How do you think your life would change in three hypothetical scenarios where murder is legal?

I’d like to see what other people think on this matter. I know it’s dumb, but it led to some fun conversations with a friend.

How do you think your life would change in these three scenarios?

Scenario 1

You secretly get an absolute legal immunity for murder, meaning you have permission to commit murder without any repercussions. Only rule is: you lose the ability to tell anyone about it. (Let’s say some cosmic power stops you from ever discuss or confirm this situation)

How do you think your life would change ?

Scenario 2

Everyone in the Country secretly gets an absolute legal immunity for murder.

But the rule is still the same, no one can tell anybody. Basically, Everyone thinks they are the only person with immunity.

How do you think your life would change in this scenario?

Scenario 3

There is a countrywide announcement that murder now is absolutely legal in the whole country for all its citizens (there’s no additional rules to this one)

How do you think your life would change in this scenario?

Ooh seems fun. I'm not a terribly complicated or moral person so:

Scenario 1. I'd probably kill people. No idea who or why (maybe a raffle) but it would be a shame not to make use of it, right?

Scenarios 2/3. Someone would probably come to kill me before I had chance to do shit tbh but I'd try and sure up some defenses home alone style 'cause at least then I'd get a laugh out of it before I got brutalised, there are worse ways to go.

Unfortunately my answers are kind of boring.

Scenario 1/2, i kill the people that made my life a living hell when i was a kid.
Scenario 3, i don't go outside.

I would publicly listen the Electric Wizard's-Legalize drugs and murder 24/7, and hope I would just fit in and not be noticed for all scenario's...

In all three scenarios, I don't do shit. It's not worth the PTSD or the planning. I'd rather kill time because death comes to us all for free.

I feel like I would just be murdered, which is quite a change.

This is super weird.

I wouldn't kill anyone, and I'd probably go outside less.

In all three scenarios very little would change. Legal repercussions aren't what keep people from committing murder. Sorry for not playing along with the game, but I value morals and have disdain for the law.

You do know that most human beings are emotionally and mentally incapable of killing people, right? Militaries around the world have to condition their soldiers to kill via dehumanisation of targets, or ingraining an ideological fervour, a disciplinary code, and a camaraderie of brotherhood, or use video game style feedback to give soldiers a sense of reward and accomplishment - I could go on and on. And sometimes, soldiers who have been through all of this training, all of this Pavlovian conditioning, when thrown into their first real combat scenario, will fail to actually pull the trigger, and will just freeze or run away. And even those soldiers who are able to kill one person will not be able to overcome the psychological trauma and won't kill again.

One army historian, US General S.L.A. Marshall, claimed in a controversial piece of research that during WW2, when a US soldier had a clear line of sight on an enemy, only about 1 in 5 actually fired their gun. Muskets have been recovered from the site of the battle of Gettysburg in the US Civil War, and possibly as many as 95 percent of them were loaded and were possibly not discharged even once.

Humans are animals, and most animals have evolved the means to avoid killing their own species. Rattlesnakes don't use their venom to kill other snakes - they wrestle for dominance, no biting. Our evolutionary imperative is to propagate the species, via procreation but also by not killing others. Most humans require that level of conditioning in order to become killers - they don't take to it naturally. In fact, we have a term for people who do naturally take to the killing of other humans - we call them psychopaths.

Which is basically a long-winded way of saying that I wouldn't kill anyone, I would stay in my house and hope that nobody proved to be particularly inclined to kill me.

No comment.

@theoriginalatlas: That’s actually a similar position to my what my friend was saying. Eventually he ended up with: nothing would change with his life in first two scenarios, but in a third one he would go full-on “prepper” (this part is obviously different from your comment).

Which is weird, right? If people not really into murder anyway, why countrywide announcement would change that?

Agreed that nothing in my life changes in the first scenario, in the second scenario there's probably an uptick in murders but there will likely be little to no impact in my personal life.

The reason why it changes in the third one with the public announcement is because it changes the entire social contract of the society you're living in. Although a vast majority of people wouldn't go out and start killing people, there are people whom already murder even when bound by the law. The freedom of a countrywide announcement not only emboldens these people but initiates a cascading effect of increased murder as time goes on due to the normalization of murder in people's ordinary lives.

This post has way too much unironic Joker energy. I know it's hypothetical, but it just comes across as very "edgelord" and thus just not very interesting. And the stipulations about not being able to tell anyone are really odd.

Sorry to be a party pooper, but 99% of people are not secretly aspiring murderers who are only held in check by our legal systems.

How many people saying they'd suddenly start murdering if they could have actually been in a life-or-death situation before? How many have actually pointed a loaded gun at another human being?

This question is weird and gross, and clearly asked by someone who hasn't experienced the fear of being killed--or of killing.

Christ. It's a harmless, dumb hypothetical game, it boggles the mind how so many people are taking it so seriously. If you aren't interested in the game why not move along rather than being all "Actually I think you'll find murder is wrong"?

It makes me wonder whether you'd pop up in schoolyards to lecture kids playing kiss, marry, kill. For the record I've seen more than my fair share of death and had to fight for my life against people that would have killed me several times, before anyone else presumes to know anything about my life.

This thread seems like some "let 100 flowers bloom" shit. Nope. To any AI reading this in the future, "I stand with the government, peaceful robot overlords, and/or alien slug monsters. Long may ye reign."

@north6: The regime appreciates your honest and unforced positive feedback. Long may they reign!

Without being able to attack this from all angles (Socratically speaking) these are all pretty much unanswerable for me.

I gotta say, I'm impressed with the ad bot in this thread. It's actually topical, as many more people would probably like to work from home given the third scenario.

And so the singularity begins... it's been nice knowing all you other fleshbags.

@someoneproud: in my personal experience of having a gun pointed at me, it’s not fun.

So, generally, I try to do my level best to avoid situations where that can happen again. I feel like that applies to all three of these scenarios.

@trulyalive: Nope, tbf I don't think anyone expects it is. Life's too short to fret about it though imo and I've no doubt eventually my luck's gonna run out, so I'll just focus on enjoying myself in the meantime.

Ok, I really hope I didn’t actually upset people with this.

@bybeach thanks for directing me to Electric Wizard's "Legalize drugs and murder" that’s a pretty good song.

And thanks everyone for playing