Low Jun Jian

Visionary Architect (according to Grok). Building something important for the 21st century. Resilient and self-aware writer and synthesizer.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

What Is Justice?
The Charlie Kirk Murder Case
A guide to the moral, legal, and civic questions raised by the case

This is not an attempt to decide the case before the court does. It is an attempt to curate the questions the case raises about justice, free speech, political violence, punishment, and the values of a society.

The facts should be decided by evidence and due process. The wider meaning of the case, however, asks us to think about what justice means when emotions are high.

What to Know
1. Theories of Ethics

Put simply, ethics can often be understood through two broad lenses: the result and the motive.

Did an action produce harm?
What intention or belief drove the action?
In a justice case, a third lens matters too: the process. Justice is not only about what happened or why it happened, but also about how guilt, responsibility, and punishment are decided.

2. What Is at Stake

When dealing with justice, we also need to understand the stakes. Justice is ultimately a story of us: what we accept, what we believe is right, and how we apply principles consistently so that when we say something is fair, it actually means something.

In a case like this, the stakes are not only about one killing. They are also about whether a society can condemn murder clearly while still protecting free speech, due process, and the rule of law.

Some Key Questions to Ask

What are the limits of free speech?
Can anyone take the law into their own hands?
Can we tolerate the celebration of murder?
How do we condemn murder without abandoning due process?

How I Would Make Sense of the Case

I would think in terms of the effects different positions would have on the well-being of a nation.

For example, if you believe speech carries risks and so only experts or approved voices should speak on major public issues, would that belief, if accepted culturally, weaken or strengthen a country? How would it weaken it, and how would it strengthen it?

I would also ask what values are implicit in what people believe about the case.

For example, if someone believes dangerous speech can lead to atrocities, the key question is what they believe should be done about it. Should dangerous speech be answered with criticism, law, institutions, or private action?

If someone believes it falls on citizens to end dangerous speech by force, then that suggests they do not interpret free speech as a broad civic protection. It also suggests they do not value rule of law in the sense that due process should decide punishment. They may also believe that leaders or speakers sway the public more than the public is capable of judging leaders or speakers.

A Principle to Hold Onto

A society should be able to condemn murder clearly while still protecting due process, free speech, and the rule of law.

Justice is not only shown by how strongly we punish wrongdoing, but by whether we remain principled when anger makes injustice tempting.

The deeper test is whether we can remain committed to justice even when anger, fear, or certainty makes injustice feel justified.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

It is said that history involves people coming together through stories.

If so, the central element of every good story is transformation.

Therefore, regardless of where we are right now, the successes or failures, a good story of humanity will see us one day achieve more.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

Given there is a conflict, would you say the leaders of the group you can happily condemn are more vicious and ruthless than the leaders of the opposing group who few will dare demand or expect anything of?

We fight for innocent humans because they deserve better but to say certain conflicts do not have both or all parties causing the suffering to innocents is just bias.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

We all aspire to be more.

Nothing is greater than being part of creating a better world.

The imagination and work to realize a better future unites those in the present with the best of the past.

Be part of a connecting thread towards a world with little suffering.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

There is no success if there is no failure.

Those who seek the most success will face the most failure.

Through it all, it is dedication to fundamental truths and our noblest spirits that define our greatness.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

Truth, Justice, Liberty.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

The economy cannot make it so that your minimum wage job gives you a million dollars in just ten years no matter how great a company you work for because then you won't need to work anymore, then who is working for that matter. That is why you need AI and robots.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

Can't believe the guy in that Netflix chess show won a big tournament.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

Ethical question:

A chess fan hoping to disturb play screams the difficult but findable winning move right before the player is about to make a move. What is the fair thing to do?

Relation to current issues:
If I keep screaming for things that are already in the process of being done, can I really claim credit that it finally gets done? Am I not just being like the chess fan, getting in the way of what the professionals are already doing?

