mkjohn1's Comments (5)

“Again: I compared the public nature of the execution with the public nature of the humiliation of clearly disturbed people on national television (read more in my response to another poster below).
I think that if we as a society are to declare our moral superiority over other societies as some posters have done here we need to abolish culturally abhorrent phenomena in our own societies first. The degree of abhorrence is somewhat irrelevant and this is why in my opinion. "Civilized societies" don't draw pleasure from watching troubled people sing badly on a public forum. My point is that this staring-at-a-car-crash effect is an undeniable aspect of human nature that we must strive to supress. In a different historical period and under different circumstances this could take the form of something much more horrific, as it has in the past. (Lynching in ths Gallant South, anybody?) Ask yourself: how long before the viewers become the executioners? Isn't that at the heart of the AI voting system?
In any case, I wasn't trying to be provocativeI I was merely expressing my disgust with the news on both sides.”