Grazere said: Using 'the ends justify the means' puts you in the same moral boat as Josef Mengeler.
Just saying.
When the "end" is something tangible and demonstrably preventable such as the case in Madoka Magica, it's a far cry different from the petty "for science" justification used by Mengele.
I'm not going to debate the moral validity of Kyubee's actions, but comparing his morality to that of Mengele is beyond flawed, much less telling someone that believing in an "ends justify the means" philosophy in a particular situation makes them morally equivalent to Josef fucking Mengele. You should be bloody ashamed of yourself for even making that comparison.
Reductio ad Hitlerum? In my Madoka? It's more likely than you think.
Anyway, he's only trying to delay something that's going to happen billions of years from now, and that will still eventually happen no matter what. It's pretty much like you started to kill random people and tried to justify it by the fact they and their offspring would contribute to the global usage of resources and environmental pollution, causing the mankind to go extinct two or three weeks earlier.
I like him and I like his style, but you can't justify his actions on humanity's scale. He's essentially just exploiting an inferior species to achieve a goal it's never going to benefit from, being extinct and all. And let's not forget that if he reaches his ultimate goal, which is turning Madoka into a witch, he will be the very entity directly responsible for humanity's extinction, making his "you'll thank me one day" speech from ep. 8 laughable.
"Im trying to save all of us from being destroyed dammit! Is that too much to ask?! To save a million lives, arent a few sacrifices necessary?! You have to understand that what I'm trying to do is for the greater good!"
The thing about Madoka is its not about the fate of the universe. Its about the fate of these girls and humanity at large. The fact is all the teenage girls along with humanity was made a VICTIM for some other entity that doesn't care whether we live or die. QB essentaily created an awful cycle that would kill people directly and indirectly for their own needs. Thus humanity has every right to judge QB and condemn him. Madoka herself (the sweet, caring, selfless girl) stated outright that QB "is the enemy". And she is right.
I think we're all forgetting the main point here: Kyubei's not human and has no human emotions. Thus he's not bound by the same laws and rules and morals humans sometimes are.
Shinkukage09 said: I think we're all forgetting the main point here: Kyubei's not human and has no human emotions. Thus he's not bound by the same laws and rules and morals humans sometimes are.
Perhaps not in his own mind, but when the humans start pulling out the torches and pitchforks it's not going to matter much whether he thinks what he's doing is wrong or not.
You don't need to feel emotions to know how morals work. And if you're a member of an alien race capable of interstellar travel and handing out time travel abilities like candy, it's somewhat natural to assume you can get a grasp on the concept. Unless your race is an equivalent of the autistic wunderkind, reading thermodynamics instead of bed stories but still unable to wipe your own ass or understand why people get mad after you fuck them over.
Sereptim said: When the "end" is something tangible and demonstrably preventable such as the case in Madoka Magica, it's a far cry different from the petty "for science" justification used by Mengele.
I'm not going to debate the moral validity of Kyubee's actions, but comparing his morality to that of Mengele is beyond flawed, much less telling someone that believing in an "ends justify the means" philosophy in a particular situation makes them morally equivalent to Josef fucking Mengele. You should be bloody ashamed of yourself for even making that comparison.
Oh really? No, I stand by it until you give me a valid reason not to. All this is is over-verbose butthurt. It IS comparable, because it uses the same basic moral principle. You might not like that, but frankly, too bad.
Grazere said: Oh really? No, I stand by it until you give me a valid reason not to. All this is is over-verbose butthurt. It IS comparable, because it uses the same basic moral principle. You might not like that, but frankly, too bad.
Calling my criticism of your statement "butthurt", followed by restating your original point does not constitute a legitimate argument.
Secondly, if I have to spell out in loving detail that you cannot generalize a moral stance across all situations "I.e, "ends justifies the means" is not comparable between all different situations, specifically the examples given of Kyubey and Mengele, then you are unlikely the type of person that would provide anything that even remotely resembles a stimulating debate.
By all means, feel free to surprise me. With an actual argument, mind.
Sereptim said: Calling my criticism of your statement "butthurt", followed by restating your original point does not constitute a legitimate argument.
Secondly, if I have to spell out in loving detail that you cannot generalize a moral stance across all situations "I.e, "ends justifies the means" is not comparable between all different situations, specifically the examples given of Kyubey and Mengele, then you are unlikely the type of person that would provide anything that even remotely resembles a stimulating debate.
