I play Skyrim. In that rpg video game you can be an assassin. After you kill Grelod the Kind, a child abuser, one of the children she tortured says:
“Kill one person, and you can solve so many problems. I wonder at the possibilities.” - Runa Fair-Shield.
When does assassination become an acceptable political strategy? I can see how bumping off many crazy men (and right now I can only name male dictators but I guess women could be just as bad) would make the world safer - well, safer if we assume it would not trigger a backlash and WW3.
Maybe we could assassinate Kim and North Korea would rejoice not set off nukes? Maybe we could assassinate MbS and the Saudis would just shrug and appoint a new Crown Prince with a less murderous tendancy towards journalists and dissidents? But could we assassinate Putin, Trump, Xi, or Modi and not release hell?
If I had a red button to press and it would remove Putin, Trump, Musk, Thiel, Hamas, Netanyahu, or other bad guys, should I press the button? What do you think?
Note: this is a thought experiment - outside Skyrim, I never killed anyone, never worked as an assassin for hire, and have no desire to change that fact. I just want to read your thoughts on this topic - I think we’ve all wondered if there is a shortcut back to normality in face of current events but are we fooling ourselves?
Interesting… Thanks for that info. I am a Brit, I wonder what plans our secret services have prepared for different scenarios (Russia, China, North Korea … and now USA). Looks like world is going back to Macchiavelli (if we ever really left).
Creating bigger problems. Exactly why I ponder if assassination does any good or just recoils on you. But I think that its usefulness is contingent on who kills whom.
I guess that is why there are so few assassinations of elite figures - it threatens the stability that protects the elite so the elite do not assassinate each other.
However, assassinating non-elite people - terrorists and revolutionaries is routine. The elites (governments of nation states, their sub-contractors) have even mechanised assassination by using remote-controlled drone attacks. This stabalises their control.
So, if elites assassinate those that threaten them, it typically works in their favour. But if non-elites do it to elites, does it empower them or not? If it causes chaos and instability amongst the elite, and the chaos spreads to wider society, and does harm to bystanders or even brings about war, is this a price worth paying, or even a good and necessary outcome?
Honestly, I am still struggling with these questions. Part of me thinks ‘sauce for goose, sauce for gander’ and the tyrants deserve to die by their own methods turned back on them. Another part of me knows war is terrible, especially for ‘ordinary people’ and for the environment, and should be avoided. But there is such a thing as ‘a just war’ and armed struggle can be morally good or even our duty.
That reminds me of a news story from a few years back: a series of bank robberies in Germany, Holland, Denmark - all the same modus operandi and all done by white-haired robbers. Interpol (international police force) said they thought it was elderly members of 1970s terrorist organisations like Bader-Meinhoff gang stealing money because they had no retirement pensions as they destroyed their state records when young/had no savings accounts/criminal records etc and had to find some way to pay for elder care. It just paints an hilarious picture in my mind: Zimmer-frame Zapatas!
Putin and Xi…I’m pretty sure that, if they were topped, there’s enough institutional Authoritarianism that either there would be a “clean” and immediate change to someone with the next highest authority…or it would fall into civil war with just as much speed, rounds of assassinations back and forth until the power vacuum is filled by someone able to pull everyone left to heel…or the whole government falls apart…
I know too little about Russia to know who is a contender to replace Putin or if when he goes the system that created him will go too. I am trying to educate myself on that.
As for China, I know a bit more but I am no expert. Given my limited insight, I am surprised that Xi is still in power. I expected the Communist Party to have ‘neutralised’ him, not necessarily bumped him off but to have taken away his power and reduced him to a figurehead, especially after he mishandled the pandemic and has struggled to fix China’s economic woes. He is basically a thug. If all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail. But you cannot beat a pandemic with a hammer nor fix inflation or unemployment or pollution with one. You must have as many tools as possible - Chinese perfected the toolkit of government over thousands of years. Sophisticated people in Chinese government must think Xi is an ignorant lout. I suspect they keep him in place because its better for the people who really run China to have a useful idiot as a puppet than to go through the uncertainties of replacing him - more or less how they handled the Kim regime in North Korea until lately. Putin and Kim collaborating on Ukraine must have really angered China which is probably why Chinese are considering sending ‘peace-keeping’ troops to Ukraine. Xi is a pig in a drawing room and the real government is just working around him.
