Watashi ga 15-sai de wa Nakunatte mo. - Vol. 2 Ch. 16

[ScarecrowB]

Life back in dark times in human history, living was harsh yet human didn't just die. Just because potentially newborn may have a more difficult life than the average modern one.

It's funny you want the guy to own up to his responsibility when you make him run from the current one. The baby didn't happen by itself, it was made by the actions of two, the man included. Killing the baby is just running from what he has done. The baby's life worth isn't for the man to decide, unless you are morally bankrupt guy that is, only caring about yourself rather than the baby.

Yeah, in those times they rather recovered their investment selling their kids or putting them to work as soon as they could walk (or just send them to the woods to decrease the number of mouths to feed). By anyhow, the other guy above us is right, no need to get offtopic, so let's go back to this edgy manga issue.

 

[danbellucci]

You got it backwards, I meant you can leave hermits be because they aren't hurting the economy nor the ecosystem. But, as anything in life, there can be exceptions, if there's a hermit that is somehow causing a measurable damage then it must be dealt with.

Sorry I misunderstood before.
But I didn't ask you whether it was ok not to murder i.e. leave alone hermits in your view. I asked you whether it was ok in your view to murder hermits. Because on your basis of whether or not someone is a valuable investment to society, since a hermit does not benefit society, it would be ok according to your reasoning to murder one or many. It would also be ok to leave them alone under this reasoning, but still it would also be ok and not bad to murder them.
Which is clearly immoral and shows why the reasoning "It's only bad to murder people if they're a valuable investment for society" is immoral.
Rather it's wrong to murder innocent human beings whether or not they're a valuable investment to society.

 

[ScarecrowB]

Sorry I misunderstood before.
But I didn't ask you whether it was ok not to murder i.e. leave alone hermits in your view. I asked you whether it was ok in your view to murder hermits. Because on your basis of whether or not someone is a valuable investment to society, since a hermit does not benefit society, it would be ok according to your reasoning to murder one or many. It would also be ok to leave them alone under this reasoning, but still it would also be ok and not bad to murder them.
Which is clearly immoral and shows why the reasoning "It's only bad to murder people if they're a valuable investment for society" is immoral.
Rather it's wrong to murder innocent human beings whether or not they're a valuable investment to society.

No dude... it's not about killing for the heck of it. It's about trying to diminish harm to your group as a whole, unless something is harmful to your group don't go looking for trouble. And this is not the place to discuss that, this chapter is about teenage pregnancy and a dude being a piece of shit plus some other bad people in the mix.

 

[wai_ma1]

Why hasn't she gotten an abortion? No offense, but her life situation isn't really good nor proper for supporting a child. Is she even going to be able to support this new life? If not, then to the forceps and bio-waste container the baby goes!

 

[Galder]

what the frigg even is this? why was i following this?? lol

 

[danbellucci]

No dude... it's not about killing for the heck of it. It's about trying to diminish harm to your group as a whole, unless something is harmful to your group don't go looking for trouble. And this is not the place to discuss that, this chapter is about teenage pregnancy and a dude being a piece of shit plus some other bad people in the mix.

earlier you said you said it's ok to kill an unborn child because "For an unborn child the investment is minimal and so will be the losses."
Surely for a hermit the investment is minimal and so will be the losses ?
Do you infact think that unwanted unborn children are harmful or burdonsome to society and that's why it's ok to kill them? In that case the situation is different to the hermit , sure.
But if you or your family member(s) were injured in a car accident and no longer able to work , I don't think you'd think it was ok for someone to kill you. If it was ok to kill anyone who was a net burden to society then it would be ok to kill basically all old people since they no longer contribute productive labour and will use up resources for the rest of their life.
If there was someone whose body constantly emitted clouds of deadly bacterial gas and the only things you could do were shoot him or hundreds of people would die then it would be ok to shoot him. But the average unwanted unborn baby doesn't meet anywhere near that threshold.

 

[danbellucci]

Why hasn't she gotten an abortion? No offense, but her life situation isn't really good nor proper for supporting a child. Is she even going to be able to support this new life? If not, then to the forceps and bio-waste container the baby goes!

because she wants to protect her child. Whatever care she can provide for her child will be better for her child than killing her child.

