re: #142 Nyet

Not for me. It’s not a purely logical proposition, it has to do with the connotation of calling something “better”.

The connotation of calling something better is that it is better than the other thing. something that is very very bad is better than is something that is very very very bad. This is what chemotherapy, many military decisions, and heartbreaking choices about survival are made of.

re: #143 Nyet

I also agree that I could have said it using other terms. The idea would be the same.

It is actually a different idea that you are communicating: what it seems like you are doing is making the large claim that there is an equivalence. Your private definition is not a common one.

You may be thinking of the movie moment where the good guy, driven by rage, is about to kill the helpless bad guy when the sidekick steps in and says “No! If you do that we’re no better than he is!” This is rhetoric for the moment to get the guy to stop, and not meant to be an actual claim, since the bad guy often has like blown up a bunch of schools or a planet or something and killing him while helpless would not make the hero just as bad, it would just be bad for him to do.