Comment on So um, america just started another war in the middle east. We're going to need a shit ton more memes to americans from the nightmare they are enduring. Thanks in advance...

• Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  It pisses me off this, for political point scoring, abusive misapplication of this specific philosophical question to a situation which does not at all match the criteria for it.

  This is not a trolley problem because:

  • It’s not a single decision after which there is no walking back on it, rather it’s a cyclical choice which happens every 4 years and a lot of what was done by the candidate elected in once cycle can be undone in the next (as the Republicans frequently demonstrate when one of their gets elected after a Democrat).
  • It’s not a single person making a decision, it’s millions of people all at the same time and it’s not even the average of their choices that gets executed (that would require Proportional Vote) but it’s done using a weird mathematical formula, so there are tons of situations were no matter what one’s choice is (or even not choosing at all) it makes no difference whatsoever.

  Portraying this as a trolley problem is misleading and manipulative.

  The closest philosophical or game theory example to an election is a cyclical “Ultimatum Game” between voters and politicians only it’s in the best interest of politicians that people don’t see it that way (as they would start punishing politicians for not dividing the pie in a way that favors people enough) so instead their propaganda has pushed for decades this falacy that it’s an “trolley problem” (and it’s companion, the idea that people must “chose the lesser evil”).

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• WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Christ, do they not teach the trolley problem anymore?

  It’s honestly quite funny and downright sad that you would quote the trolley problem. There’s a reason it’s brought up in ethics courses. The whole point of the trolley problem is that there is no correct solution to it. Different ethical systems arrive at different conclusions. But here you are, going, “fuck how it’s actually used, I’ve decided the trolley problem proves that utilitarian ethics is the correct answer!”

  In a utilitarian ethics framework, you would choose to run over the 1 guy or choose to vote for Kamala. In a respect for persons ethical framework, you would take no action and would refuse to vote for either Kamala or Trump.

  You’ve completely failed to learn the core lesson of the trolley problem.

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  • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    What are you talking about? In any ethical framework, the trolley problem presents you with the conflicting guilts of action and infection. The ethical frameworks don’t do anything but justify whichever guilt you choose.

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    • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      medium.com/…/the-trolly-problem-utilitarianism-vs…

      If one were to take a utilitarian standpoint, the means are justified by the end, which from a utilitarianist perspective, is the maximization of benefit. Hence, for a utilitarianist, whatever option guarantees the outcome of the maximum benefit is what is moral. Therefore, in the trolly case, a follower of classical utilitarianism would say that it is morally permissible to sacrifice 1 to save 5.

      The deontological perspective in contrast, advocates for the means justifying the end. This, for a deontologist, the morality of the action should be based on whether the action itself is right or wrong under a series of rules, rather than being based on the consequence. In this light, a follower of deontologism would argue that it is morally impermissible to sacrifice one to save five because making the choice of having to kill someone is inherently wrong.

      Again, this is the entire point of the trolley problem. No one actually give a shit about the hypothetical trolley. The whole point is to explore how different ethical systems can lead to different outcomes. There is no “right answer” to the trolley problem.

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      • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        How does that have acting to do with what I said? What I said was

        In any ethical framework, the trolley problem presents you with the conflicting guilts of action and inaction. The ethical frameworks don’t do anything but justify whichever guilt you choose.

        When did I say there was a right answer?

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• over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  That theory works great in hindsight, but before the election the orange turd was promising to stop wars, not start them.

  Sure we all know he’s a liar now, but before the election, going on their campaigns, how could anyone be sure which track would actually have more bodies in the future in that Trolley Problem.

  You can’t predict the future, so that’s like presenting the Trolley Problem as if the switch is 10 miles before the tracks split.

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  • captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    What about his first term would convince you Trump wasn’t a liar?

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    • over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Fuck homie I dunno, I didn’t have television through his first term.

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      • slackassassin@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        Is online, found Lemmy, popping off as though informed, but only outlet for information is the damned tele. Weak excuse is weak.