 

[wai_ma1]

because she wants to protect her child. Whatever care she can provide for her child will be better for her child than killing her child.

Whether you can care and provide for her child should be the perquisite and determining factor for even deciding to having a child. To fail at this is to fail the child even before it's even born, to even have a child in an environment and place where you can't provide or care for it is far more cruel than having the child. She's fifteen years old, underaged and unwise. Not only that, she neither has the long term resources or financials to care for the child, not to mention the lack of mental stability. Abortion would be the way to go in these sorts of scenarios. Life is good, but a painful life isn't.

 

[danbellucci]

Whether you can care and provide for her child should be the perquisite and determining factor for even deciding to having a child. To fail at this is to fail the child even before it's even born, to even have a child in an environment and place where you can't provide or care for it is far more cruel than having the child. She's fifteen years old, underaged and unwise. Not only that, she neither has the long term resources or financials to care for the child, not to mention the lack of mental stability. Abortion would be the way to go in these sorts of scenarios. Life is good, but a painful life isn't.

They didn't decide to have a child, but they did decide to risk creating a child by deciding to have sex.
It's actually far more cruel to murder a child than to continue caring for a child that you have already unintentionally created at 15 years old.
The vast majority of unwanted children consider their lives worth living, so your insinuation that the lives of children born to not-ready parents are so bad that it is in their best interests for them to be killed is generally untrue.

 

[gronkle]

Life is good, but a painful life isn't.

Life has its own value, it's why killing is the most grave thing one can do. Killing children especially so. Devaluing life and turning us into economic units with our right to exist dependent on our pleasure or pain is the most degrading innovation of modernity.
Poor children deserve life. Mentally ill children deserve life. Disabled children deserve life. Alleviating suffering is often noble, but the very baseline is our natural right to life. Killing out of convenience is moral degeneracy that devalues us all. We do not have the right to judge the worth of a life. Leave that to God, or whatever you conceive as the embodiment of that which Man should hold no dominion over.

Addendum: I was once like you. I'm still an atheist, but I see what my former convictions have done to my society and others'. I saw it especially when I realised I was making excuses for things I had convinced myself of, that necessarily lead to conclusions that appalled me. Once I was done with that and self-examined without being dogmatic to ideology, and with the benefit of age and experience, I mellowed out and came to conclusions where I no longer have to justify killing outside of what is necessary for safety and justice.

 

[Arlo]

Investment for the parents and the state (mostly the state if there's free health care), yes. Hermits aren't bothering anyone so there is no harm there (might need to check on a case by case basis). Homeless is a mixed, bag, you either invest in a state wide-mandatory-compulsory reformation program or do an holocaust. Heartless? Yes, but running a nation shouldn't be done based on emotions.

Anyone who presumes to decide whether or not someone else's life has value is a foul, loathsome piece of shit.

 

[ScarecrowB]

earlier you said you said it's ok to kill an unborn child because "For an unborn child the investment is minimal and so will be the losses."
Surely for a hermit the investment is minimal and so will be the losses ?
Do you infact think that unwanted unborn children are harmful or burdonsome to society and that's why it's ok to kill them? In that case the situation is different to the hermit , sure.
But if you or your family member(s) were injured in a car accident and no longer able to work , I don't think you'd think it was ok for someone to kill you. If it was ok to kill anyone who was a net burden to society then it would be ok to kill basically all old people since they no longer contribute productive labour and will use up resources for the rest of their life.
If there was someone whose body constantly emitted clouds of deadly bacterial gas and the only things you could do were shoot him or hundreds of people would die then it would be ok to shoot him. But the average unwanted unborn baby doesn't meet anywhere near that threshold.

But I do agree to be put down if I become unable to care for myself, I made that very clear to my family.

 

[wai_ma1]

They didn't decide to have a child, but they did decide to risk creating a child by deciding to have sex.
It's actually far more cruel to murder a child than to continue caring for a child that you have already unintentionally created at 15 years old.
The vast majority of unwanted children consider their lives worth living, so your insinuation that the lives of children born to not-ready parents are so bad that it is in their best interests for them to be killed is generally untrue.

