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Multiheaded comments on Thwarting a Catholic conversion? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Exactly. For a sociopath it is very useful to (pretend to?) be utilitarian -- one good rationalization, and anything becomes morally OK.
First, let's kill all our enemies, or more precisely anyone who refuses to obey us. Then, we will build a paradise with infinite utility, because there will be no one to stop us. Net result: huge positive utility. From utilitarian viewpoint, we are the good guys, which means that anyone who opposes us deserves to be killed.
Add some technical details, and you have communism; add different details and you have something else. Focus the attention of people to those technical details to avoid the outside view comparison.
U mindkilled, bro. Yes, that was what the people who called themselves "communists" did in the 20th century. But name any other system, no matter which one, that wouldn't kill everyone who refuses to obey it in certain matters.
E.g. fleeing from a battlefield; every nation that grok'd total war gave its court-martials the powers of swift summary execution in the 20th century. It's what the "communists" were trying to regulate, and from what perspective, and how much, and what processes this led to - that's what you have a problem with, not with the fact of enforcement itself.
Everyone has to resort to murder sooner or later, it's the actual internal details of the system (like the type and amount of murder, and what incentives the "undesirables" have to surrender and avoid it, if any) that make the difference.
You have a good point. But there is a difference between people who see killing others as a regrettable last choice (e.g. in self-defence), and those who see killing others as "no big deal" (sociopaths, and their happy-death-spiralled followers). Although there probably is a continuum.
EDIT: The difference is that a non-sociopathic utilitarian considers a possibility of running on a corrupted hardware, if they are a rationalist, or simply deflect the thought by an "ugh field" if they aren't.