I think that the Aztecs knew what they were talking about.
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My proposal: Politicians should be contractually required to kill themselves at the end of their term.
You win this debate if you prove that my proposal would bring about more harm than good.
Also, the Aztecs did not actually sacrifice their rulers in times of hardship. So the title of this debate is technically clickbait.
- 3,659,289 Americans were born
- 3.460.000 Americans died
- Overall change: 200K new people
True leaders are people who regard their country over their own life. I want that type of person to represent me.
- I totally agree. But the number of such good people are probably lower than half a million.
- By dying for their country and abandoning their families, their children will come to hate patriotism.
- Your plan will eventually lead to the total extinction of true patriots.
- Another problem is that the people who are okay with suicide are probably depressed.
- The president breaking out crying when Putin makes an unreasonable demand, is not going to reflect well on the nation.
- Politicians who regret their decision will be directly incentivised to extend their terms under your system.
- Also called facism. I think we should avoid incentivising that kind of behavior.
Politicians will be directly incentivised to extend their terms under your system.
People who are okay with suicide are probably depressed.
- Firefighters regularly put their own lives in danger.
- So all firefighters must be depressed.
It would cut the population growth in half.
The number of such good people are probably lower than half a million.
- The US has 16 million veterans.
- The US has 3 million military personnel.
- The US also has FBI officers, DEA officers, SWAT officers, etc.
Adolf Hitler committed suicide so that he couldn't be charged for his crimes against human kind.
- Your system ensures every single politician gets the same fate, regardless of what they did.
- So if they wanted to implement terrible policies, they would not be detered by ruined reelection chances or any other consequences of their actions.
Hitler died a coward, but under my proposal, politicians would die as heroes.
- Commiting suicide does not make you a hero. Especially not in the eyes of your spouse and children whom you are abandoning with at best, highly abstract end goals.
- The death of good people that we all need is bad for society. But your system aims to collect all the best people into political positions and then kill all of them.
US politicians already have a huge incentive to extend their terms.
- Your system only adds to the problem
Firefighters regularly put their own lives in danger.
- They are not contractually obligated to commit suicide.
Birth rates adjust to population change. 3rd grade math cannot accurately predict population change.
- Your source never claims that 125.000 extra deaths each year is going to immidiately get counteracted by an equal ammount of new births.
- Raising babies, educating them and teaching them patrioticism is expensive and time consuming.
- So even if this point was true, the economic impact of your 125.000 extra deaths each year would still be disastrous.
the US has no shortage of brave Americans.
- Even kindergardeners understand the difference between risk of death and certainty of death -- but apparently PRO cannot.
- Please provide me the statististics of how many Americans are both good at politics and willing to commit suicide.
Patriotism ≠ depression.
- Willingness to commit suicide is highly correlated with depression, but not at all correlated with patriotism.
- Most politicians are pretty stupid.
- Most politicians are not physically fit.
- Most politicians will die in 20 years anyway.
Please provide me the statistics of how many Americans are both good at politics and willing to commit suicide.
Committing suicide does not make you a hero.
So if they wanted to implement terrible policies, they would not be deterred by ruined reelection chances or any other consequences of their actions.
The economic impact of your 125,000 extra deaths each year would still be disastrous.
What powders have you been sniffing?
Willingness to commit suicide is highly correlated with depression, but not at all correlated with patriotism.
Most politicians are pretty stupid. Not physically fit. Will die in 20 years anyway. [Citation needed]
- Your system is going to ensure bad outcomes:
- 1. This class of people who are supposedly useless in general will stop being politicians.
- But being politicians is the one thing they can actually do, as proven by the fact that they are actually doing it.
- Losing that position, many of them will stop performing anything socially usefull, and the rest will perform roles they have even less competency at.
- 2. You are also going to send into politics the actually competent people who live longer and have integrity.
- These people would be perfect for any role, and would have immensely helped society in any role, and whose benefits to society scales with lifespan.
- But you are going to kill them off after only 4 years of political work, robbing society of all the good things these competent patriots could have achieved.
An annual death count of 125,000 is a small price to pay for an ideal government.
- PRO has no framework to evaluate the impact of a hundred thousand dead bodies, economic and demographic catastrophe, political instability and millions of grieving people.
- He doesn't even have any evidence that his law is actually going to
- There is also no guarantee that individual politicians being smarter and fitter is going to substantially improve the political landscape.
- 4 years in politics is not enough to substantially change the policies each party supports, or even to update your own political views.
- If you replace both republicans and democrats with smarter people, they are still going to disagree and fight each other.
- Since the candidates are killed off after each term, there is no possibility for the formation of cross-party friendships or partnerships.
- Lack of respect and understanding due to having no history with the members of your opposition is going to substantially limit the things you can achieve.
Politicians are the most expendable people in our society:
- I reject the premise that anyone are expendable. PRO himself agrees that even the depressed and addicted need professional help, not to indulge more and commit suicide.
- This argument only works so long as politicians are overwhelmingly BAD, but your system aims to ensure that those who become politicians will exclusively be GOOD
Suicide in service of the greater good is heroic.
