Transcript
Inside a rugged space colony, a group of station security officers overlook a force of invading soldiers. One of the security officers has a grenade launcher.
Officer 1: We’re under attack!
Officer 2: Quick, shoot them with a grenade before they reach the children’s quarters!
The officer with the grenade launcher stands and gestures dramatically as the other officers look on in awe.
Officer with launcher: We have to think about this! If we take their lives so indiscriminately, won’t that make us as bad as the enemy?
All of the other officers throw cans and wrappers at the officer with the launcher.
Other officers: No!
P.S. Our bills are paid by our wonderful patrons. Could you chip in?
There are two opposite but equally stupid ideas you come across in fiction:
1. Defending yourself makes you as bad as attacking others.
2. To regularly torture other people does NOT make you as bad as your enemies who commit murder; as long as you haven’t murdered anyone, you’re totally in the clear, no matter how much torture you do.
^^ This. SO MUCH this. 110% agreed with you on these being equally idiotic and nonsensical.
the comic is rather cathartic though, even if it only calls out the one. :-)
Don’t forget the one about how getting revenge against the guy who killed your parents will make you just like him: a person who kills multiple people for no reason.
Good one again!
Well, perhaps it would be good to know why someone is attacking you over and over again – especially as that colony doesn’t look as if repairs are easy to afford.
We could make that one of the key steps to solving that problem.
Also touches on the whole issue of “the enemy is storming the gates but will conveniently do so in slow motion so that we have time to have our philosophical discussion and agonize over supposedly morally gray choices.”
Is it me or does using explosives on a ship sound like a Bad Idea? I’m sure decompression is a worse death for the kids than whatever the intruders were planning.
But what if they wait until they reach the children’s quarters and THEN use the grenades? Would that make them worse than the attackers or just equal?