It is hard to tell how much of the reportage about Xi is ‘smoke and mirrors’. I recently saw a viral report on Reddit and in The Guardian newspaper (probably going around all the news outlets) about Chinese military exercises and some special navy vessels (biggest of their kind! etc) they had which were supposed to provide support for amphibian landings of tanks etc. Every report spins this as ‘China war games is preparation for invading Taiwan - shock!’. I am very sceptical. Xi is apparently the driving force behind sabre-rattling rhetoric against Taiwan and building up PRC military might (his new bigger hammer), but I reckon most of Chinese government are not interested in a war with anyone least of all Taiwan - I think they expect to recover Taiwan eventually, by peaceful means, and are happy if it takes a century cos that long timescale is how Chinese think. So, given this split between Xi and the rest, I have the sense this whole media story is just a performance - whether it is to fool the world about China’s military aggressiveness (advertising Xi’s policy) or is some part of Chinese administration doing this to fool Xi he’s still in charge (covert anti-Xi policy), I cannot tell. I just don’t have enough facts to judge what these military manouvres tell us about Chinese government or, on the bigger scale, what real difference it would make if Xi was not around.
We (in UK) get 24/7 coverage of Trump’s idiocies but not real information on other political leaders. I am European and I could not name five European political leaders, let alone predict the outcome if one were assassinated. As for politics in rest of globe, I am just clueless for the most part but I do try to educate myself. I have to create my own news feeds because the MSM is worthless.
The Chinese would certainly just appoint a new president, no problem. Xi might be in charge, but the Chinese communist party isn’t some vestigial organ. Russia, however… Putin’s been exclusively in charge for long enough and with no immediately clear successor that I’m almost certain that his death is going to result in a power struggle and civil war.
Imo, if you want a picture of what the end of the Putinato looks like, I would say that the end of Mexico’s Porferiato would probably be a fairly accurate representation.
In America it’s not too late. We have a clear succession strategy. It sucks…I think you’d have to pick people off till you got to Rubio to get back to something closer to normal. He’s #4. If you don’t stop there…it gets a lot worse before it gets any better.
China, Russia, and especially Best Korea are so deeply entrenched, I don’t think succession would go as cleanly.
I mean, plenty tried to kill Hitler. He was just really good at not getting assassinated. Frequent last-minute changes to planned public appearances helped a lot
The crusades existed many a day ago, Yahweh’s heavenly army battled once before.
A fight must be unanimous however it must be on creeds agreed.
It will be seering light, blinding, and in it - elusidating every facet of darkness among you. Only the wrathful will survive and for what? You must agree in your values to be truly mighty.
See no creed, no color, and no gender. Witness inherent value in existing sentient. We only live when we enact our will.
What is your will? Will you act? Or forever react.
There is an army ripe for the picking. I am trying.
The big problem is the state which has such extreme power.
The big part that makes those states work is default compliance, which allows that state to commit violence using everyone who complies (which is everyone by default). Individuals being non-compliant directly translates to power being syphoned away from the state. This is why morality and ethics education are so Important, as the state cannot do anything immoral if individuals refuse to do immoral actions. The second most important thing is transparency, since states utilize opacueness as a means to obfuscate the morality of actions. This is one reason why dense hierarchies are utilized in governments - to obfuscate actions and provide personal deniability to members of the state infrastructure.
Very clear statement, very helpful, thank you. I think you are correct in your analysis. I know that one reason I play video games is to help myself become aware of my ‘ethics’ (derived originally from my Roman Catholic childhood and still full of that mentality despite decades of ‘personal development’ and consciously trying to break free from false religiosity) and to start questioning them. I am a vegan, literally avoid hurting insects let alone humans. I recoil from violence … and it makes me easy to abuse and exploit. I have been trodden on all my life one way or another because I am too ‘nice’ - I am not a Christian but I still ‘turn the other cheek’.