You're correct, they didn't decide and it was an accident considering she didn't even think to use a condom. However, this wasn't a situation where both parties were lovey dovey and decided to have a kid together, not in the slightest. The child was created in the context of an absolutely bat-shit mental situation between both parties that's continuing even now. Where very transparently neither created this child with a clear mind or foreseeable future. It wasn't thought out, nor was it birthed from love. Now considering you and I don't have the statistics to argue for or against your claim about unwanted children, I'm not going to even touch that. That's good for those unwanted children, however, we're not looking at a large dataset of unwanted children, we're talking in the context of this manga. Frankly, I do think it's cruel and I do think in this situation it would be in the best interests for both parties to abort, or at least put the baby up for adoption. Let's look at the situation objectively here. It's absolutely abnormal and absolutely fucked. If this was was any other situation, I wouldn't be arguing for abortion. Hell, I was a happy unplanned accident myself. I know that having an abortion isn't something you do on the fly because you feel like, but something you do as a last resort when there aren't other options and the option is either painful for you or the child. Women don't just have abortions willy nilly or for shits and giggles. Anyways, back on topic. This situation is fucked and that's why I'm arguing that in this specific case abortion (or adoption) should be considered. Shiina is a fifteen year old girl. I think people are forgetting this little detail. No fifteen year old girl, especially in modern day Japan society, should be saddled with not only the trials and pains of pregnancy but also the responsibilities and expectations of caring for a baby to adult-hood at such a young and confusing age. That's a recipe for a disaster. Shiina isn't prepared to raise a new life, hell, she's barely even lived her own. She's not prepared. Physically? Yes. Mentally and emotionally? Absolutely not, she has the mental stability of wet tissue paper in a puddle with severe issues that aren't even a nanometer close to being resolved or managed. Can you really say that a girl like Shiina, with all the things she's done and the way she thinks, will be a good mother? Shiina hasn't finished high-scool, her education, future, and career prospects would go down the drain if she kept the baby. This isn't America where there are lots of programs and benefits for teen mothers, this is Japan. She would be stuck working part-time jobs, barely scraping by and barely being able to provide while being ostracized and looked down upon. That is, if Iwashita sticks around Speaking of Iwashita we have the most important thing of all, her baby daddy. We clearly see that Iwashita is not sticking around, that man is not loyal. He's not mentally well either. As for the most important thing of all, Shiina isn't going to be a good mother both internally and externally. We can already see the cycle in motion, she's going to become her Mom. Alone, full of issues, and full of resentment. I don't mean to sound heartless, but as I said, if this were any other situation then I would argue against termination. Frankly, my stance on abortion is as follows. I believe abortion should be accessible to all women, no matter the reason. That's simply because it's better to bring a child into this world for these two reasons

1. That child, while unplanned, will be wanted and loved.
2. That child was brought into this world intentionally planned and will be loved.

I would rather a woman abort an child unwanted child, rather than keep and resent them that will most likely perpetuate a cycle of violence and issues. I'm not arguing for abortion because all lives are differently valued and who cares if a few babies die here and there. No, I'm arguing for abortion in this case because all life does have value and all life should have a good one but in the face of a life that will not be those things because of the environment and situation, is it not better to let that soul pass on to a different life with a better chance for a happy one? Is that not more merciful? Wouldn't you rather the soul of Shiina's baby be passed on to a mother who will be more wise, capable, with no resentment?



Now, let's be real. Considering your message history, if you're arguing against abortion because seeing cute high-school anime girls getting impregnated is hot and abortion is ruining your stiffy please say so. I will not judge. I completely get it, imagining a salaryman getting pregnant and having his life completely ruined is hot as FUCK.

 

[gronkle]

Wouldn't you rather the soul of Shiina's baby be passed on to a mother who will be more wise, capable, with no resentment?

You believe in immortal souls, but they are recyclable? Or you believe in reincarnation? What is a soul, to you? Why is it better for them to exist in limbo than experience earthly suffering? What assigns a soul, and who are you to judge that assignment inadequate? Is there a limited amount of souls that necessitates their re-use? You have a genuinely strange take that I'm suddenly interested in.

 

[wai_ma1]

Life has its own value, it's why killing is the most grave thing one can do. Killing children especially so. Devaluing life and turning us into economic units with our right to exist dependent on our pleasure or pain is the most degrading innovation of modernity.
Poor children deserve life. Mentally ill children deserve life. Disabled children deserve life. Alleviating suffering is often noble, but the very baseline is our natural right to life. Killing out of convenience is moral degeneracy that devalues us all. We do not have the right to judge the worth of a life. Leave that to God, or whatever you conceive as the embodiment of that which Man should hold no dominion over.

