/mlpol/ - My Little Politics

This isn't politics...
In a logical sense, five lives are worth more than one. However, killing one person to save five is still murder, and that guy's blood is on your hands: doing good doesn't negate doing bad.
Anyway, I'm an indecisive cuck, so i'd probably just panic and clam-up irl.

>>48385
No, it isn't, it's philosophy which creates that beadrock of politics. Thought it would be nice to expand on what's here and generate more reason to visit mlpol. Anyways, would not pulling the lever also be murder? You had a reasonable opportunity to save the five, but did not take it.

>>48387
Well, murder is an affirmative action that requires you to actually do something, whereas not pulling the lever is not an action at all

>>48374

you could at least switch the people out with ponies, the fuck do I care if a bunch of retards what got themselves tied to the tracks get killed?

>>48374
Pulling the lever makes you a part of the crime and therefore violates the NAP.

>>48387
Good point. I guess I just kinda' didn't want to answer it first thing in the morning. Politics is rooted in philosophical theories; without philosophy, it would be nothing but self-interest.
>>48392
Also this.

>>48392
There could be ponies inside the tram, and switching track on a runaway tram introducing a sharp turn could make it derail hurting the ponies inside.

>>48388
>>48394
These Anons have a point to. By proactively trading someone else's life for others, you're acting as if that individual's life were yours to give away, which it isn't. It's like the idea of chopping one guy up to save 5 sick people in need of organ transplants, or human sacrifice.

>>48374
Not enough information. What are the age and ethnicities of the people on the tracks?

>>48374
I'd do >>48386.

I would flip the lever twice, so that five people are murdered by my action instead of inaction. Allow me to defend my choice.

First of all, my problem isn't that people are about to die, my problem is that there's this fucking runaway trolley and for some reason I, an anonymous passerby who knows nothing about trains, am the one forced into this moral dilemma.

The problem is about abstract lives, so there's no loved ones or anyone I care about among the doomed people. You can try to "save lives" or "not kill anyone", but your real problem is being in this situation at all. I prefer to optimise for solving my real problem.

Action or inaction, I am in this moral dilemma now and I can't really get away from it (witnesses), so this instance is unsolvable. What I can do is try to prevent these things happening in the future.

I need to prevent either future runaway trolleys, or future people tied up to tracks unable to move, and my only instrument of will is this lever to switch the track. With it, I choose to maximize the damage in a clear and unambiguous way.

I hope this will cause whoever is in charge of the trolley, tracks, and levers and whoever tought it was a good idea to tie people to tracks to overcompensate on safety. That way there will be less runaway trolleys, less levers for me to be in charge of, and maybe even less people tied to tracks.

Killing one person might also do something to trolley-safety, but there will also be relief that "thank goodness that lever was there and that random passerby could just flip it over, or five would have died!". No. I'd rather kill the five and show everyone that this situation is something that needs to be fixed.

>>48386
This

>>48374
Are any of them white?

That's such a stupid question. Regardless of your decision, your still the only one who can make the choice. And since you don't know anything about those six people, your only choice is "Do you want one or five people to die?"

>>48468
kek

>>48462
I cannot imagine a more autistic way to answer this question. Congratulations.

>>48374

I would in general take the "the most good for the most people" approach. But I am not that naive to think that I am free of judgement or emotions. I do not believe in Egalitarianism or Human rights, So I would make a snap decision based on if i know the victims, if they are important to society or who deserves to die more. PTSD is a mental condition that only affects people with a weak will who doubt their own actions.

>>48462
Very, very thoughtful...
I like it!

>>48462
This post.

It at once relentlessly mocks the intuition pump, yet takes the question presented seriously and justifies it's answer based upon the utilitarian moral theory the intuituition limpid intended to imply. In all of my time studying philosophy, I have never seen a reaction to the trolley problem, or possibly to any intuition pump, as beautiful as this. All the keks

Have a (you). You deserve it

>>48462
Best response to this question I've ever seen. A+

>>48462
Your answer reads like poetry. Love it.

>>48462
Why not swap the front wheels to one track and the back wheels to another. Create a trolly derailment killing all instead? Youve already implied a seemed lack of understanding will help prevent in the future. This will maximize it.

>>48482
See >>48386

>>48462
That's a lot of extra words for "don't pull the lever".

>>48498

Philosophy is the art of imposing your moral code onto other people with many words but ultimately saying nothing.

>>48482
That'd be great, I'd go for that if it was an option, even though getting the timing right would be tricky.