I play Skyrim and one story arc allows you to be an assassin who eventually assassinates the Emperor which, as a republican who finds monarchy morally offensive, is fine by me! But before you kill him, you have to kill a list of ‘ordinary’ people and it is hard to justify doing so as most of these targets are just eccentric or annoying rather than political threats deserving of execution on behalf of those they oppress. I struggle to do this mindless killing (which the game presents as a cultish sacrifice on behalf of a ‘daedric’ demi-god and/or service performed for pay/capitalist commodity) and as I play the game I am trying to understand my anxieties about ‘killing’ pixels, and trying to achieve a visceral sense of it being okay to use violence in specific situations, to feel good in myself about using my own power/agency, so I am not constantly second-guessing myself and thus conceding the initiative to others who are bad actors. I do not find it easy.
I am currently playing The Outer Worlds which is explicitly about the act of rebellion or revolution against tyranny. One of the characters revels in killing the evil corporation’s mercenaries. I am like a child, looking on and trying to understand the lessons, trying to imagine feeling the same about the work of liberation. It is ironic that capitalist products are helping me become a revolutionary but everything can be a learning experience and whatever the developers think they are creating, the players make their own experiences.
Biggest problem is that all of these people that you and me consider assholes do have a huge support. It’s not like a dictator can be a dictator without any support.
Assassination would just make Trump into a MAGA martyr. They would be riled up and energized.
Yes, then the next question is, whom would they rally behind after Trump? We can see a chain of command for the line of presidency, but without Trump, there’d be a power vacuum at the top of his cult. Either it gets filled with an acceptable substitute, or the obligate-followers in his fandom won’t know where to direct their energy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if such a power vacuum created drama. Would Musk still be pulling so many strings in the government if Vance were president? Would he find a way to usurp even more unconstitutional government power, like how he controls DOGE? Would Vance tolerate Musk’s intrusions at all?
Or would his loyalist followers rally behind someone completely different, like a media personality? They’re looking for charisma in a leader, after all, and neither Vance nor Musk have that the way Trump (or someone professionally on TV) does. It’s possible some right-wing boner rises up through the crowd. Then, since Trumpsters naturally orient themselves toward the biggest dick around, he (Trump’s successor would almost certainly be a “he”) would get all their attention.
I have to wonder. P2025 has hit the ground running. Wouldn’t they have a contingency in place for just such an occasion? I’d bet they already have someone up their sleeves for the eventuality of him passing on his own. There is definitely someone up their sleeves for if we have another election. I do think there would be a vacuum. I think it would be short lived. We all suspect the gop is falling in line due to blackmail material. Their relief of the blackmailer being dead would be short lived when they realize he didn’t actually hold the cards. They’d all fall in line behind whoever the back room tells them to.
I’m reminded the example of the people’s will and the assassination of Alexander II. One person doesn’t change a system. On the other hand taking out all the billionaire donors that craft a system, well that might be something else. They could just buy a new leader.
Sure, the Japanese invaded my ancestral homeland, done the horrible massacre in Nanjing, but “killing people is wrong” so I guess my ancestors shouldn’t have fought back and let them slaughter my people?
You’re right. My ancestors are evil, and they shouldn’ve just kneel to the japanese imperialists and accepted their place as inferior to the japanese people. /s
I play Skyrim. In that rpg video game you can be an assassin. After you kill Grelod the Kind, a child abuser, one of the children she tortured says:
“Kill one person, and you can solve so many problems. I wonder at the possibilities.” - Runa Fair-Shield.
When does assassination become an acceptable political strategy? I can see how bumping off many crazy men (and right now I can only name male dictators but I guess women could be just as bad) would make the world safer - well, safer if we assume it would not trigger a backlash and WW3.
Maybe we could assassinate Kim and North Korea would rejoice not set off nukes? Maybe we could assassinate MbS and the Saudis would just shrug and appoint a new Crown Prince with a less murderous tendancy towards journalists and dissidents? But could we assassinate Putin, Trump, Xi, or Modi and not release hell?
If I had a red button to press and it would remove Putin, Trump, Musk, Thiel, Hamas, Netanyahu, or other bad guys, should I press the button? What do you think?