- If you are a terrible politician whose policies are harmfull to society, then your suicide will at least prevent you from continuing to actively harm society.
- But if you are a good politician with policies that help society, then your death is not for the greater good, but actively harmfull for society, and especially your family.
Suicide among politicians is very high in fact.
- You are avoiding the question. I asked about the suicide rate among the people you think would be good politicians, namely, those who are smart, fit, patriotic and competent.
- These people are going to be overwhelmingly happy and well-liked, and have multiple meaningful social relationships -- meaning suicide is going to be off the table.
- You are also digging your own grave with this argument:
- The current suicides among politicians are undboutedly the cowardly and depressed types, not the heroic variety.
- When the current terrible politicians are already inclined to commit suicide,
Suicide without moral justification is terrible.
- PRO has to prove that contractual obligations are a sufficient moral justification for commiting suicide that outweights the duty to family, your right to live and economic utilitarian loss.
Politicians who implement terrible policies are selfish.
- This is a gross overgeneralization with no evidence or argument to back it up. There are numerous other reasons for bad policies, including stupidity and ideology.
- Most terrible policies, including the motherfucking Holocaust, don't benefit politicians, or anyone really. So selfishness does not account for these decisions.
Have you ever heard of a kamikaze pilot?
- "Contrary to popular belief, not all kamikaze pilots were volunteers. While some willingly stepped forward, others were coerced or pressured into this deadly role." [1].
- But this is also a bad analogy:
- Japanese culture is very different. They have thousands of years of culture were suicide is the honorable thing to do.
- In the west suicide is looked down on. It is seen as sinfull and cowardly, even dishonorable. PRO himself is an example of that:
- He calls Hitler's suicide cowardly even though Hitler was definitely a brave patriot, proven by the fact that he was a decorated veteran from ww1.
- Sacrificing your life to trade a cheap aircraft for a warship gains your country an obvios military advantage. What PRO proposes has no benefits but harms the economy.
What PRO proposes has "no benefits" but harms the economy.
- No more greedy politicians.
- No more short-sighted politicians.
- No more bitter rivalries between politicians.
I reject the premise that anyone are expendable.
PRO has not established that being a vaguely "better person" outweighs a politician having NO PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE with politics, and NO TRACK RECORD for the public to evaluate.
PRO still ignores the elephant in the room. Politicians are expert liars, and the others still change their minds later. Signing the contract is no guarantee they will follow through.
- True patriots will be the only people running for office under my system.
- True patriots will simply accept their fate at the end of their term.
Benjamin may be convincing, but it is still obvious that I have the moral high-ground.
- Says the one arguing for contractually obligated suicide.
- No more greedy politicians.
- No more short-sighted politicians.
- No more bitter rivalries between politicians.
Killing off 125,000 old people would not do that much to the economy.
- Maybe that is true for the current politicians. But in your system, the 125.000 people getting killed are going to be very competent people with great integrity.
- In other words, people that would have benefited the economy and society if they were allowed to keep on living.
- 125.000 extra funerals each year are going to cost a great deal. As well as the hundreds or thousands of court cases where politicians try to fight the legality of enforced suicide.
You do not need prior experience to be a good politician.
- Navigating the political system is very complicated, and does indeed require prior experience to be able to master it.
- Good politicians on their first term will be even better on their next term due to more experience, and bad politicians will be less bad on the next term. This is a truism.
However, you do need to be capable of empathy to be a good politician.
- That would certainly help but PRO has not proven this to be a base requirement for a good politician.
True patriots will be the only people running for office under my system. True patriots will simply accept their fate at the end of their term.
- There is no evidence that this is true.
- But even if it was, you are going to kill the 125.000 most patriotic people each year -- which is going to make the country less patriotic on average.
This debate is going to be a humiliating loss for Benjamin.
- True. We both agree that your arguments are terrible, and that me winning this debate would not be impressive, but me losing would be a great humiliation.
Pro argues that this proposal will ensure that politicians are mostly unselfish people. Con responds that this would mean that society loses its 125,000 most heroic people per year. The cost of this system seems very measurable, since 125,000 people are dying that likely would have contributed to society anyway even if not as politicians. As well as needing to find 125,000 new people every year seems very unfeasible, as Con points out.
Maybe if Pro's system created an ideal government, it would outweigh all of these issues, but they spend most of their time on the defensive. I don't see much from Pro supporting their claim that this will make the government better aside from claiming that it will. Con does seem to agree somewhat that this system will recruit patriotic people, but patriotic is not the only skill required for politicians.
So even if I grant that this system will make selfless people politicians, the harms are more clear and straightforward than the benefits.
Vote bump
Vote bump.
Arguing genocide is too hard.
Arguing against you is pretty easy.
Arguing genocide is too easy.
Politicians are old. Old people don't help the economy.
I didn't think about the economic impacts. Perhaps genocide is wrong
Good point.
This proposal would literally constitute white genocide.
LololololhessdncdnnfbfgnekcntmdlrmvcAhahahaahaha
I can’t bro 😂
Not a fair topic. Usually you should avoid debating truisms
lmaooooooo