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  • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Uh, dude’s been a known liar for decades. He made himself known well before 2016, even more so for the next 4 years. We all said this was going to happen, no one else is surprised. You were warned.

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    • over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      Fuck homie I dunno, I didn’t have television through his first term.

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      • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

        I don’t watch TV either. Did you have Internet?

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  • Passerby6497@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Wow… All I can say right now is that I’m continually amazed at the lengths uninformed voters go to justify being willfully ignorant about basic facts of the candidates…

    That theory works great in hindsight, but before the election the orange turd was promising to stop wars, not start them

    Why would you ever believe that, knowing the people that surround him, his history of aggression instead of diplomacy, or the support of Russia and Israel, two murderous regimes actively killing people in wars they’re waging?

    Sure we all know he’s a liar now,

    If you didn’t know he was a consummate liar before the election, you chose to be ignorant of his history. Or did you think the man who lied or missed the people Over 30,000 times in his first term had a sudden change in behavior?

    but before the election, going on their campaigns, how could anyone be sure which track would actually have more bodies in the future in that Trolley Problem

    By knowing any of his history? Like, we knew who he was associating with. The people who wrote project 2025 were clear on what they wanted to do. We knew from the previous administration that he would target racial minorities and anyone lgbtq+. He showed last administration that he was basically in bed with Israel, so we knew he would be worse for Gaza.

    Anyone actually informing themselves about him would know his horrible past and that he would have been more deadly.

    You can’t predict the future,

    A quote comes to mind: “the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior,” and literally everyone paying attention predicted he would start a war of some kind. After all, we knew that in Iran specifically, they were aiming for regime change at the very least. This is an article for less than a year ago, months before the election

    On Iran, Project 2025 advocates a markedly more confrontational stance, denigrating diplomacy and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in favor of barely veiled advocacy for regime change. The document outlines a new security architecture in the Middle East that builds on the Abraham Accords but undermines those efforts by deliberately making no mention of the Palestinian people and promising to defund the Palestinian Authority—a sabotage of any hopes for a Palestinian state. As the past year has tragically demonstrated, continued neglect of the root causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only benefit Iranian proxy recruitment efforts and risk continued violence, including attacks on American troops and installations.

    …

    Iran: With the Iranian nuclear program revived by the scuttling of the JCPOA, Project 2025 would now boost Tehran’s recruitment efforts in the region by deliberately sabotaging any hopes for Palestinian statehood.

    And for added relevance to this very article

    At a time when the doomsday clock is already set closer to midnight than ever before due to “widespread and growing reliance on nuclear weapons,” Project 2025’s solution is to ramp up the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The United States and the Russian Federation have not been in a more precarious nuclear posture since the end of the Cold War. The lapse of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019 and the uncertain future of the New START Treaty, which is set to expire in 2026, further exacerbate tensions and raise concerns about a renewed arms race. In the Middle East, Iran is potentially days away from nuclear weapons capabilities after aggressively stockpiling uranium following the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the JCPOA. In East Asia, China has rapidly expanded its nuclear arsenal and advanced its missile technology, aiming to reach parity with the United States by the mid-2030s. North Korea has continued to enhance its own nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities, conducting frequent tests and increasing the range and precision of its systems.

    So we definitely knew what was coming. Anyone saying otherwise is grossly uninformed or lying.

    so that’s like presenting the Trolley Problem as if the switch is 10 miles before the tracks split.

    Maybe if you had a CCTV monitor showing you the split and the people who were tied to the tracks on the other side.

    This is just a desperate excuse to justify your choice based on willful ignorance. You don’t get to shirk the responsibility of your choice or the consequences thereof.

    I know you won’t like it, but better to learn the hard lesson now, than repeat it again in the future, right?

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  • slackassassin@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Bruh. Everyone with an ounce of awareness knew he was a liar. Since the fucking 80s this was well known. Known then, known now.

    This future was so predictable that it was outilned in back to the mf future.

    Believing the campaign of Biff is not an out.

    This isn’t some unknowable conundrum. And it’s not the trolley problem when you know damn well that whose manning the switch will drift both tracks.

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