Note: this is a thought experiment - outside Skyrim, I never killed anyone, never worked as an assassin for hire, and have no desire to change that fact. I just want to read your thoughts on this topic - I think we’ve all wondered if there is a shortcut back to normality in face of current events but are we fooling ourselves?
According to the Supreme Court, it was a presidential option back while Biden was still in office.
Interesting… Thanks for that info. I am a Brit, I wonder what plans our secret services have prepared for different scenarios (Russia, China, North Korea … and now USA). Looks like world is going back to Macchiavelli (if we ever really left).
The whole of human history is solving a problem which then creates bigger, more complicated problems to solve.
See also: The assassination of Franz Ferdinand
See also see also: The Treaty of Westphalia
Creating bigger problems. Exactly why I ponder if assassination does any good or just recoils on you. But I think that its usefulness is contingent on who kills whom.
I guess that is why there are so few assassinations of elite figures - it threatens the stability that protects the elite so the elite do not assassinate each other.
However, assassinating non-elite people - terrorists and revolutionaries is routine. The elites (governments of nation states, their sub-contractors) have even mechanised assassination by using remote-controlled drone attacks. This stabalises their control.
So, if elites assassinate those that threaten them, it typically works in their favour. But if non-elites do it to elites, does it empower them or not? If it causes chaos and instability amongst the elite, and the chaos spreads to wider society, and does harm to bystanders or even brings about war, is this a price worth paying, or even a good and necessary outcome?
Honestly, I am still struggling with these questions. Part of me thinks ‘sauce for goose, sauce for gander’ and the tyrants deserve to die by their own methods turned back on them. Another part of me knows war is terrible, especially for ‘ordinary people’ and for the environment, and should be avoided. But there is such a thing as ‘a just war’ and armed struggle can be morally good or even our duty.
So, I go back and forth.
I kind of wonder where the jfk shooter is, if he is doing all right? If he is thinking about going back to active duty…
Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby a long time ago.
I know you’re making a joke.
That reminds me of a news story from a few years back: a series of bank robberies in Germany, Holland, Denmark - all the same modus operandi and all done by white-haired robbers. Interpol (international police force) said they thought it was elderly members of 1970s terrorist organisations like Bader-Meinhoff gang stealing money because they had no retirement pensions as they destroyed their state records when young/had no savings accounts/criminal records etc and had to find some way to pay for elder care. It just paints an hilarious picture in my mind: Zimmer-frame Zapatas!
Putin and Xi…I’m pretty sure that, if they were topped, there’s enough institutional Authoritarianism that either there would be a “clean” and immediate change to someone with the next highest authority…or it would fall into civil war with just as much speed, rounds of assassinations back and forth until the power vacuum is filled by someone able to pull everyone left to heel…or the whole government falls apart…
I know too little about Russia to know who is a contender to replace Putin or if when he goes the system that created him will go too. I am trying to educate myself on that.
As for China, I know a bit more but I am no expert. Given my limited insight, I am surprised that Xi is still in power. I expected the Communist Party to have ‘neutralised’ him, not necessarily bumped him off but to have taken away his power and reduced him to a figurehead, especially after he mishandled the pandemic and has struggled to fix China’s economic woes. He is basically a thug. If all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail. But you cannot beat a pandemic with a hammer nor fix inflation or unemployment or pollution with one. You must have as many tools as possible - Chinese perfected the toolkit of government over thousands of years. Sophisticated people in Chinese government must think Xi is an ignorant lout. I suspect they keep him in place because its better for the people who really run China to have a useful idiot as a puppet than to go through the uncertainties of replacing him - more or less how they handled the Kim regime in North Korea until lately. Putin and Kim collaborating on Ukraine must have really angered China which is probably why Chinese are considering sending ‘peace-keeping’ troops to Ukraine. Xi is a pig in a drawing room and the real government is just working around him.