Addendum: I was once like you. I'm still an atheist, but I see what my former convictions have done to my society and others'. I saw it especially when I realised I was making excuses for things I had convinced myself of, that necessarily lead to conclusions that appalled me. Once I was done with that and self-examined without being dogmatic to ideology, and with the benefit of age and experience, I mellowed out and came to conclusions where I no longer have to justify killing outside of what is necessary for safety and justice.

I'm not denying any of that, the mere fact that your heart beats and you can breathe is a testament to your value as a life. However, because we're all equal means we have the equal playing field to do both good and bad. I don't agree with the sentiment

We do not have the right to judge the worth of a life

We absolutely fucking do, we do it all the time. Hell, despite that talk I bet even you have judged a life's worth. The fact we do that is how we keep society and life in order. Otherwise we'd have pedophiles, cannibals, necrophiles and rapists roaming free in the streets and there would be nothing you or I could do about it. Don't forget, just because your life has worth doesn't mean you're impervious to other's worth and the only physical Gods we have are our two hands and which ever hand goes first is the hand that has dominion. If you don't put up a fight, that's it. However, this situation isn't killing out of convivence, if anything it is mercy if you consider everything that's happened in the story, Shiina, and Iwashita. Killing out of convivence would be if Shiina constantly, intentionally and consciously slept around and kept aborting every time she saw a + on her pregnancy test.

Oh, you're into closeted gay grunt salarymen getting high on drugs, getting addicted, and being raped by their bosses before getting pimped out? Nice! Joking aside, I'm not even an atheist. Personally, I believe in that we all have souls and they're constantly cycling in and out of our plane of existence. We live, we die, we live stronger, we die harder, we eat, we're eaten. It continues on and on and on, and the only thing that changes is who's stronger and who fights harder. So it is better to be reborn with a fighting chance in a happier life rather than be doomed from the start. Also, again, have you fucking SEEN Shiina? Like, are we reading the same manga.

 

[wai_ma1]

You believe in immortal souls, but they are recyclable? Or you believe in reincarnation? What is a soul, to you? Why is it better for them to exist in limbo than experience earthly suffering? What assigns a soul, and who are you to judge that assignment inadequate? Is there a limited amount of souls that necessitates their re-use? You have a genuinely strange take that I'm suddenly interested in.

Yes. Yes. Yes. One's perspective being. To experience a new earthly suffering or pleasure. Our experiences. Observation applied to ethics and whether or not their heart beats. Nope.

 

[gronkle]

Yes. Yes. Yes. One's perspective being. To experience a new earthly suffering or pleasure. Our experiences. Observation applied to ethics and whether or not their heart beats. Nope.

So a soul is "one's perspective being". How does that square with reincarnation? Does that perspective continue as the soul is reborn? If not, how is it the same soul? I don't think you understand my point about limbo, but I'll leave it at that. If souls are not limited in number, are new souls created for the growing human population? Can they be destroyed? Will the ending of life on earth result in infinite souls in limbo?

Hell, despite that talk I bet even you have judged a life's worth.

Of course I have, but I'm not a perfect man. I still have no right to do so.

Don't forget, just because your life has worth doesn't mean you're impervious to other's worth and the only physical Gods we have are our two hands and which ever hand goes first is the hand that has dominion. If you don't put up a fight, that's it.

Strikingly materialist for a believer in souls.

However, this situation isn't killing out of convivence, if anything it is mercy if you consider everything that's happened in the story, Shiina, and Iwashita. Killing out of convivence would be if Shiina constantly, intentionally and consciously slept around and kept aborting every time she saw a + on her pregnancy test.

The only act that can be called a mercy killing is killing someone whose injuries are incompatible with life and whose final moments are imminent and painful. A child in gestation is not asking for mercy. In the context of the plot, burdening Shiina with the guilt of infanticide in order to extricate herself from a bad situation she could learn from and grow is near last on the list of actions I'd consider reasonable, personally.

