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Centrists gonna centrist...
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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The problem with the trolley problem is that it makes simplifying assumptions that don't always track to real world situations. For instance, in the trolley problem, what's happening is purely mechanical, whereas with an election, you're empowering an actual person who is able to choose whether or not to kill the people in danger. It's also not a one-off decision, there will be future elections and people will look back at this one to determine what strategies work or don't work, what is and isn't a deal breaker. Furthermore, it's not an individual person making the decision on whether to pull the lever, and many people live in safe states where their vote has no real influence on the outcome. Lastly, the people running are the ones who set up the trolley problem and are ensuring it will keep happening again and again, indefinitely, by opposing any sort of election reform.
So if you want a hypothetical, it's more like: two mad scientists have, together, put you in a cage. Each one has a laser, each of which is powered by one of two hand cranks placed inside your cage. One of them says they want to kill one person with their laser, the other wants to kill five. They both tell you they need their laser to be more powerful to stop the other (while also frequently cooperating). You can choose to power either laser, or you can sit there and do nothing, or you can desperately try to break the cage.
Philosophical thought experiments tell us very little about the real world because they are so reductive, the real world is messy and not so clear cut.
You're analogy missed the part where they can operate without you and Infact the madder scientist wishes you to do nothing. It's why Republicans work so hard in red States to add roadblocks to voters.
You can act on the cage while minimizing harm. Not voting doesn't work, never has, never will.
You can choose non-participation and you can fool yourself that it washes your hands but it does not stop the status quo, in fact it encourages it.
Even with those conditions, I would still do nothing. The "less mad" scientist is still responsible for creating the situation just as much as the "more mad" one. I'm not playing their little game. Strengthening a psychotic killer is not "minimizing harm." Neither has even promised to let me out of the cage (not that I have any reason to trust anything they say), and both worked together to put me there. Your strategy is just to play along with their game and do what they want you to until the end of time.
The biggest problem with your worldview is that you're allowing politicians to be treated as mechanical and immutable. The relation between voters and politicians is a negotiation, and offering unconditional agreement during a negotiation is about the worst thing you can do. The fact is that my moral convictions are the thing that are fixed and immutable, and it's the responsibility of politicians to act in such a way that's congruent with them if they want my vote.
If enough people think like me, then it would be Biden who would be forced into the trolley problem: either cave to our demands and you don't get to genocide anyone but you do get to be president again, or don't cave to our demands and lose. If you think I'm being unreasonably obstinate, well, good. I am a machine that doesn't vote for people who do genocide, I cannot be reasoned with on that point and will continue that function regardless of circumstances or of my own best interests. That's what I'm going to be doing no matter what so make your plans around that.
That's just incorrect and I point to 2016 as the perfect case study for how low voter turn out not motivating policy change.
I empathize that what is happening in Palestine is unforgivable however you're cutting off your nose to spite your face.
If Trump acts as he promises to and accelerates climate change even further, there won't be a hill left to die on.
2016 is a great example of what I'm talking about. Hillary lost because she ran a bad campaign. But liberals only blame the left, because to them, as I said, the actions of politicians are immutable and set in stone. This inability to self-critique only leads to doubling down on bad strategies and failing to improve.
Biden is absolutely terrible on climate change. He literally just imposed a massive tariff on EVs and solar panels, for instance. We're completely fucked regardless of who wins.
You and I seem to operate on different definitions of "unforgivable." If there "isn't a hill left to die on," then I will die on the plains.
Well the plains will be flooded, so I think you know, the other commenter maybe should've put it along the lines of, there will only be hills left to die on.
Perhaps a more pertinent metaphor than we would otherwise care to admit.
I'm pretty sure everyone in my circles blamed the rampant obvious disinformation campaign that the public was ill educated to parse and see through.
He's only terrible because he has to contend with a Congress that does not allow him to act which is why you need to appeal to Congress.
What you are choosing will kill everyone.