It is hard to tell how much of the reportage about Xi is ‘smoke and mirrors’. I recently saw a viral report on Reddit and in The Guardian newspaper (probably going around all the news outlets) about Chinese military exercises and some special navy vessels (biggest of their kind! etc) they had which were supposed to provide support for amphibian landings of tanks etc. Every report spins this as ‘China war games is preparation for invading Taiwan - shock!’. I am very sceptical. Xi is apparently the driving force behind sabre-rattling rhetoric against Taiwan and building up PRC military might (his new bigger hammer), but I reckon most of Chinese government are not interested in a war with anyone least of all Taiwan - I think they expect to recover Taiwan eventually, by peaceful means, and are happy if it takes a century cos that long timescale is how Chinese think. So, given this split between Xi and the rest, I have the sense this whole media story is just a performance - whether it is to fool the world about China’s military aggressiveness (advertising Xi’s policy) or is some part of Chinese administration doing this to fool Xi he’s still in charge (covert anti-Xi policy), I cannot tell. I just don’t have enough facts to judge what these military manouvres tell us about Chinese government or, on the bigger scale, what real difference it would make if Xi was not around.
We (in UK) get 24/7 coverage of Trump’s idiocies but not real information on other political leaders. I am European and I could not name five European political leaders, let alone predict the outcome if one were assassinated. As for politics in rest of globe, I am just clueless for the most part but I do try to educate myself. I have to create my own news feeds because the MSM is worthless.
The Chinese would certainly just appoint a new president, no problem. Xi might be in charge, but the Chinese communist party isn’t some vestigial organ. Russia, however… Putin’s been exclusively in charge for long enough and with no immediately clear successor that I’m almost certain that his death is going to result in a power struggle and civil war.
Yeah, I can see what you mean. Still, weirder things have happened.
Imo, if you want a picture of what the end of the Putinato looks like, I would say that the end of Mexico’s Porferiato would probably be a fairly accurate representation.
You’d have power vacuums.
In America it’s not too late. We have a clear succession strategy. It sucks…I think you’d have to pick people off till you got to Rubio to get back to something closer to normal. He’s #4. If you don’t stop there…it gets a lot worse before it gets any better.
China, Russia, and especially Best Korea are so deeply entrenched, I don’t think succession would go as cleanly.
Best Korea?!!
Good people don’t become assassins, something bad people don’t have problems with.
It’s never Hitler, Putin, Stalin or Trump who get assassinated. Always JFK, Martin Luther King, Bobby, …
Good point!
I mean, plenty tried to kill Hitler. He was just really good at not getting assassinated. Frequent last-minute changes to planned public appearances helped a lot
We need monsters who fights on the side of the light.
The crusades existed many a day ago, Yahweh’s heavenly army battled once before.
A fight must be unanimous however it must be on creeds agreed.
It will be seering light, blinding, and in it - elusidating every facet of darkness among you. Only the wrathful will survive and for what? You must agree in your values to be truly mighty.
See no creed, no color, and no gender. Witness inherent value in existing sentient. We only live when we enact our will.
What is your will? Will you act? Or forever react.
There is an army ripe for the picking. I am trying.
Yeah no thanks. Pass.
You fight for freedom from tyranny and the defense of the weak. From the beginning of time to the end of time.
same problem as cops then
The big problem is the state which has such extreme power.
The big part that makes those states work is default compliance, which allows that state to commit violence using everyone who complies (which is everyone by default). Individuals being non-compliant directly translates to power being syphoned away from the state. This is why morality and ethics education are so Important, as the state cannot do anything immoral if individuals refuse to do immoral actions. The second most important thing is transparency, since states utilize opacueness as a means to obfuscate the morality of actions. This is one reason why dense hierarchies are utilized in governments - to obfuscate actions and provide personal deniability to members of the state infrastructure.
Very clear statement, very helpful, thank you. I think you are correct in your analysis. I know that one reason I play video games is to help myself become aware of my ‘ethics’ (derived originally from my Roman Catholic childhood and still full of that mentality despite decades of ‘personal development’ and consciously trying to break free from false religiosity) and to start questioning them. I am a vegan, literally avoid hurting insects let alone humans. I recoil from violence … and it makes me easy to abuse and exploit. I have been trodden on all my life one way or another because I am too ‘nice’ - I am not a Christian but I still ‘turn the other cheek’.
