flamingleg

elites love to paywall access to the upper middle class

national economies handle being welfare states just fine, which isn't so different from what a UBI would be. Also developed service economies live and die by consumption. A UBI would stabilise and stimulate domestic consumer demand.

Where did i claim a moral superiority? where did i rely on emotional appeals instead of argument?

Gross negligence is when you have an assumed responsibility to act and do not. Like if you have a child under your care or maybe a professional duty of care to a patient.

If you were abducted by jigsaw, and forced into making a binary choice between to completely artificially created options, would you get charged with a crime for choosing neither?

If you're going to mix reality into the hypothetical then perhaps it would make more sense to hold whoever tied the people to the tracks responsible? unless there is some irrational reason to construct the stupid hypothetical to begin with...

I was thinking that it was a mistake to respond to you and i can see now that i was correct

you can't just skinwalk through a dream gate! if the t1000 got through it would look like a ditto before transforming or maybe like a metal slime from dragon quest or like a machine elf yeerk from animorphs or like...

the trolley problem is the rigged game. It captures none of the important 'messiness' of the real world and ultimately is used to help you rationalise voting against your own best interests within a 2-party political paradigm

i would intervene with the tortoise, and i'd happily wear the consequences. I'm not obliged to be a pure witness nor am i bound by any kind of prime directive. I can explain to my conscience why an extra tortoise exists due to my actions but i couldn't say the same about the trolley problem without extra information.

For example, if i am being observed then my decision becomes data, which carries its own weight and precedent. If the situation was arranged to view my response, then I am obliged to not participate, to send a signal to the experimenters to not tie anyone up on the tracks for future observers. I condemn everyone in front of me to death but how do i know they won't be killed regardless? whoever arranged the situation obviously didn't value their lives very highly...

it's unwise to negotiate with terrorists, and for similar reasons I would say that it is unwise to participate in a system that legitimises your own destruction

You are not responsible for actions which you do not take, and further, you are not responsible for consequences proceeding from actions you did not take.

The trolley problem is designed specifically to illustrate the simple logic of utilitarianism. It allocates no blame to whoever tied the guy to the tracks, and doesn't usually include any consideration of context. Unlike reality, the trolley problem reduces a qualitative moral decisionmaking to a pure binary, in a complete vacuum. It exists to demonstrate that one number is bigger than another number, with a couple of extra steps. No relationship to reality.

if you intervene you own the consequences. Who tied these people to the tracks? are they watching me decide? refusing to participate in a rigged game is perfectly rational and moral.

think about all the ptsd and moral injury you've avoided. When you meet new people you can present yourself as a good person without it being a lie.

exactly this. Trump is the weakest, least capable adversary the resistance could ever dream to have. Were you expecting the empire to fall without violence?