By all means, feel free to surprise me. With an actual argument, mind.
It doesn't need to be a 'legitimate argument' because your counter didn't wash. What you appear to be arguing is that Mengele, an unethical, murderous medical researcher, was so much worse than QB, who merely wanted to do something that would destroy the planet, that you can't compare it, therefore I'm an idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about.
Correct me if I'm wrong. Because I don't quite follow.
Oh wow I completely forgot about this. No, the argument I was (am?) making is that you can't take a single moral argument (ends justifies the means) and apply the same level of moral validity across all situations.
For example, take these 3 hypotheticals
1 innocent person must be killed to prevent the deaths of 10,000 other innocents. There is no other way to prevent these 10,000 deaths.
1 man must kill an innocent man to prevent the death of his equally innocent son. There is no other way to prevent the boy's death
In the pursuit of scientific knowledge, which may or may not yield any tangible benefits to humanity, an arbritrary number of innocents are sacrificed. There may be other ways to acquire this same scientific knowledge.
These are all situations in which the same argument of "the ends justifies the means" can be use, but few people would agree that all of these courses of actions are equally moral/immoral.
Whoever made the Mengele comment made a very basic error by assuming that all instances of "ends justifies the means" are equal, and that believing Kyubee's actions to be morally justified must mean that you also believe Mengele's actions to be morally justified.
As I said previously, I've no intention of debating the moral validity of Kyuube's actions. Whether one thinks Kyuube or Mengele was worse is irrelevant to this argument. What IS relevant, is that they are not the same, and that comparing one to the other is a gross error.
Because without him, humanity would never have developed beyond living as cavemen, as he explained in Episode 11. He's basically Prometheus. What are a few lost lives compared to the continued existence of the universe as well as the progress and development of human civilization? He may farm us, but he did give us something amazing.
according to him. The Incubators are lucky they found the only Earth that wouldn't have been able to advance without their help... like any and every single other that moved beyond that stage without their help.
according to him. The Incubators are lucky they found the only Earth that wouldn't have been able to advance without their help... like any and every single other that moved beyond that stage without their help.
Oopsies
How do we know that those other worlds didn't need some help? After all Kyubey implied Earth isn't the only world they're farming, considering he left it to rot after he met his quota. Since you can't fend off entropy forever, he'll always need more energy. He likely has more sources.
I think you can agree with me humanity's circumstances under Kyubey's influence are far more preferable than still living in caves. So what if other worlds can develop further by themselves and we can't? Doesn't that show we should be thankful for Kyubey giving us a chance?
OkashiiNaito said: How do we know that those other worlds didn't need some help? After all Kyubey implied Earth isn't the only world they're farming, considering he left it to rot after he met his quota. Since you can't fend off entropy forever, he'll always need more energy. He likely has more sources.
I think you can agree with me humanity's circumstances under Kyubey's influence are far more preferable than still living in caves. So what if other worlds can develop further by themselves and we can't? Doesn't that show we should be thankful for Kyubey giving us a chance?
I just love people like you who assume Kyuubey has done everything. Newsflash, Just because Kyuubey is the only one in the anime doesnt mean he's the only one, period.
Ultimately, you have an incredibly advanced species meeting a primitive one. As interactions between advanced and primitive cultures have shown, this rarely ends good for the latter.
Kyubey staves off the inevitable end of his long-living race by sacrificing some humans to stave off entropy, in much the same way we use metal and other resources to support or industry, and agriculture is nothing if not exploitation of the land and the abandonment of it when it is no longer useful for that purpose.
At any rate, I can see Kyubey's direction. He has no emotions, and given how advanced we are, he probably wouldn't feel anything more about us than we feel about cows or ants.
Anybody debating the morality of Kyuubey's actions is hopeless. The fact that he is perfectly willing, even eager, to create a Witch tht can destroy the entire Earth just so he can harvest the energy, is proof that he is morally in the wrong... by human standards. I don't doubt that he/she/it and other Incubators would gladly destroy every other planet they are pulling this scheme on if they thought it would save them from entropy.
For them, its not about some kind of equivalent exchange or 'fairness' ("we give your race scientific advancement and we harvest a relatively small percentage of your population in order to save everyone"), even if it seems like it on the surface.
What they are really doing is "We give your race scientific advancement so that your population increases and there are more of that special percentage of your population for us to harvest, and we keep this up until your planet is destroyed by the monsters we create, then we move on to the next planet, solely for the sake of keeping the universe around for our unaging race."
