Thou Shall Not Kill Anyone

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"Thou Shall Not Kill Anyone" is a short essay by Karl Jones.

Thou Shall Not Kill Anyone

It's all tangled together — killing, misogyny, slavery, war — drivers of the evolutionary neurobiology arms race.

I morally equate slavery with capital punishment with murder. All are wicked.

"Thou shall not kill" must become "thou shall not kill anyone" — while we still have time to save the world.

Not to be too dramatic, we may have centuries, with luck.

Or we may have decades, with climate change and genetic engineering and assassination drones and do-it-yourself weapons of mass destruction and and governance by algorithm.

Or maybe less.

But what are centuries to a boy who watched "Powers of Ten" and learned that "matter can neither be created nor destroyed" and dreamt of playing hide-and-seek among the stars?

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