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trolley problem

Started by billy rubin, March 07, 2023, 03:21:37 PM

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billy rubin

Quote from: Asmodean on March 07, 2023, 07:16:51 AMThe next person does not find the trolley problems difficult? (The basic one would be a train barreling towards a intersection with a bunch of people on the tracks along its intended trajectory and like one person on the other set of tracks. You are at the switch. What do you do?)

what about the trolley problem?

what if the choice is beteeen one person and one person?

an old person and an infant?

mother teresa versus pol pot?

the happiness of omelas versus the misery of the child?

are there alternatives to pulling the lever?


"I cannot understand the popularity of that kind of music, which is based on repetition. In a civilized society, things don't need to be said more than three times."

Asmodean

Among valid approaches is doing nothing.

You can walk away neither a murderer nor a saviour.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

Tom62

I think there is no clear answer. It all depends who are on these tracks and what your "feelings" are about these persons. For example I won't mind running over both Mother Theresa as well as Pol Pot. Sometimes walking away may be the best solution.
The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract.
Robert A. Heinlein

Asmodean

That would also defeat the moral dilemma. "I do as I will" is in that sense very akin to my "I'll let the train go along its route."

Although, there are circumstances where I may have pulled the lever, diverting the train. For instance, I would contemplate switching its course if there were unavoidable casualties along one route, while along another, there were none.

Still, I don't find the moral dilemma difficult. It becomes a little more complicated if we account for a chance of derailment/damage to those on the train, but assuming a robotrain, it... Really can be that simple.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

The Magic Pudding.

I don't have a problem pulling the lever.
I do have a problem with that Star Trek crap about not "playing god".
There is no god, so just shut the fuck up Bones.
I'll use what sentience I have to minimise vicissitudes of an uncaring universe, might get it wrong but on average, I think it'd be better by my measure.  Maybe for the cowardly the guilt of inaction is less than that of action.

Asmodean

There is no guilt in inaction though, unless said inaction is in fact a deliberate act.

"Not my problem."
-Millions of people die horribly.

Two separate realities, those. They converge in the realm of could-have and should-have. The moral question then comes to play when you choose to act in whatever manner. (For instance, and to address my own default position; "I shall do nothing because reasons," rather than "Walking along, singing my song, minding my business, doing no wrong")
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

The Magic Pudding.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 09, 2023, 09:36:43 AMThere is no guilt in inaction though, unless said inaction is in fact a deliberate act.

Ye, undoubtedly, probably, maybe.

There's those who embrace hippy rainbows and ignorance as their lifestyle though.
First granddaughter is coming June/July, I'm booked in for a Whooping Cough shot.

Pointy finger, guilty! should of known!!

Do you know what you're on about?

Not really

Just bluff it out then.

A fish is guilty of being a fish, maybe not for all the fish things it does.

That's deep.

No one

The only problem I have is, this won't kill enough hoomans.

Asmodean

Quote from: The Magic Pudding. on March 09, 2023, 11:23:01 AMA fish is guilty of being a fish, maybe not for all the fish things it does.
Hmm... Vesuvius is totally guilty of burying itself a Pompeii in ash... But not really. Even had it the capacity to understand the consequences of a nice, firery eruption, it went boom because sometimes, volcanoes do. Whatever was in its path at the time... Just was. Wrong place - wrong time... Unless, I suppose, one's ambition is to be preserved in ash for some archaeologist to stick a shovel into the petrified butt of in a millennium or two.

In any case, that would be the mountain's imaginary first-person perspective. Now, let us say that you could stick a cork in it, saving Pompeii, but causing a catastrophic eruption elsewhere. That is where them pesky trolleys... Do... Trolley-things? So... Suppose you could. What would the world today have been? Would one of the descendants of those who died have figured out cold fusion back in 1927? Would another have started a World War Zero decades before the First? Would the lot of them ended up as potters and tilers and smiths and cooks, doing "little more" in the grand scheme of things than pass their professions as last names down the coming generations?

Veil of ignorance is a powerful thing, and when faced with an on-the-spot decision, it can be difficult or even impossible to account for the unintended consequences of your success or failure. Whether you embrace it or not... Ignorance is your lifestyle. And mine. And their. In fact, I will go so far as to say that whoever says it is not must in some way be religious - shoving the responsibility up the imaginary ladder, or uncaring - not accepting any responsibility to begin with. If you can both understand the scope and implication of your ignorance and maintain a hippie-rainbow attitude about it, then this avatar of compartmentalisation bows to your skill in that regard.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.

The Magic Pudding.

Quote from: Asmodean on March 09, 2023, 03:22:57 PMIf you can both understand the scope and implication of your ignorance and maintain a hippie-rainbow attitude about it, then this avatar of compartmentalisation bows to your skill in that regard.

I'll posit functioning humans don't freak out like a calculator with a divide by zero issue.
They have an override that lets them do the reasonable, the possible and just shrug at infinite complexity.

Asmodean

I, on the other hand, am situationally capable of dividing by zero. In certain ring cases, for example.
Quote from: Ecurb Noselrub on July 25, 2013, 08:18:52 PM
In Asmo's grey lump,
wrath and dark clouds gather force.
Luxembourg trembles.