Serious Would you save your bully?

@blarajan, sorry if I came off grumpy; I was kinda drunk and misunderstood what you meant :P

I simply can't fathom the overwhelming amount of hatred and complete lack of empathy it would take to see someone drowning and say "eh, fuck him."

There are a few fuckers that I would gladly beat the shit out of after they were rescued, but I'd still save 'em. If someone is in grave and immediate danger and you're capable of saving them with minimal effort and at no risk or loss to yourself, you do it. It's part of the basic foundation of any society.
 

WaterBomb

Two kids no brane
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@blarajan, sorry if I came off grumpy; I was kinda drunk and misunderstood what you meant :p

I simply can't fathom the overwhelming amount of hatred and complete lack of empathy it would take to see someone drowning and say "eh, fuck him."

There are a few fuckers that I would gladly beat the shit out of after they were rescued, but I'd still save 'em. If someone is in grave and immediate danger and you're capable of saving them with minimal effort and at no risk or loss to yourself, you do it. It's part of the basic foundation of any society.

It just makes you sound more bad ass on the internet if you say you'd let them die though!
 
I would appreciate it if individuals would stop bullying me into believing their views by way of making fun of me.
 

Brambane

protect the wetlands
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My question was serious. People easily say they would "save anyone's life if they had the power to." To people who said that, does that include Adolf Hitler? Jeffery Dahmer? Osama bin Laden? Richard Chase? Would you save murderers, rapists, cannibals, torturers, KPop artists, and tyrants from death? How far does your compassion and sense of justice and moral responsibility extend in such a scenario? I can say if it was a schoolyard bully I would save them. But a mass-murdering dictator? I'll let fate decide.

So, in essence, I would save... some people. In the OP's story, yes, I would save the bully.
 

cookie

my wish like everyone else is to be seen
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i reckon i'd have the vengefulness to do it were my guilt not force me to save the guy
 

verbatim

[PLACEHOLDER]
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My question was serious. People easily say they would "save anyone's life if they had the power to." To people who said that, does that include Adolf Hitler? Jeffery Dahmer? Osama bin Laden? Richard Chase? Would you save murderers, rapists, cannibals, torturers, KPop artists, and tyrants from death? How far does your compassion and sense of justice and moral responsibility extend in such a scenario? I can say if it was a schoolyard bully I would save them. But a mass-murdering dictator? I'll let fate decide.

So, in essence, I would save... some people. In the OP's story, yes, I would save the bully.
This is a horribly vague scenario. A good portion of the people you mentioned are/were old/weak/small enough that it would not be beyond my grasp to keep them under control until I can locate some sort of law enforcement official. If you were in a position where said person would pose an imminent and possibly lethal threat to you immediately afterwards (someone who nearly drowned isn't going to put up a fight, so I'm assuming some other scenario) then you could present an argument for preemptive self-defense, but leaving someone to die based on past facts when you could put them through a legally binding court system isn't taking the higher ground.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
im fairly certain hitlers gonna get the death penalty in your super great court system anyhow so why not streamline the process

yeah theres a few people i wouldnt save and i would have no regrets about it either
 
So I'll preface this by saying that I've never experienced any real bullying in my life:

I'm not classifying bully as someone that puts you down a couple of times or spreads rumors behind your back. I'm talking about someone that is relentless, day after day making you hate your life. Making you afraid to face the day. These kids exist. Teenagers commit suicide over bullying every year. People talk about suicide happening because people's pain surpasses all methods of coping that person has combined. So someone who has been bullied into that condition has been through some real shit.

I read a kid's story on reddit who talked about how he planned and nearly executed a school shooting. I can't find the thread or remember specifics, but I was totally on the kid's side. He had had his life ruined by 4 guys, and he brought a gun to school to kill those 4 guys and no one else. The entire time I was reading the thread, all I was thinking was "wow, had I been put in that situation, I would have taken those steps a lot sooner."

I don't really buy the whole "taking revenge" is bad argument. I support the death penalty. Why? No rational reason really. Just an emotional "fuck you" response. I think the creep deserves it. Now realistically the bully in our scenario isn't a killer, rapist, or pedophile, but he has made my life a living hell.

So, would I let him drown? Hell yeah I would. And as I place myself there in my mind I think I'd enjoy it too. Maybe give the kid a little hope that you might save him, and then pull your hand back just as you're about to grab him, just to see that panicked look in his eyes. Then, on his way out, all he'd think was "wow, I shouldn't have been such a fucking prick to that kid." He deserves it.
 

