If there is no hell, should we create an ARTIFICIAL hell to punish bad people?

[DetlefK]

https://www.smbc-comics.com/


The same topic was tackled in Iain Banks' "Surface Detail".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Detail
Here, a digital hell has been created. If you have been a bad person, your brain gets scanned and a copy of your personality gets uploaded to this hell and tortured there.

The novel revolves around the question whether this is ethical.
Those against it say that it is unethical, because the person being tortured in hell is not the sinner, just a virtual copy of the original sinner (who is anyways already dead).
Those in favor say that the artificial hell is a necessary evil, because fear of hell prevents crime and excess.

(As the two sides cannot agree, they settle this dispute by war: By waging war against each other in an MMORPG created specifically for this war.)

[ExciteBike66]

1. WOW

I clicked on this post specifically to mention Banks's book!

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

2. I totally love Iain Banks...

Read every one of his SF books although I made a mistake with this one in particular.

I bought it before I went into hospital for a quad-bypass. NOT a great read for recovering lying in a hospital room.

Finished it when I got home. Great book.

We already have a “virtual” hell....Send them to Washington D.C. to help 45.

[Voltaire2]

3. Rec for Ian Banks.

Related issues are explored in Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon series.