I play Skyrim and one story arc allows you to be an assassin who eventually assassinates the Emperor which, as a republican who finds monarchy morally offensive, is fine by me! But before you kill him, you have to kill a list of ‘ordinary’ people and it is hard to justify doing so as most of these targets are just eccentric or annoying rather than political threats deserving of execution on behalf of those they oppress. I struggle to do this mindless killing (which the game presents as a cultish sacrifice on behalf of a ‘daedric’ demi-god and/or service performed for pay/capitalist commodity) and as I play the game I am trying to understand my anxieties about ‘killing’ pixels, and trying to achieve a visceral sense of it being okay to use violence in specific situations, to feel good in myself about using my own power/agency, so I am not constantly second-guessing myself and thus conceding the initiative to others who are bad actors. I do not find it easy.
I am currently playing The Outer Worlds which is explicitly about the act of rebellion or revolution against tyranny. One of the characters revels in killing the evil corporation’s mercenaries. I am like a child, looking on and trying to understand the lessons, trying to imagine feeling the same about the work of liberation. It is ironic that capitalist products are helping me become a revolutionary but everything can be a learning experience and whatever the developers think they are creating, the players make their own experiences.
Biggest problem is that all of these people that you and me consider assholes do have a huge support. It’s not like a dictator can be a dictator without any support.
One person? Probably not a lot. 1,000 people? Well that’s different.
You can absolutely make a massive difference with just one person. People really underestimate how much importance one leader is…
You do have to worry about the election after any assassination though lol.
Assassination would just make Trump into a MAGA martyr. They would be riled up and energized.
You would end up with MTG as Vance’s VP or something equally horrid.
I’d rather he die from a heart attack or a lightning strike on the golf course.
Yes, then the next question is, whom would they rally behind after Trump? We can see a chain of command for the line of presidency, but without Trump, there’d be a power vacuum at the top of his cult. Either it gets filled with an acceptable substitute, or the obligate-followers in his fandom won’t know where to direct their energy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if such a power vacuum created drama. Would Musk still be pulling so many strings in the government if Vance were president? Would he find a way to usurp even more unconstitutional government power, like how he controls DOGE? Would Vance tolerate Musk’s intrusions at all?
Or would his loyalist followers rally behind someone completely different, like a media personality? They’re looking for charisma in a leader, after all, and neither Vance nor Musk have that the way Trump (or someone professionally on TV) does. It’s possible some right-wing boner rises up through the crowd. Then, since Trumpsters naturally orient themselves toward the biggest dick around, he (Trump’s successor would almost certainly be a “he”) would get all their attention.
I have to wonder. P2025 has hit the ground running. Wouldn’t they have a contingency in place for just such an occasion? I’d bet they already have someone up their sleeves for the eventuality of him passing on his own. There is definitely someone up their sleeves for if we have another election. I do think there would be a vacuum. I think it would be short lived. We all suspect the gop is falling in line due to blackmail material. Their relief of the blackmailer being dead would be short lived when they realize he didn’t actually hold the cards. They’d all fall in line behind whoever the back room tells them to.
I’m reminded the example of the people’s will and the assassination of Alexander II. One person doesn’t change a system. On the other hand taking out all the billionaire donors that craft a system, well that might be something else. They could just buy a new leader.
What the fuck is this comment bro? Killing people is wrong. Trying to use videogame logic as your excuse is disgusting.
Yes, it is. So when there is someone going out to kill a large number of people, what should we do about it?
TIL the allies of WW2 are evil.
Sure, the Japanese invaded my ancestral homeland, done the horrible massacre in Nanjing, but “killing people is wrong” so I guess my ancestors shouldn’t have fought back and let them slaughter my people?
🤣
So you hate them so much you became like them? Flawless logic bro.
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Removed by mod
You’re right. My ancestors are evil, and they shouldn’ve just kneel to the japanese imperialists and accepted their place as inferior to the japanese people. /s
Yes, Jan 6 murders were very wrong. Tesla vandals are morally superior, I agree wholeheartedly.