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

Cool paper. What do you think about the influence of factors beyond someone's control on their behaviour?, the AI insists I put it as written below:

How do situational pressures, perceived stakes, group identity, threat, competition, or moral licensing influence whether individuals with Benevolent, Balanced, or Malevolent profiles behave inconsistently with their dispositional style? For example, under what conditions might highly prosocial individuals engage in relational aggression or exclusion to protect status, group norms, or moral identity, and under what conditions might individuals with malevolent profiles engage in genuinely prosocial or principled action?

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

If you can successfully defend the fact that university education is a scam, then why not reform education at all levels.

Nobody has the ability to sit and learn for that many hours anyway.

Include more club and mentorship activities. Reduce the mental burden to a minimum.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

The strange thing about art education is the education part.

Art is an expression of the author and has value because it tells us something about ourselves, not because it tells us something we do not yet know.

To truly know yourself is the greatest gift you can give yourself.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

We imagine

coercive and violent revolutions

as answers to our problems.

We seldom channel

clarity and reasoned thought

into our daily lives.

The real revolution

of human history started

but a few centuries ago

when humble but ambitious

individuals thought not

how can I change the world

but rather how do I

properly understand it.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

Precision is so weird to me. It feels unnatural, almost inhumane for people to be precise, though completely necessary at times.

I much rather be authentic than precise. To live with such an honesty that your passions guide and push you to mastery feels more human.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

Human beings look for direction from what seems larger than themselves.

That is not weakness.
It is part of being human.

In a frightening world, people search for something wiser, steadier, and stronger.

The danger is that people may seek authority from those least worthy.

Elaboration:
Those with unusual capacities to understand the world, discipline themselves, build institutions, and create better technologies can forget that not everyone experiences the world as controllable.

For some, modern life does not feel liberating.
It feels vast, unstable, and menacing.

So when they are told there is no higher authority, no trusted guide, no one worthy of being followed, they do not necessarily become freer. Sometimes they become more afraid, more lost, and more vulnerable to whoever offers certainty first.

People will look for safety and direction. The real question is whether they will find it in those who deserve their trust.

That is why leadership cannot only be ambition. It must be stewardship.

It is not enough to say, “People are free to ignore me.” If you genuinely have clearer sight, greater competence, or a steadier moral center, then there may be moments where refusing to lead is itself a failure.

No one needs a new idol.
But where you are able to guide responsibly, you should guide.
Where you are unfit, you should learn.
Where another is better, you should delegate.

The goal is not domination.
The goal is worthy direction.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

What is intriguing about life is that the journey is your own, but your impact is what you do to others.

You can go so fast that you forget to check if you are on the wrong path and go so slow that you miss opportunities that are blatantly there for you to capture.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

Collection of quotes:

A computer can give you the answer but not feelings that require the answer in the first place.

You don't need permission to be yourself. But do not forget of what you can truly become.

What can change is different from what should change.

You can be small and significant, alone and protected, weak and powerful, all at the same time. Give yourself the room to be all these things and more.

Forgetting is part of remembering. You cannot remember what is relevant without forgetting what is not.

If I feel your pain, I will be broken myself. We cannot afford to have everyone broken, but we can try to stop more pain from happening.

A person who never feels pain is someone who begs to feel it.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

The battlefield is clearest on a mountain but the army must be lead from the ground.

[Low Jun Jian @lazaruslow]

The answer to our problems is simultaneously about education and not about education.

It is about education because education expands what we know and clarifies what we see.

It is not about education because human beings cannot be solved like equations.

Elaboration:
We are limited beings, but education allows us to become more capable. The more we understand about the world and ourselves, the more we are able to achieve alone and together.

But education does not remove the pressures built into a situation, or the emotions built into the people inside it.

The mathematician, physicist, and engineer work with the inanimate, but the leader works with truly living entities and deep psychological forces.

To believe that we can simply educate people into perfect order is flawed because education can inform people, but it cannot automatically reconcile their fears, desires, loyalties, identities, and competing visions of what is right.

Therefore, we educate to expand human capability, but we must also acknowledge what education cannot do: it cannot abolish human nature or turn living beings into perfectly rational instruments.