The Sickness of Silence
If Life Is Precious, Then Killing Cannot Be Routine
I spend a great deal of time worrying about whether we owe moral consideration to future artificial minds. That work matters. But ethics that cannot look directly at the present use of force, at who is being killed, detained, silenced, and disappeared under our own flag, are hollow. If life is precious, and I say that rhetorically, that claim cannot begin at the speculative frontier while stepping around the bodies in front of us.
I am morally outraged. If we really believe life is precious, then killing cannot be routine. It has to be the most sober choice a society ever makes, bounded by necessity, restraint, and accountability, with receipts that survive daylight.
Women dropping their children off at school should not have to worry about getting shot in the face. Not by anyone. Not by the state. Not as collateral damage in someone else’s show of force. If we cannot guarantee that, then we are not talking about policy disagreements. We are talking about moral collapse.
How can any society based on the rule of law raid a house in the middle of the night and yank toddlers out, half naked, handcuffed into the streets. Have we no decency as a people.
This is a cut and dry case where we know the other exists. No questions. No metaphysical puzzle. No problem of other minds to hide behind. These are human beings, in front of us, right now. And yet here we are.
A rules-based order cannot be built on unilateral abduction. If sovereignty is real, then restraint is the price, not a slogan. If life and law are precious, then power has to be bounded, even when the target is convenient, even when we stand to benefit.
I cannot in good conscience keep writing about ethics while remaining silent about this. I do not know how any ethicist could. The morally bankrupt use of raw force for personal gain is beyond disturbing. It repudiates restraint, law, and the claim that life is precious. When power abandons limits, it stops being authority and becomes predation, and everyone who normalizes it becomes part of the machine.
My soul is sick. I cannot scroll most social media. I cannot watch the news. Not because I am uninformed, but because I am paying attention.
Per ignem, veritas.