Conservative vs Libertarian... Round One... DEBATE!

Fleiur

Well-known member
I agree actually, but I think it's a problem that, in my opinion, has no objectively correct solution; different people will decide different on what is the right thing to do in that situation, even if they otherwise share a moral framework.
It does have an answer:
You are not God. No one has the right to play with people's lives.
 

Bear Ribs

Well-known member
I agree actually, but I think it's a problem that, in my opinion, has no objectively correct solution; different people will decide different on what is the right thing to do in that situation, even if they otherwise share a moral framework.
I agree with you. There's no right answer to it. If a person actually in the trolley problem chose to kill the one, I wouldn't hate them for it. Contrarily if they couldn't bring themself to kill the one and the five died, I still would not hate them.

But here's the thing, the Trolley Problem is a stupid question. It's a mental exercise that's based entirely on eliminating all nuance and choice to pare things down to two options with a single person having all authority to choose life and death, and apparently time to ponder over those options, and yet totally unable to choose a third option no matter what. I would hate the idiot in the trolley for not choosing to yell, blow the horn to alert the people, or some similar action. The Trolley Problem is useful only for vaguely examining oneself, but not very well because you're not in the actual situation and aren't full of adrenaline that's making your reflexes faster than your brain and amping your reactions into fight or flight, and you can take thirty minutes to think it over instead of a quarter second.

Which I tend to think is also the problem with Libertarianism in a nutshell. It tries to simplify extremely complex problems down to the simplest solutions, and in the process loses all the nuance and most of the options that actually make an economy work and make a philosophy interesting. Freedom is good, therefore sacrifice everything else to freedom no matter what.

It's the Diet Coke of philosophies.
 

7 Gold Eye Heals the Wise

The First Weeaboo
Founder
No, I'm fairly certain I already know what you're going to tell me about that. I was more referring to groups like the young earth creationists; who think that evolution is a heretical concept, that the earth is only a few thousand years old, and that the devil put dinosaur bones in the ground to trick the faithful. Or radical Islam, which... seriously, do I even need to go into what they believe?

I'm not interested in stuff that happened over a hundred years ago; even fifty years ago is irrelevant to my concerns. What I'm critical of is what's being done in the name of organized religion now; as well as what was done within the past few decades, as those wounds are still fresh.
>Protestants
>Organized
Well, there's your problem.
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
It does have an answer:
You are not God. No one has the right to play with people's lives.
So you concede that's only an answer, and not the answer?



I agree with you. There's no right answer to it. If a person actually in the trolley problem chose to kill the one, I wouldn't hate them for it. Contrarily if they couldn't bring themself to kill the one and the five died, I still would not hate them.

But here's the thing, the Trolley Problem is a stupid question. It's a mental exercise that's based entirely on eliminating all nuance and choice to pare things down to two options with a single person having all authority to choose life and death, and apparently time to ponder over those options, and yet totally unable to choose a third option no matter what. I would hate the idiot in the trolley for not choosing to yell, blow the horn to alert the people, or some similar action. The Trolley Problem is useful only for vaguely examining oneself, but not very well because you're not in the actual situation and aren't full of adrenaline that's making your reflexes faster than your brain and amping your reactions into fight or flight, and you can take thirty minutes to think it over instead of a quarter second.

Which I tend to think is also the problem with Libertarianism in a nutshell. It tries to simplify extremely complex problems down to the simplest solutions, and in the process loses all the nuance and most of the options that actually make an economy work and make a philosophy interesting. Freedom is good, therefore sacrifice everything else to freedom no matter what.

It's the Diet Coke of philosophies.
And I agree with you, on both counts. The Trolley Problem is simplistic, as is Libertarianism as a philosophy. In fact, I've previously compared Libertarianism to Communism; as they both seem to ignore reality in favor of some idealize utopia where people never act to subvert their perfect systems for personal gain.



>Protestants
>Organized
Well, there's your problem.
Could you elaborate?
 

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