Lol, he used to be a member of that Congress for decades and was just as bad as the rest of them. I've always found it hilarious the way everyone just decided to pretend that he did a 180 on all the awful stuff he'd caused the moment he was nominated.
If Congress is capable of constraining the president to the point where he can't do anything, then I don't see why Trump would be such an existential threat. You can't have it both ways of pretending that the most powerful man is actually powerless to do anything while also saying that someone else getting the exact same position would be the end of the world.
There's all sorts of things Biden could do if he wanted. He just doesn't want to. And the fact that he never wanted to was always very obvious from his record. He has always been terrible, people just pretended he wasn't to ease their cognitive dissonance with voting for him.
Will my refusal to vote for Biden end all of humanity? You know what, maybe it will, who knows. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter, because I am just a machine that doesn't vote for people who do genocide. No amount of rhetoric or fear-mongering will change that, any more than you can persuade a vending machine to give you an item with words. The only thing that I will accept is actual policy concessions.
Well I mean that's kind of a bad thought experiment too, yeah, because I really like lasers, and me personally I'd want to talk about a laser that's so powerful and efficient that it can kill someone just with the power from a hand crank. Like, that's an insane laser, that has to be like, an extremely efficient highly calculated phased optical array, that's some science fiction level technomagic, there. I'd also wanna know, why the human test subjects, you know? Are they horrible criminals, or, are they clones without brains, or p-zombies, or like what's up there? I don't think any ethical self-respecting scientist would wanna test out their shit on some random variable humans like that, and that shit wouldn't be really like, publishable in a paper, I would imagine. Supplementary questions are maybe like, why am I the one that has to power the laser from inside the cage, rather than them having like an Igor to do it for them, are they just going to kill me afterwards, are they going to kill me if I do nothing, what's the deal there?
This whole scenario smells pretty fishy to me, I'm gonna go with like, this is probably a milgram experiment style of thing, to me.
Though, through tough, thorough thought, this experiment kind of falls flat as an analogy, because the lasers both power up randomly and will kill people no matter what I do, and neither crank really does fucking anything, so it's more like you're just the guy in the ludovico chair, and you have funny little cranks you can turn if you want, as like a distraction from the fact the lasers are going to kill everyone no matter what you do.
Thought experiments are not known for their realism, and I don't have a problem with picking it apart as long as you would also pick apart the original trolley problem. However:
I literally specified mad scientists.
Oh yeah I guess I missed that. I mean, I dunno, I guess this sort of brings up a question, right, of, can the scientists not be mad but also still be ethical and self-respecting? And, does it require a degree to be a scientist, or can you just sort of be one by nature of engaging in the scientific process? Because somehow I can't imagine a scientist that would pull this sort of thing off to have been able to actually graduate.
Also yeah I'd definitely critique the trolley problem. It's a metaphor for like, different ethical philosophies more commonly, but kind of counterintuitively I find that the ethical philosophy modeled as the one in which you don't pull the lever, is oftentimes the less problematic philosophy. Not as modeled in the problem, but just sort of, as it actually works out. Deontology is based, I guess.
More than that though, like, what is this, the 1920's? Is there a mustache twirling villain running around tying people to trolley tracks? More than that, we still have trolleys? Why is it a trolley, and not a train? Trains require a much longer amount of time to stop, trolleys go pretty slow, so I imagine they could stop for a person on the tracks quite easily, probably even if the brakes were cut. How have I found myself to be the one pulling the lever in the first place, have I been wheeled in on a gurney by this mustache twirling character, or have I just found myself at the lever at an inopportune moment seconds before the trolley crosses and kills? If it's the latter, I wouldn't be able to predict my reaction, most people wouldn't be able to, it's a spur of the moment emergency decision, it's like deciding whether or not you try to push someone out of the way of an oncoming bus or something, it's not really a reflection of your moral character as much as your reaction time. If it's the former, I think we could all blame the mustache twirling villain for whatever the outcome may be regardless of whatever decision I make in this stupid saw style trap.
So, I dunno, trolley problem, kinda sucks.