They have no true interest in fairness. They simply wish to exploit an inferior psecies purely for their own benefit. Everything else is just an excuse, and their inability to feel emotions prevents them from understanding that these excuses don't placate said inferior species.
Kyuubey's persepctive is, "You are all ants. We give you the technology to make these really fancy ant hills, and we only kill a few of you (at least until that one monster we create wipes out your planet), so you should be content with that, meanwhile we get to keep the universe going for the rest of our eternal lives."
On a purely and ruthlessly logical scale (the scale on which Kyuubey operates because his race views emotions as a mental illness), a few milennia of scientific advancement of an entire race of lunatics is a fair trade for the psychological torture of a relatively few of their race, even if it ends up resulting in their planet's destruction sooner rather than later.
Obviously, we don't operate on such a scale. By its view of justice, Kyuubey is perfectly innocent and simply doing its job for an ungrateful race of psychos. By the human view of justice (hell, by the justice of any race being vicimized by the Incubators), Kyuubey is a criminal of the highest order.
I'm pretty sure that planetary genocide (possibly across multiple planets) just to prolong the existence of the universe for a race of immortals, is ethically wrong.
XD slowly, people forgot to use the spoiler tag...
anyway.
According to the kyuubey, their race has no feelings, yes.
But they also said the looked in the entire universe until they finally discovered earth. the were amazed a planet where every single being having feelings could coexist.
That would make earth the ONLY planet they are farming, and that would make EVERY single alien species feelingless.
When Incubators came to this planet, they didn't expect something like madoka be able to exist. (thats why kyuubey said he didn't understand how madoka was possible)
That means the part of "and we keep this up until your planet is destroyed by the monsters we create, then we move on to the next planet" is incorrect.
There can't be another planet. Earth is weird and unique for having those funny-feeling-beings. And they never expected something so big as madoka could appear and menace the planet.
That means they just planned to stay on earth and farm humanity forever.
In one of homura time lines, madoka turns in a magical girl, and kyuubey is amazed to how powerful she is, then he talks about how when she becomes a witch, she will destroy the planet, but is not his problem, BECAUSE HE GOT WAY MORE ENERGY than he expected. Lets guess, the average magical girls turning to witches produce an unity of 100 (just a number) and lets guess there are about 20 girls-turning-into-witches per week, that would mean is about 2000 each week. That would be like 104000 per year, and since they are with use since caverns, and they help us to develop our selfs, then, since the end of prehistory is 3200 BC, lets guess they started to help to develop since then. So, that would be like, 5200 years that is, 540800000 unities total. But madoka was something incredible big. What if the unities produced by madoka would like 10000000000000000000 when she transforms into a witch ?
well yes, they would have lost the weird planet where creatures have feelings as a rule, but they got way more energy than they expected the planet to produce total anyway, so the sacrifice of the planet is little compared to the amount of energy they got.
Why the earth needed help to develop, when other worlds seem auto sufficient ? Again, remember the earth is filled with "retard" creatures. ("retards" because they seem to see feelings more like a mental impediment than just a psycho condition)
Some people is scarred that someday a crazy president will make atomic bombs explode and destroy the world because he had a bad day or something. Making atomic bombs explode is a very irrational thing, but one that is not impossible for a really DEPRESSED person. But if the president lacked feelings, he would never do that. Is stupid. He would die too. And wont won anything. So, according to that, the reason humanity needed Incubators to develop is because feelings stop us to develop by our selfs.
I think you fail to comprehend the significance of this.
Anyway, on the topic of Kyubey's morality:
For me, the thing that makes me dislike him is not that he sacrifices humans to save the universe. The fact that the humans are children makes little difference.
What makes me dislike him is that when he contracts Madoka, and sees that she's turning into an (almost?) unstoppable witch, he just up and abandons Earth. That's the part where I feel he violates the 'social contract' -- the "deal" was that the Incubators would give us wishes, and some of us would die for the sake of the universe, but he turned around and walked out and left us to die once he had gotten what he wanted.
It's possible, of course, that he had no idea that this would happen and left because there was actually nothing he could do about the problem, but that seems unlikely. I'm pretty sure that he either could have suspected what would happen or could do something.
(I would get into rights and such, but stage six morality is at about the limits of my comprehension, and it would take far more effort for me to do so than I'm currently willing to put into this Internet debate
