I call bullshit. Would you claim Hitler, Stalin, or Mao didn't deserve death?
Be careful when speaking in absolutes. The world is rarely black/white
snoons@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 4h
Well, yeah. I believe in rehabilitive incarceration. Of course they likely wouldn't be let out ever again, and given their control of their countries military; killing them would likely be the only option (unless we had a death note >:3).
*Like they would have mandatory cognitive therapy which would create opportunities for them to right their wrongs as much as possible by communicating their new thought processes to their 'followers'.
CentipedeFarrier@piefed.social · 9 pts · 13h
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.
thespcicifcocean@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 3h
I absolutely could not be trusted with such a book. That being said, I should absolutely have it,
BoosBeau@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2h
hhmm... sounds trustworthy!
cally@piefed.blahaj.zone · 8 pts · 11h
i would be afraid of the shinigami like do you imagine how creepy they would look irl
Skullgrid@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 7h
There are multiple live action adaptations
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 7 pts · 4h
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
mofongo@discuss.tchncs.de · 1 pts · 45m
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.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2h
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.
BilSabab@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 4h
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.
Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 10h
Question. If someone autographs that book would it be considered suicide? I am seriously curious about the legal implications here.
ThunderComplex@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 7h
Watched it for the first time this month, such a banger show
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 4 pts · 18h
To be fair, no one outside the Epstein list is trully worth my wrath. Maybe some warlords?
Tiresia@slrpnk.net · 9 pts · 13h
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...
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 12h
Woah there, I leave the rest of that shit to the law, because otherwise, I know I'd drop 60% of the planet.
NotSoFatso55@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 9h
you're saying that like it's a bad thing xD
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 9h
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
NotSoFatso55@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 7h
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...
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 5h
Pretty sure that would be the most lethal genocide in human history
I don't know of any previous genocide that wiped out 60% of the world population.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 4h
The only class you'd actually be targeting would be psychopaths tbh. And indirectly at that. So it'd kinda be hard to classify it as a genocide
Mika@piefed.ca · 1 pts · 5h
I'd run out of pages fast writing down every russian that's responsible for genociding Ukrainians.
spacegoat@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 13h
I would write “humans”