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Post by dividavi on Aug 7, 2017 2:45:26 GMT
It's apparently a part of Kryptonian ethics never to kill any living entity. That Super Prime Directive got discarded whenever it was convenient as demonstrated by Supergirl in Action Comics #287. Apparently it's OK to destroy thinking beings if they're not composed of protoplasm: Then there was Bizarro, introduced in Superboy #68. Bizarro was originally an imperfect duplicate of Superboy and was the result of an accident by a local Smallville scientist. Is Bizarro alive or not? The eminent scientist says no, and Superboy agrees with that assessment. But the thing gets up and moves around. There seem to be chemical reactions that propel Bizarro. Sure sounds like life to me, but then I'm not an eminent scientist. The creature even generates thought balloons to show what it's thinking. Doesn't that indicate the presence of mind, consciousness, a soul? It sure does to me. Anyway, Superboy decides to end Bizarro's existence but before he does he explains to the creature why it's moral to do that. Superdumb question: Why does Superboy offer an explanation? If the creature's not alive its destruction has the same moral worth as smashing a misbehaving lawn mower: none.
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Post by dividavi on Aug 7, 2017 2:49:26 GMT
Finally, we have a confrontation between Superman and Urko the Terrible. Here's what Urko has to say about himself: Urko thinks he's alive and says that he is. What's Superman to do with an intangible foe? Kill it of course. What else?
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Post by chalk2 on Aug 7, 2017 2:56:34 GMT
I guess it just goes to show that while he is not an Earthling, he is still only Human.
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Post by dividavi on Aug 7, 2017 3:47:28 GMT
I guess it just goes to show that while he is not an Earthling, he is still only Human. It's more than that. It's a demonstration that people profess unshakable allegiance to rigorous moral standards yet they violate them whenever convenient. Take Star-Trek where they have their Prime Directive, a policy of non-interference with less advanced cultures. Later, at least on Star Trek-Voyager, they invented the Temporal Prime Directive which forbade altering history. Things labelled as Prime Directive sound inviolable but Star Fleet captains casually disregarded them. As Captain Janeway said on Voyager regarding the Prime Temporal Directive, "To hell with it." Another example might be the applicability of Holy Scripture, considered by many as unalterably true. You can ask those people how they reconcile the admonitions of Jesus against divorce with their own tolerance toward termination of the marriage union created by God. Then there's the US Constitution and indeed most constitutional documents in the world. They are casually ignored and the American examples would include the RICO laws and the legal barriers towards sex offenders.
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