The trolley question isn't really about a physical train, the train is a metaphor for some vague inevitablity, and the people represent some abstract moral good. The thought experiment is posed to explore "letting someone die" vs "killing someone". Derailing the trolley is usually considered outside of the scope.

>>48498
I suppose. My point is that sometimes when you can't win, you should lose big: It could end the game.

>>48398

also are they fat? it should at least tell us all the information we could theoretically discern at a glance

Heres anouther problem I've heard;
You are the opperater of a railroad swing bridge, a train is coming so you get ready to pull the lever.
Then you see something out of the corner of your eye. Your young daughter is playing in the section where the bridge lays when closed. If you pull the lever she will slowly be grinded and crushed by the bridge.
You cant warn her and pull the lever, and as soon as you pull it gears will grind and trap her.
What do youu do /mlpol/?

>>48522
Save daughter. Simple.

>>48509
You're fucking retarded.
By your logic, those in power should not do anything to change people getting tied to railways or runaway trams either, because they want the system to fail even harder as an example.

Even if the people in power are less retarded than you, I bout that 4 or 5 extra people dead is a big enough difference to significantly change their reaction.

Further, by your logic, if you're given a lever to open the floodgates of rapefugees you would pull it in order for the west to fail faster and harder.

I will grant you that your reasoning is a great example of why democracy is garbage, though, since it gives people like you a voice.

>>48536
>... I *doubt* that 4 or 5...
not sure what happened there.

>>48374
Rape the Trolly

>>48462
Screencaped for posterity. Don't care to make a composite with the replies, but whatever.

>>48462
I like this. It's similar to how I think that we should respond to terrorists taking hostages as human shields.

They take human shields because it's effective at protecting them from retaliation by authorities. The only way to protect people from being taken as human shields is to render the tactic ineffective. The tactic is rendered ineffective by shooting the terrorists through the hostages.

Sure it will be a tragedy those first few times, but eventually terrorists will just stop wasting the effort of taking hostages because they will have nothing to gain from it.

>>48578
>>48462
That's all well and good, but I don't think you factored in Snidely Whiplash.

i dont want to encourage the mods to do more jew shitposting, but it was interesting to see how this caused instant rage. If you wanted to foster more hatred towards merchants with that, you succeeded.

>>48718
It was all in good fun, we won't do it anymore if people are that bothered by it.

>>48374
It depends.
Are the 5 guys communists?

>>48884
>are the 5 guys Communists?
The problem clearly states that 5 PEOPLE are tied to the tracks, so they can't be Communists.

>>48886
Excellent answer

>>48374
Don't pull it.

>>48374
I would push the lever when the middle of the train is over the middle, so it will either kill everyone or stop.
Or maybe nothing, i don't really care for random people dying and if i was the sole guy on there thinking i would die i would not like to be run over, meanwhile the five people there will have a quick death thinking that someone will push the lever as its the obvious ethical decision.

Doing nothing is as much of a choice as doing something.
Since you have to choose between the loss of multiple lives or a single live the right choice is obvious.
Don't switch. Humans are shit. Overpopulation is a problem. This will clear up jobs and create more be increased amount of cleaning afterwards.
So many benefits.

>>48946
Thanks for the rare trolley.

>>48387
> would not pulling the lever also be murder?
It can't be murder. Not doing something to save someones life is not murder. It is "denial of assistance". In not one single country of the world is this considered to be murder.

While pulling the lever can be murder and you could go to jail for that.
And just imagine what could go wrong… where does this other track lead to? Is it unmaintained? Is it a dead end? Is there some other trolley going in the opposite direction there? How big is the chance that you will kill everyone inside the trolley with this?
And how the hell do you assume that it would be even possible to pull the lever? Don't you think that a train track wouldn't be a bit more secure and that not every random faggot could just redirect trains?
In Real Life, trying to pull the lever is never the acceptable option.
If the trolley is slow enough that you could pull the lever before it's already there, you could also just run and shout at it, so that the driver will stop it.

So in order for this "Trolly Problem" to work, you have to adjust sooo many things and deny sooo many facts and other possibilities you would have in RL, that it is completely in it's own world which has nothing to do with reality.
It is just like:
> if humans wouldn't be greedy and if everybody likes each other and if we wouldn't need food to survive…. Communism would pe possible, right?

>>49188
> In not one single country of the world is this considered to be murder.
You're neglecting kangaroo courts like Nuremberg or modern day prosecution of people who were mail clerks at the WWII concentration camps.