Personally, I believe in that we all have souls and they're constantly cycling in and out of our plane of existence. We live, we die, we live stronger, we die harder, we eat, we're eaten. It continues on and on and on, and the only thing that changes is who's stronger and who fights harder. So it is better to be reborn with a fighting chance in a happier life rather than be doomed from the start.

This is admittedly an alien perspective, unmoored from any spiritual or material understanding I've ever come across in my life, so I give you points for originality at least.

 

[Gustbk]

It’s been a year…I barely remember anything about the story but don’t really want to re-read.
Can anyone give me a very basic clifnotes version of the story?

 

[wai_ma1]

So a soul is "one's perspective being". How does that square with reincarnation? Does that perspective continue as the soul is reborn? If not, how is it the same soul? I don't think you understand my point about limbo, but I'll leave it at that. If souls are not limited in number, are new souls created for the growing human population? Can they be destroyed? Will the ending of life on earth result in infinite souls in limbo?

Of course I have, but I'm not a perfect man. I still have no right to do so.

Strikingly materialist for a believer in souls.

The only act that can be called a mercy killing is killing someone whose injuries are incompatible with life and whose final moments are imminent and painful. A child in gestation is not asking for mercy. In the context of the plot, burdening Shiina with the guilt of infanticide in order to extricate herself from a bad situation she could learn from and grow is near last on the list of actions I'd consider reasonable, personally.

This is admittedly an alien perspective, unmoored from any spiritual or material understanding I've ever come across in my life, so I give you points for originality at least.

Yes, a soul in life is a culmination of life experiences until death within a life, a perspective of a set amount of time. Nope. Yes, It's the same container but not the same self. A soul is a blank canvas until it reaches the plane of life to gather those experiences that constitutes it as a lived soul. Trust me, I do. Don't assume of others without solid proof. Nope, we're constantly recycling. People die constantly, people are born constantly. It loops and recycles very quickly. Nope, the law of conservation of energy, we are simply is until we are. Yes, that would be the end of life. Yet you do it anyways, as I've said before we do have a right to judge others, it's in our nature. There is nothing wrong with judging other's life worth. We do it all the time and we do it for good reasons, and bad reasons. Damn right I am, just because you have a soul doesn't make you better or worse than me and vice versa. No soul is special, and all souls weigh the same until they pick up a rock if you get what I mean. Mercy killing is mercy killing, so long as there's an element of mercy (absconding a life from a lesser experience) it is mercy killing. Using your beliefs to say there's a level of mercy killing that's somehow more morally just than other's is putting yourself in a position of spiritual authority that we both know neither of us has. Abortion exists between an objective good and bad, as it encompasses neither. Abortion is neither a good thing, nor is it a bad thing. Again, Shiina? She's fifteen she shouldn't have to give up her life to raise a baby she didn't ask for to "learn and grow from a bad situation". A life isn't a situation for the sake of others, that's a horrifyingly complacent and frivolous way to view souls and the lives that they inhabit. Especially, again, alone with little education and prospects. Would you do it? Would you honestly raise a baby if you were a fifteen year old girl with little on you resource and future wise? There is a reason abortion exists. Now this is just me, and my beliefs but you don't have a soul until you gain a sense of conscious self. Your soul is your self, a culmination of your memories, experiences, knowledge and perspective. Because of that, the life that you're inhabiting with your soul is considered a life because you are here typing this. Before any of that, your soul is in a state of can't and could. Shiina would be doing the equivalent of crumbling a piece of blank paper (aborting the fetus), then say crumbling a piece of long lived art (killing a five year old child), that is purely because the soul hasn't existed to paint on that paper. Nothing was destroyed, nothing was even created.

so I give you points for originality at least.

Yours isn't very original, but it was still somewhat interesting. I'm giving you half points.

 

[EchoGirl]

I mean he's right. It's not about having the moral high ground but about owning your own fuck ups. He has a wife and a kid that didn't ask for any of that so he gotta see that obligation to its end. He now has an additional obligation so that sucks for him but that doesn't cancel the previous one.

She should get an abortion tho. Nobody asks to be born and nobody should be born to such shitty parents and have to live such a shitty life. Better end that kid pain now than having them endure 80 years of real life (some might want the adoption route but that can also backfire terribly).

i mean, unless the abortion laws in japan are diff, isn't she too far along? unless the guy snaps and just tries to kill her

tho i know she decides to live on her own with her kid