Cresselia~~

Junichi Masuda likes this!!
Wow, impressed, impressed.
Most people from China would just leave the person to die whether bully or not.
The difference is that if he/ she was a bully, his/ her photo might end up on the internet and people laugh over his/ her death.

I know it's horrid, but say if I get to see a bully who's dying, I'm not sure at all whether I would save him/ her.
I think my first priority would be wondering whether he/ she will become nice to me after I saved. (As in, whether it's beneficial to me)
 

WaterBomb

Two kids no brane
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Nevermind, it's wrong of me to overreact to others' opinions. I completely disagree with Friar's opinion, but he is nonetheless entitled to it.
 
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There are approximately 4500 suicides per year from young adults. Over half of these suicides have been found linked to some sort of bullying, and bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims. I'm disgusted at your statement:

I don't even want to know what you think we should do with real criminals.
Implications that bullying isn't a "crime" and that there are more severe things we have to deal with is just masturbatory. Rape, murder, and the likes are awful acts, yes; however, simply brushing bullying off which leads some people to take away their life purposefully is such an offensive statement. One of my closer friends was bullied in high school (we didn't attend the same school), especially freshman year, and she was telling me about it a few weeks ago and the travesties that were involved. My point is that if you don't believe bullying is a severe crime, a crime that ruins young adults' mental and sometimes physical health and sometimes makes them pull that trigger, you sir, are just a disgraceful human being.

I honestly pray for you, because you are ignorant and misguided beyond words.
 

WaterBomb

Two kids no brane
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There are approximately 4500 suicides per year from young adults. Over half of these suicides have been found linked to some sort of bullying, and bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims. I'm disgusted at your statement:



Implications that bullying isn't a "crime" and that there are more severe things we have to deal with is just masturbatory. Rape, murder, and the likes are awful acts, yes; however, simply brushing bullying off which leads some people to take away their life purposefully is such an offensive statement. One of my closer friends was bullied in high school (we didn't attend the same school), especially freshman year, and she was telling me about it a few weeks ago and the travesties that were involved. My point is that if you don't believe bullying is a severe crime, a crime that ruins young adults' mental and sometimes physical health and sometimes makes them pull that trigger, you sir, are just a disgraceful human being.

Oh boy, you jumped to a great deal of conclusions there. Bullying is not nearly as severe of a crime as you're painting it to be. I was bullied relentlessly from the point I entered public school right up through the end of high school. I was always the butt of the joke, always being made fun of, teased, and tortured. I never once belonged to a group of friends, never once was accepted into anything resembling a close circle.

However, unlike this younger generation, I didn't have an "anti-bullying specialist" to come hold my hand and wipe my tears every time some other kid was mean to me. I didn't have people telling me I was a unique snowflake and giving me a trophy to make me feel better. My parents were understanding, but rather than incessantly coddle me and stick me in a bubble they let me discover how to cope and deal with bullying on my own. Sure, it hurt my feelings a great deal. Sure, I dramatized it and felt like it was a living Hell. But I never thought of suicide, because I was taught that it is the most selfish act of the weakest cowards. Because I had to find my own answer and learn these lessons myself, I was made stronger. Kids these days aren't allowed to do any of this because they constantly have those around them telling them all the answers and doing the work for them.

Bullying has been going on for thousands of years. It is especially noticeable among children because they lack the mature brain function to understand finer moral points and control themselves. Our parents dealt with it, our grandparents dealt with it, and so on and so on. None of them got the soft pillow treatment these kids are getting today, and they turned out just fine. None of them got the media attention that happens today. The REASON bullying appears to be such an issue nowadays is because we're giving so much damn attention to it. Kids commit suicide because they haven't once in their life been allowed to deal with pain and suffering on their own, because some adult was always there to protect them from it. Every time it happens we get to see some celebrity go on a moral crusade over it, and we have to hear about it on the news for weeks. These people are made into such martyrs that others begin to think that suicide is actually acceptable. I, like you, had friends in high school that killed themselves. Friends that were very close and dear to me before they died. I didn't feel any less pain over these losses than you did. However, these experiences taught me that suicide is not only the coward's way out, but it takes whatever pain the person was feeling and distributes it exponentially back to those who were close to them. You think your life is bad? What happens to your parents when their child is taken away from them? What happens to your siblings? Your friends? Sudden death causes more destruction and ruins more lives in the vicinity than bullying does, especially when it's a young person who has not yet left their mark on the world.

