[Z]

Originally Posted by lostalex

pretend we could resurrect the dead, they could testify in court as ghosts and point to exactly who murdered them.

or maybe a more realistic scenario, we could analyze brain matter, and see people's memories after they die. they have a way to analyze people's brains in an autopsy and we could see their exact memories and everything in their brains.

But interpreting people's memories again would be down to humans, who are prone to error - the first time I was assaulted in my life I was walking along a well lit main road at night time and was approached by a group of guys, one of them punched me in the face twice and I fell onto the road, there was a car there sitting at the traffic lights when it happened. I was also completely sober. Do I remember the colour of the car? No. The number plate? No. The guy who punched me's face? No. The number of guys in the group? No. You lose a lot of the details when something happens to you really quickly like that, I don't even know if I'd trust the ability to have someone's memories unless it was a perpetrator carrying out a long period of abuse, and even then...

It's not that I think life is so valuable that it's a crime in itself to take it away, more that I don't really believe that human beings can devise a foolproof system of proving guilt and being able to categorically euthanise people who are 100% guilty - if that system existed, we'd have it by now or at least be working towards it, but there aren't even any signs that we might get to that point one day... as has already been said, I do resent that I'm being taxed partly to support people who are uselessly sat behind bars and I do think that maybe using them for labour might be a better idea so that they are at least contributing actively to the economy but then I don't think state sanctioned slave labour is the way forward either... what's happened to me, I used to be so strong in my convictions !