A real situation would involve war. A Nazi in a ghetto telling a woman to choose which of her five children will die? He will hand the gun to her, and she must shoot the child; otherwise the Nazi will kill all five.
THAT is a real world Train dilemma, and utilitarianism has no say here, because there is no good choice. Each choice is equally imorral. Probably the only thing the mother could do to absolve herself of the moral guilt she will surely feel is to tell the Nazi to flip a coin.
Well, that is clearly untrue; these sorts of examples happen all the time in war.
The Nazis were well known for presenting innocent people with these sorts of tortuous dilemmas before committing atrocities. I.e., "Choose which one of your 5 children will die, Jewess, or I will shoot all of them." Multiple accounts of these sorts of evil choices having been foisted on folks during WWII exist.
So while the Train dilemma does occur on occasion, I'd argue that in reality, there is no correct choice at all. They are all equally bad if you force someone to make a choice like that.
Why? The point of a proper debate on stage is not to convince the other person. It's to convince the audience. No one believes either Ham or Nye will change their views; that doesn't mean there's no value in an audience hearing their viewpoints and making up their own minds.
I think you have a misunderstanding of the point of a public debate.
The reason why MTG keeps winning this race and other competitors don't even come close is the amount of quality playtesting. Each card goes through a rigorous design process as the sets have to appeal to multiple types of players. The level of Quality Control in WOTC is astounding.
That's actually interesting. The Squirrel-craft deck is one of many infinite combo decks, so usually when playing the real thing and I need to pick a Very Large Number, I just pick Graham's Number.
Well, this isn't entirely accurate. It's true that the chances of any one person believing all the right things with respect to religion are pretty low, but it turns out that many people believe many things in common. At the basic level most Christians believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins. That's 1.6 billion people who believe that. If it is the case that JC died on the cross for your sins, you have a roughly 1 in 5 chance of believing the right thing, which isn't exactly horrible odds.
You know, if Johann Elert Bode, the man who ultimately named Uranus, had any inkling that the naming of the planet in this way would lead to the untold gazillions of sexual puns made with his choice, he would have killed himself.
Well, to be fair, one of the truisms that law enforcement counts on is the fact that criminals are stupid. Not all, but quite a few, and the same goes for terrorists. You have to hope that some of them are dumb enough to make these sorts of mistakes.
I think as in many decisions of this importance many things come into play. Of course when making a decision about whether or not to drop the bomb, Truman probably had some sort of mental list of "benefits" and "drawbacks", and all of the things you mentioned would have made that list.
But at the end of the day, he made that decision primarily because he wanted to "win" the war, and the fastest way to do that with the least amount of US casualties was to drop the bombs.
Well, most of Western Europe was liberated by the Western Allies. The Soviets were well on their way to Berlin by the time we landed on D-Day, but the Soviet job at that point was made infinitely easier by the fact we were keeping the Nazis quite busy in the West, and much of the Soviet ability to transport supplies to the front was helped immeasurably by vehicles provided by the Americans. yes, the Soviets did bear the brunt of the figthing.
The Soviets started fighting Japan as fast as they could...but it wasn't to help us...it was because they wanted territory there before we could seize it.
There's a very interesting take on the Soviets entering the war against Japan. They did it very very late, and were actually still fighting the Japanese for a few days after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The details on these engagements, from the Soviet perspective, can be found here.
Yes, they still have responsibilities. Homicide is still illegal for an infant. The same for an invalid. The fact that they are unable to commit a homicide doesn't mean it's not illegal for them.
Slashdot Mirror
That never exists is the real world though.
A real situation would involve war. A Nazi in a ghetto telling a woman to choose which of her five children will die? He will hand the gun to her, and she must shoot the child; otherwise the Nazi will kill all five.
THAT is a real world Train dilemma, and utilitarianism has no say here, because there is no good choice. Each choice is equally imorral. Probably the only thing the mother could do to absolve herself of the moral guilt she will surely feel is to tell the Nazi to flip a coin.
It's possible that neither choice is morally correct, and that a person is placed into a situation where both choices are equally immoral.