Forgive the rant, but this is something I feel very passionately about. It's a bit hurtful that you were so dismissive of my previous post, and especially so that you made such harsh determinations about my overall character. I accused a person, in my post, of being ignorant and misguided. Negative terms, sure, and I probably should not have been that rude. However, you took that one sentence I uttered and somehow concluded that I am "disgusting" and a "disgraceful human being"? You never even bothered to find out what my true thoughts were, you just took a phrase and ran with it.

Look, we're all keyboard warriors here. We sit at our desks, protected by our computer screens, and spout our opinions freely and boldly as if we're great Sages and Gurus in this world. Truth be told, we're all young and emotional, and sensitive to instigation. We pretend our problems are worse than everyone else's and when they are downplayed or dismissed we become offended and angry. If I was dismissive or ignorant toward Friar, I apologize. He is just as much entitled to his opinion as I am, and it is wrong of me to insult him over it. However, I'd expect the same courtesy of you Dice, as you did the exact same thing to me, except with far less evidence.
 
Are you seriously suggesting that people nowadays think that suicide is acceptable and/or a perfectly cool thing to do in response to bullying? That's the message you get out of those anti-bullying campaigns? Really? Because those young people are just too fucking soft and now they're killing themselves because bringing attention to the issue of bullying doesn't allow them to just deal with it on their own?

Really?

Anyway, back on topic, there are very few situations where I could justify not saving someone from dying, especially if that situation involves no risk of the same happening to me. I'd also like to present another side of the coin here, since I was something of a bully during my school years. It's something I really regret, and to this day it's something I try and avoid doing (granted, it's not something I always succeed at, I'm sure most people who've read my posts realise I'm still kind of a dick). I managed to reach out to some of the people I used to treat like shit at school, most were forgiving, one or two weren't. I don't really blame them for holding a grudge, though I'd be fucking disturbed as hell if they wanted to kill me for what I've done (and let's face it, that's what this question is about).

So basically my question to those of you who think that it's acceptable to kill a bully is this: would you feel justified doing this sort of shit if I were the bully in this situation? Basically 5-6 years of being a bully, causing at least one long lasting grudge, followed by 20+ years of not being a bullying arsehole and generally being an alright kind of person? Are you cutting that life short because you think that bullies can't or won't change, or is it more like you think that death is an acceptable punishment for bullying?

Incidentally Friar, if you did that shit to me, I don't think my last thought would be, "I should've been nicer". It would probably be something more like, "if I get out of here I'm going to kill him".
 

KM

slayification
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This is a really interesting discussion tbh. As someone who has been bullied a moderate/mild amount throughout school (considering I'm gay, I actually got pretty lucky tbh), I do know the feeling of wanting to get back at the people who bullied you. However, I also like to think I have high moral standards (lol) and I can't see myself letting someone die just because they happen to be a douchebag at the current point in time (probably because their frontal cortex isn't completely developed, so it's really not their fault ^^).

Unless...

The ambiguous thing about this question is that it doesn't tell you what you're saving the person from. If I happened to be a trained lifeguard and I saw someone who I knew was a douche drowning in the 4 foot deep side of the pool, I'd save them. However, I'm not sure if I'd do the same if, say, they were running in front of a train and there was a high risk of me dying as well if I tried to save them.

It would be very hard to live with myself if I knew I let someone die when I had the full power to save them without risk to my own life. But if it would put me in serious danger as well? I'm not sure.

Addressing the people who would let them die, I feel like a lot of your reasoning comes from revenge and the feeling of having 1-upped the bully for the final time. In my eyes, though, it would infinitely more gratifying to have the bully know that his life is indebted to you than it would be to have him die and carry that baggage with you for the rest of your life. I think you'd have to be a seriously fucked-up person to be saved from drowning in a kiddy pool and still be an asshole to your rescuer.
 

Lavos

Banned deucer.
Bullying is not nearly as severe of a crime as you're painting it to be.
over 7000 kids in the usa last year killed themselves as a result of being bullied in school. and to be clear, that is only suicides that were confirmed (whether by a suicide note or classmate testimony etc.) to have been caused by bullying. other cases inevitably existed but were not recorded. i dont give a shit if youre a big strong boy who knows how to handle the physical and mental damage that occurs from being bullied relentlessly, and if you are then good for you, but alot of kids dont have that kind of resolve and honestly believe that suicide is the only solution to the incessant torment that they receive day after day. ive known these kind of people before. they dont have high self esteem and the bullying exacerbates their preexisting insecurities. one day this girl was breaking down in history class because she was getting bullied due to being overweight and wearing glasses, next day shes front page of the goddamn newspaper. and guess what happened to her tormentors? jack shit. its people like you who think bullying isnt a real problem, who think that kids should be able to toughen up and "deal with it" day after godforsaken day, that perpetuate the status quo and cause thousands more deaths per year due to your own close-mindedness.
 
