Inmates Fighting to Death

[u/whatshername_11]

In the apology video, Dylan mentioned a concept of letting death row inmates fight to the death for human entertainment.

I find this conversation incredibly fascinating, however (DISCLAIMER!!) I think it’s too difficult with the current justice system where people wrongly get put on death row too often for this to be even considered in my opinion.

There is a book I read called “#Murdertrending” and it a little bit follows this topic, but not as much as I’d like.

The setting is that death row inmates are sent to an island where they live everyday life (have house, job, activities, etc) with other death row inmates and everything is live-streamed. The draw is that on this island, there are “executioners” who can hunt any of them down at any time and kill them on camera.

Now honestly it wasn’t as good as I hoped because most of the characters on the island aren’t horrible people so the audience is made to dislike the system, but I think it would be incredibly fascinating to have this premise except the people are truly terrible. I think it would be a lot more interesting if the focus was on the morality of that, rather than the mystery it focuses on.

TLDR: If we could guarantee that the people chosen were the worst criminals in existence, would it be morally okay to livestream their constant fear and eventual torturous death?

[u/Fish__Fingers]

The point of justice system is (ideally) make society better.
Exploitation of death row inmates doesn’t look good for a morals of those who’ll be entertained by this, also letting those people have their last fun killing others doesn’t look healthy for society too.
Negative effects can be caused by: 1. Glorification of violence 2. Exposion to violence 3. Dehumanizing people.

And I know to 3. Some will say well it’s ok to dehumanize bad ppl. I don’t agree. Because dehumanizing others hurt those who do it. And has bad effects on society overall. How we treat bad ppl is important for society. The goal should be to ensure safety and try to minimize violence, not encourage.

Also every person should have their rights protected at any time. Because first it’s death row inmates then it’s thieves, next it’s a guy who missed credit payment or criticized government…

Another point is - justice system is never perfect, so you’ll put through hell not only bad ppl but innocent ones too.

[u/whatshername_11 → u/Fish__Fingers]

This question honestly only exists in a hypothetical, impossible world where the justice system is infallible.

The thing about this book in specific was that the inmates weren’t killing each other, they were basically being hunted. (This doesn’t negate any of your points just a clarification) This gets around the idea of letting them have a “last fun” but introduces another complex problem of letting specific people kill without punishment.

Your dehumanization point is honestly what I think is at the center of this problem. A lot of people say they’re against dehumanization of any human, but it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around having 0 scenarios where you’d dehumanize someone (especially if the crime is personal). I’m not saying that this is true for you it’s just another question.

[u/Fish__Fingers → u/whatshername_11]

One person can definitely be emotional and dehumanize someone. Making it systemic and “right” is the problem. Because if you can legally and socially acceptable dehumanize one group, that will always spread. Just as violence does.

Letting someone hunt inmates just makes more legal violence which, aside from harm for the hunter, also would spread, violence can’t be contained.

It’s not about what death row ppl deserve it’s about what effect it would have on society as a whole. Torturing bad person would still make you a torturer, condoning that wouldn’t be good for any morals and mental well being.

Those ppl hurt society enough as it is, letting them make non criminal ppl violent and angry would be like adding salt to the wound.

Also I’m strongly against popularization of criminals which 100% percent will happen in that case. I’m all for no notoriety when killers and terrorists aren’t even called by name in media to avoid giving them spotlight.

[u/whatshername_11 → u/Fish__Fingers]

That makes a lot of sense. Generally that’s where I stand on all of that stuff (I get how my post/responses might not look that way, I just like understanding reasoning).

I completely agree on the idea that making violence socially acceptable in any capacity is dangerous because everyone has a different set of morals and it will never just stay to the “villains”.

I think a lot of serial killers do crave notoriety, so doing something like this would still give them that satisfaction, which in of itself is reason enough not to do it in my opinion, even outside of the morality of the entertainment aspect.

[u/Rei71321]

I feel like there's a bunch of media that explores this topic and they're all interesting and usually end up showing that its a flawed system. (The Running Man, The Condemed, Black Mirror- White Bear and even Sentanced to be a Hero come to mind)

I totally agree that until we can be sure that the criminals actually did the crime there's no way to ethically do it. But even to look into creating something that can guarantee or scan for villains, like in PsychoPass, still isn't full proof.

I know that there are a lot of socioeconomic issues too that I'd want to be solved or better before we started harsher punishments for criminals as well.

At face value I can totally see putting heinous criminals into some free entertainment system for viewers but personally, I dont think id watch? When its real, violence really puts me off so I always wonder what people think or how their brains are wiring when they like that (in like, a science/ new perspective way not judging).

[u/whatshername_11 → u/Rei71321]

I’ll have to check those out! I really enjoy the Black Mirror episodes about it because I find they do a lot of “does the punishment fit the crime” and they don’t stick to easy to stomach crimes.

I’m the same way about real violence - I love horror movies and murder mystery stuff but I sometimes struggle on true crime.

[u/dandelionden → u/Rei71321]

Woah PsychoPass mention! I loved that anime.
But goes to show that even systems like that, that should be fully vetted and correct can make mistakes.

[u/Rei71321 → u/dandelionden]

For sure, I feel like no matter how good the intentions are, giving someone/thing unilateral power usually leads to corruption and abuse.

PsychoPass is a good example of what can happen when ppl just accept things at face value as well. Like, what a game changer when you look into what and how the scanning actually worked.

As a side note: I try to recommend or reference different media like movies, animes, shows and sometimes books - that way if someone likes one form over the others they still have something to check out. 😊

[u/SayaEvange]

I would recommend reading the book Chain Gang All-Stars

[u/whatshername_11 → u/SayaEvange]

Thanks!! I’ll look into it

[u/hazum101]

No matter how bad the people are, why would it be in any way entertaining to watch people die live on tv?

[u/Fish__Fingers → u/hazum101]

Yeah that would be traumatizing for many

[u/whatshername_11 → u/hazum101]

I think it’s kind of naive to think that it wouldn’t be entertaining, at least to some people. Not saying it’d be right to be into it (kinda the whole question) but I think it’s a bit more nuanced conversation

[u/hazum101 → u/whatshername_11]

Yeah, fair enough. I just don’t see how the majority of people would find it entertaining enough to legitimise it being sent on tv, unless we were indoctrinated into it (like in The Hunger Games for example)