Well, that is clearly untrue; these sorts of examples happen all the time in war.
The Nazis were well known for presenting innocent people with these sorts of tortuous dilemmas before committing atrocities.
I.e., "Choose which one of your 5 children will die, Jewess, or I will shoot all of them."
Multiple accounts of these sorts of evil choices having been foisted on folks during WWII exist.
So while the Train dilemma does occur on occasion, I'd argue that in reality, there is no correct choice at all. They are all equally bad if you force someone to make a choice like that.
Both your post and his are quite funny. And stupid.
Why? The point of a proper debate on stage is not to convince the other person. It's to convince the audience. No one believes either Ham or Nye will change their views; that doesn't mean there's no value in an audience hearing their viewpoints and making up their own minds.
I think you have a misunderstanding of the point of a public debate.
The best, of course, is the 1-turn kill using Flash and Protean Hulk, which would kill you BEFORE YOU TOOK YOUR FIRST TURN.
"In response to you taking your first draw step, I kill you."
Hard to pull off but highly amusing.
They re-restricted Flash after that.
The reason why MTG keeps winning this race and other competitors don't even come close is the amount of quality playtesting. Each card goes through a rigorous design process as the sets have to appeal to multiple types of players. The level of Quality Control in WOTC is astounding.
That's actually interesting. The Squirrel-craft deck is one of many infinite combo decks, so usually when playing the real thing and I need to pick a Very Large Number, I just pick Graham's Number.
Ah, but now the real question... what if his name is Joseph Akinyede and he is NOT a scammer? And his post is the REAL DEAL!!!
You are a complete idiot.
I only read 33% of your post so I have no idea what you are talking about.
Well, this isn't entirely accurate. It's true that the chances of any one person believing all the right things with respect to religion are pretty low, but it turns out that many people believe many things in common. At the basic level most Christians believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins. That's 1.6 billion people who believe that. If it is the case that JC died on the cross for your sins, you have a roughly 1 in 5 chance of believing the right thing, which isn't exactly horrible odds.
You know, if Johann Elert Bode, the man who ultimately named Uranus, had any inkling that the naming of the planet in this way would lead to the untold gazillions of sexual puns made with his choice, he would have killed himself.
Well, to be fair, one of the truisms that law enforcement counts on is the fact that criminals are stupid. Not all, but quite a few, and the same goes for terrorists. You have to hope that some of them are dumb enough to make these sorts of mistakes.
I think as in many decisions of this importance many things come into play. Of course when making a decision about whether or not to drop the bomb, Truman probably had some sort of mental list of "benefits" and "drawbacks", and all of the things you mentioned would have made that list.
But at the end of the day, he made that decision primarily because he wanted to "win" the war, and the fastest way to do that with the least amount of US casualties was to drop the bombs.
Well, most of Western Europe was liberated by the Western Allies. The Soviets were well on their way to Berlin by the time we landed on D-Day, but the Soviet job at that point was made infinitely easier by the fact we were keeping the Nazis quite busy in the West, and much of the Soviet ability to transport supplies to the front was helped immeasurably by vehicles provided by the Americans. yes, the Soviets did bear the brunt of the figthing.
The Soviets started fighting Japan as fast as they could...but it wasn't to help us...it was because they wanted territory there before we could seize it.
There's a very interesting take on the Soviets entering the war against Japan. They did it very very late, and were actually still fighting the Japanese for a few days after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The details on these engagements, from the Soviet perspective, can be found here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAAb8Plf20I
That whole series on the Soviet perspective is amazing.
welcome our new Japanese over...oh, wait...
Careful...hipster-hating is the new cool thing. And slavishly doing the new cool thing...makes you a hipster.
Yes, they still have responsibilities. Homicide is still illegal for an infant. The same for an invalid. The fact that they are unable to commit a homicide doesn't mean it's not illegal for them.
Graham's Number. That's a good one.
Not necessarily. There are tons of stupid people who are too stupid to be malicious.
REALLY? On a thread like this and you really have to invoke Godwin's law so soon? Really?
Well, you guys did it once, you can probably do it again.
Why would you refer to him as a leotard? Is that an insult?