Lol at Waterbomb tossing the BACK IN MY DAY card.

So basically my question to those of you who think that it's acceptable to kill a bully is this: would you feel justified doing this sort of shit if I were the bully in this situation? Basically 5-6 years of being a bully, causing at least one long lasting grudge, followed by 20+ years of not being a bullying arsehole and generally being an alright kind of person? Are you cutting that life short because you think that bullies can't or won't change, or is it more like you think that death is an acceptable punishment for bullying?

Incidentally Friar, if you did that shit to me, I don't think my last thought would be, "I should've been nicer". It would probably be something more like, "if I get out of here I'm going to kill him".
Yeah, I would. I don't see it as killing you though, I'm not shoving your head under the water. It's just karma. But then again, I'm an asshole with mental deficits.

It's good to know you're a bully even in death though!
 
So what you're telling me @WaterBomb is...you were strong enough to face life after your torments. Congratulations, and that's honestly a huge accomplishment. But not everyone is you. I remember reading these opinions of yours in the previous suicide thread, and being disgusted there as well. Not everyone who has been bullied can take what you had, but the severely ignorant statements you're making makes it difficult to take your opinion seriously. You underestimate the severity of bullying for what reason? Because you personally were able to take it. You aren't the thousands of other children in the United States who have killed themselves over bullying. If you're trying to suggest the reason all of these kids killed themselves is because they were soft and decided that suicide is the hip thing to do and that they were being stupidly coddled, I strongly suggest you take a step back and legitimately reevaluate your life. You are one person out of millions who have been bullied. Your personal set of experiences and circumstances are not in any way representative of the overall pool of suffering or the experiences of other people.

You likewise insult "anti bullying specialists" and turn the victims into the problem. I honestly can't even imagine what kind of twisted sort of mentality blames children (KIDS) for being too soft to handle torment of a severity that they were not strong enough to cope with. You have legitimately insulted thousands of different children and their circumstances, and it's disgusting to read. Therapists, counselors, and other "anti bullying specialists" are the reason so many other thousands of children don't join the others in the morgue. I am absolutely grateful these people exist because without them my little sister would not. If you're trying to tell me it's her fault, and the other children's fault, for being too soft, needing their hands held, and needing some loving people in their lives because you were able to cope, then I really don't know what to say.

Not everybody is you. This is incredibly fortunate, because if more people thought this way, teen suicide rates would skyrocket exponentially. I likewise pray that you and your wife decide not to have children, nor ever have children in your lives who depended on you, because if they turned to you when they were being bullied and you responded according to these views and your parents' teachings...well, I don't need to finish that sentence. Your torments and problems and situation do not make you an authority figure on the torments of others.
 
Yeah, I would. I don't see it as killing you though, I'm not shoving your head under the water. It's just karma. But then again, I'm an asshole with mental deficits.

It's good to know you're a bully even in death though!
I get that you see it as acceptable, but I'm questioning why that is. Do you think that bullying, if criminalised, should result in the death penalty, or it is just one of those things where it's bad to actively kill someone (whether through the justice system or any other way) but you get to be the one who decides who lives? Or is there some other reason for it?

Also, I'd describe reaching out to save someone but pulling back at the last second just to get off on the panicked look on their face as they drown as a particularly fucked up form of bullying, far more so than being enraged by it happening to you, but hey. Would it be morally acceptable to do the same to someone who wasn't a bully?
 
I had a long post that I was going to submit, but I really don't think it's much worth my time. People are so stuck in their own heads about things based on their own personal situations that it's not worth explaining why I feel the way I do. I'll just say this: if letting a person drown who threatened my life and tortured me enough to the point where I considered just ending it on my own makes me just as bad as they are, I can live knowing that. And for god's sake please spare me the "you're too soft" argument.
 
im just astounded that people would lets any person die. who the fuck are you to judge who lives and dies

*this may or may not be influenced by me recently starting to lifeguard at my local pool, but w/e
 

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