Everyone can delete exactly one person

[Xenocidius]

Let's imagine a world in which everyone is given the ability to permanently 'delete' a single person at will. They can only use this ability once during their lifetime. Deleting a person will permanently remove them and any physical traces of their body from the world, effectively killing them. Because of the nature of deletion, any deletion you make cannot be traced back to you - there are therefore no legal repercussions. Everyone is, however, aware that everyone has this ability.

What would society be like? How would it function? What would crime be like, given that rapists and murderers would run the risk of their victim deleting them before they could do anything?

Now let's extend it a bit - what if the ability triggered automatically if an attempt is made on your life? That is, it would kill your would-be assassin (only one). Now what would crime be like? Murder in the traditional way would still be possible, but would require either knowledge that someone has used their ability already or for someone to sacrifice themselves.

[Dm]

I believe that society would probably be a tad bit more calmer, but out of fear than anything. People would still steal and commit crimes, and a lot of them would be killed. That way the society could easily understand that the person who "deleted" the attacker, robber, rapist or whatever was the same victim. It could be punishable or not, but it would depend on how serious the society, that has seen hence deletion happen a lot (because I believe that some people would abuse this, even if it's a 1 in a lifetime, like we do with most things) would treat that self-protection out of the deletion.

But yes, crimes would still happen. They'll always happen. They'll just have to be more hidden, from away. I don't know how crime would be like because I don't really know how far does the "deletion ability" needs to know about the user, like think of his traces or just know his name or simply know that he's there. But it'd be less existent out of fear, but of course, still happens.

[OldTrees]

Imagine a world where assassination became cheaper than a meal.

Imagine a world where the first murder cannot be punished.

[The_Mormegil]

Imagine a world where assassination became cheaper than a meal.

Imagine a world where the first murder cannot be punished.

It would lead to a society where the bonds between people of the same "tribe" (social group) are held above everything else. People who do not live their life for the tribe are deleted or killed or sacrificed or whatever. If the deletion is automatic, you would have people sacrificing themselves for the good of their tribe. Producing new babies would be the number one priority due to the number of people killed by the system. Women would be relegated to birth duties and would be required never to delete anyone to preserve the ability and be protected from possible assaults. Wars between tribes would be decided by surprise, you wouldn't trust anyone except those in your group, you would attack only when in great numerical superiority. Truces would be rare due to the risks involved. Any group growing too large would crumble on itself, or more likely send part of itself to colonize a new area to keep the numbers manageable.

We would have evolved more akin to insects than to humans.

[Camoninja]

Spoiler for too many questions:

Does the person deleting someone have to be able to see the deletion victim?
What happens if several people were involved? For instance, two people have a vial of poison, for some reason too heavy to lift on their own. Do they both die, and does the poisoning victim know if his deletion was triggered?
What happens if someone throws a knife? Does the knife keep going?
And has anyone read the Wheel of Time series? If so, the Tinkers who swore never to hurt anyone for any reason, including self defense- would some group like that exist? How long might it last?
And does deleting as aggression count as an attempt on a life, and trigger a defense deletion?

Who would be willing to sacrifice himself to allow someone to be murdered? And if that happened, would anyone be willing to sacrifice his revenge mechanism to finish that someone off?

I imagine it would be difficult to start any murder chain, but once it started it would be impossible to stop, resulting in a giant feud with a few factions, until only a couple of people living under a rock, who know nothing about the war, would survive.

[mesaprotector]

Wow. That's a really intruiging question.

One thing that I notice - whether or not you've used your deletion would become the deepest, darkest secret possible.

I'd also be horribly afraid of what would happen with insane people. Since means and opportunity are already there, suddenly people would occasionally die randomly, with no real cause at all. It would be a terrifying world, at least from our perspective.

I imagine people would also be very, very polite (as happened historically in "cultures of honor", meaning societies where dueling was an accepting part of life). You wouldn't want to insult a hot-tempered person and have them delete you. Although fortunately the number of deletions is limited to one.

[vrt]

Bye Xeno!

[Gandora]

i think i mostly agree with mesaprotector.

but i will think about it later. however, definitely an interesting question.

i think one could make a good story and/or manga out of it. reminds me a little of death note, maybe you know it?

this could becomes even more interesting if you could gain more "free kills" by killing someone who already lost his protection and he didn't use his skill yet.
so you'd be able to always have at least one deletion.

[agentflare]

Would you have to know the person you were deleting? That element of it changes everything. By know, I mean see them at least once, or know their identity, more or less.

I think there would be less murders but much more white collar crime. The organized crime would become significantly more powerful, and people would be afraid to make controversial decisions.

Would make a great sci-fi novel.

[russianspy1234]

I think the extension of automatic triggering makes your premise a lot less interesting, and actually a little paradoxical.  Does attempting to delete someone constitute an attempt on their life? I would think so, and it would trigger the ability, thus anytime anyone uses the ability they have pretty much sentenced themselves to death.  It also allows you to force a waste of a persons deletion before killing them yourself, even if they know you are behind it.

The most interesting part is that this would make government as we know it impossible.  You would have people gladly sacrificing their use of an ability on unpopular leaders (which leads to the possibility of multiple uses on a person resolving simultaneously).  Society would have to run as a direct democracy on every single issue, but even that fails as people will start eliminating those they know to have different views.  At what age does this ability manifest?  Kids would probably be quite likely to exhaust it in a fit of rage, maybe even on their parents not buying them a video game or somesuch.

[agentflare]

The most interesting part is that this would make government as we know it impossible.

This is the largest implication by far. Obama would have been deleted by some nutjob. Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Churchill, all these men and more would have been deleted. On the other end, Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Mussolini would have all been deleted. The REAL leader would have to hide in the shadows, running the country behind closed doors, with his/her identity hidden.

[DoubleCapitals]

Adding on to this, some humans are rash, naive and/or ignorant, and they will use their abilities in such a way it leads to dissent, war, and eventual desctruction of the human race, for their small actions of taking a live will have huge implications. That world, is even worse than nuclear war.