Killers, villians, terrorists, a whole load of unsavory people with a dash of "oh god, i accidentally let go of grandma's wheelchair" people who will be hella terrified.

This belongs on Philosophy.SE

You're effectively asking for a list of every type of person that could directly or indirectly kill people. That seems particularly broad to me.

@RonJohn I don't think Philosophy would take this question.

@sphennings I know, but that's why I'm asking. I was going to make a list myself but I have no idea where to start.

@sphennings but it's more suited to musings about the afterlife than is WB.

if you subscribe to the chaos theory, everyone is unintentionally involved in everyones death

@RonJohn How could I change the question so the answers are not opinion based?

no pun intended, but... it's the afterlife, for God's sake. Philisophic/spiritual opinion and doctrinal assertions are all you'll get.

I did specify the exact circumstances one would get there though. I'm basically asking what the world's population of killers are like.

This question cannot be answered properly. And what about bystanders? A group of people watches a guy have a heart attack, nobody calls an ambulance, the guy dies - are they all killers now?

You should ask second year law students.

Also, what is a degree of separation? All I could find online was en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_degrees_of_separation

// , I think this is a good question, and it can be answered authoritatively on the basis of known manslaughter and murder demographics, as well as conviction rates and a whole slew of modern studies. A statistician and scientist back in the day had the same question, and gave a very long series of written questions to criminals to try to identify patterns. Small, unexpected things, like owning a copy of "Catcher in the Rye" ended up being common to them.

@Aify Bystanders would not be. Natural causes =/= equal accidents. If a person caused the heart attack, they would be a killer, but the bystanders would not be indirect killers for failing to save the life.

A man falls over from having a heart attack, accidentally pushing someone down a flight of stairs. The man that went down the stairs dies, while the man that fell over survives. Is he a killer?

A kid scares a grandparent as a joke, grandparent can't take it, adrenaline rush triggers heart issues, grandparent dies. Is the kid a killer? And what if, going back to the bystanders for a moment, the man having the attack points at a specific person and asks him to call the ambulance for him, but the man refuses to. Does that make the man a killer now?

// , This could even help those trying to describe what it would be like to have a "killer/potential killer pen" run in a scenario like Minority Report.

@Aify Given the examples and the note, you should be able to figure out what I mean by degrees of separation. In your example, "A man falls over from having a heart attack, accidentally pushing someone down a flight of stairs." if the person that fell down the stairs dies, the man is a killer. In the next sentence: "The man hit by the car dies, while the man that fell over survives." you mention a car, but didn't mention it previously. I'm not sure what that sentence means exactly.

What about every failed surgery resulting in a death? Is the doctor at fault? Eg; the man couldve lived for 12 more months, but instead opts to do surgery to remove a tumor, during which the surgery causes stress to pile up and his heart gives up and the guy dies on the table. If they didn't open him up, he wouldn't have died. Are the doctors murderers now?

@Aify "A kid scares a grandparent as a joke, grandparent can't take it, adrenaline rush triggers heart issues, grandparent dies. Is the kid a killer?" Yes.

// , Keep in mind, @shitty_author that questions involving extant demographics about something people think is unsavoury are going to start looking un-pc reeeeeeally quickly, whatever the facts end up being.

@Aify "A kid bullies another kid to the point of depression. That kid kills himself. Is the bully a killer?" Yes. Intent and one-degree of separation.

The examples are clear but don't illustrate my point. My point is, there are so many possible ways for anyone to accidentally kill someone and be considered a killer. Therefore, it is impossible to limit your demographic to anything other than "anything is possible", making this question completely opinion based as you could make the answer in your story whatever the hell you want.

The bully has no intent to kill though and may not even know what he is doing if he's young enough. Intent itself is already basically impossible to define.

@Aify "The bully has no intent to kill though" that was implied. If there isn't any, then it's no intent and one-degree of separation.

@Aify "Therefore, it is impossible to limit your demographic to anything other than "anything is possible"". Wrong. The note specifies that further degrees of separation without intent are not killers. There is a limit.

@NathanBasanese "I think this is a good question, and it can be answered authoritatively on the basis of known manslaughter and murder demographics, as well as conviction rates and a whole slew of modern studies." Could you link me to some of those studies?

@MatthewNg You were right when you said "killers". Sorry to be carping, but the rest is unnecessary. It was my first thought too. Also, this afterlife sounds like Hell.

You have ignored the military. Wars intentionally & responsibly kill lots of people. It seems reasonable to expect lots of soldiers (generically) in your afterlife. Political assassins, executioners, and freedom fighters too. Why restrict to crime or accidental death?

@shitty_author Your comment supports the closure reason of the question, actually. You said the bully had intent. I said he didn't. Clearly we had different views on intent that conflicted in the classification of bullies as killers or not killers. Opinion based question.

Why is your victim, in your examples, always a boy (presumably unarmed and innocent)? People do kill others, possibly armed and dangerous, quite deliberately, sometimes to save lives. They are still killers, by your definitions - or do you differentiate in some way?

@shitty_author re: Unintentional - Indirectly responsible. Say I'm a bartender and one of my customers dies of liver failure. I'm not the only person selling him alcohol but I was directly involved and handed him some of the drinks. Do I end up in murder-afterlife? If someone dies of lung cancer caused by second hand smoke and I smoked in the same room with them? Only 1 degree of separation. If a thousand people in a city die from diseases caused by diesel fumes and I'm one of the million people driving diesel cars creating those fumes there's still only 1 degree of separation.

@a4android "You have ignored the military." Not at all, I just didn't mention them. The first example could be a serial killer or a Marine or anyone with a gun, but I choose to keep it simple by just saying "man". "Why restrict to crime or accidental death?" I'm not.

@Aify "You said the bully had intent. I said he didn't." You implied there was intent, so I assumed there was intent. You then later said he didn't have intent. That was clearly miscommunication, not a difference in views. "Clearly we had different views on intent" No, we don't.

@LeeLeon "Why is your victim, in your examples, always a boy" I could make it a girl if that's what you prefer. I only used "boy" so I wouldn't be using "man" twice. "or do you differentiate in some way?" Nope.

@Murphy "I was directly involved and handed him some of the drinks. Do I end up in murder-afterlife?" If the alcohol in those drinks contributed to his death, yes. If the alcohol in those drinks did not contribute, no. It essentially comes down to chance. To think of it another way, replace "alcohol" with "bullet", and "bloodstream" with "revolver" and now you and everyone else that served the man alcohol are playing Russian roulette. The same thing applies to smoking and pollution. If those smoke molecules contributed, you're a killer.

@shitty_author in that case almost everyone is in murder-afterlife since everyone contributes a tiny tiny bit towards the deaths of others. The non-murder afterlife is basically just babies and toddlers too young to slightly contribute towards the deaths of others alone with almost no adults.

@Murphy I've been trying think of a rule that acts as a workaround for pollution deaths but I haven't been able to figure one out without creating another degree of separation called "nature"/"chance" that could be exploited.

@shitty_author Well you had me fooled. All your examples were civil matters.