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this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2024
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Here's the reality; we're all playing the trolley problem but it's with real people and unfortunately the only options are kill more people or kill less people. If you know that by not voting you're killing more people then you can't claim you're not responsible for their deaths.
If you really care go out and protest the system after the election. Choosing to let more people die now is a protest but you have blood on your hands.
I'm not, because the trolley problem is a simplistic consequentialist fairy tale that doesn't exist in the real world.
In the trolley problem, you must choose in a way which allows death, because some sinister outside force has created reality in which you are the only person that can intervene in a situation in which one or more must die.
In the real world, you can choose to not kill.
I live in the real world.
I refuse to vote in a way which condones killing innocent people. To condone killing innocent people is against my moral standards.
No, I do not. It is the people who carry out murders who have blood on their hands. There is no trolley, there is no trolley problem, and I am not in control of any level on any tracks. You invent those tracks in order to trap yourself into accept the status quo.
I do not accept the status quo. You and your descendants may enjoy it, instead. I hope you do not find out what it is like to be amongst the innocent who have to be killed because someone else has fantasised a trolley that must run you over.
This is word for word from what I remember that some tankie said about a month ago.
I actually checked the date to make sure I wasn't reading an old post.
Thanks for giving me enough evidence to block you.
No problem!
I bet it wasn't, though, but thanks anyway! You're probably just upset that one of your most recent posts references the trolley problem, and you can tell that I don't respect your lack of interesting or independent thought on the matter. Bye, and enjoy arguing that killing innocent people is in some way acceptable, because you construct hypothetical situations which demand it!
I also won't ask you to prove that my post is word-for-word the same as anything else. We're all on the internet, so we can surely check ourselves. But thank you for lying to me in order to show me that you don't argue in good faith!
Choosing not to vote is participation whether you like it or not. Your so called protest doesn't help change the system either. All it accomplishes is kill more Palestinians. It's a fucked up system and we should absolutely do everything we can to change it, but not voting doesn't absolve you of the excess deaths of innocents.
You have a chance to help people but you're too morally pure so instead you choose to plug your ears while they get murdered and tell yourself letting them die was the right choice morally.
If Trump wins and Israel ends up murdering everyone, I'll come back to this comment and remind you.
I don't have a choice.
No, my personal morality is for me. That's how personal morality works. Other people can accept that practical reality necessitates killing innocent people if they want. That's because they are not acting on morality, they are acting on practicality. To the people dying, that distinction does not make much of a difference.
But I can't vote.
If it's ridiculously 'pure' to be against killing innocent people then that explains why I don't feel emotionally attached to being human.
Who am I letting die? I can't vote.
If Harris wins (which I wish could say was almost certain, but it's scarily close) and Israel ends up murdering everyone without Harris having seriously tried to stop them, will you come back to apologise?
Yeah, but part of the trolley problem is that it's not just about choosing the option with the least harm, but also how being active in the decision impacts the morality of the situation. Being of the opinion that letting 3 people die on one track without your intervention is better than actively choosing the death of 2 is a completely valid response to the trolley problem. You don't have to agree that it's the right decision, but it's still valid.
Applying that to the election would mean deciding that letting the bigger harm that would be a Trump presidency happen is preferable to being an active participant in helping steer the metaphorical tram onto the Harris track and harming the people there.
There are no black and white answers here. That's the whole point of the trolley problem. Everyone is going to have their own point of view and it's going to vary depending on how they perceive the harm on each track. Like I said, if I had a vote in the US election, I'd probably vote to send the tram onto the Harris track, but my willingness to do so wouldn't be infinite, just because the Trump track is worse. At some point the harm becomes so big, that I would refuse to be an active participant, even if inaction meant an even worse outcome. Some people (understandably) feel like that with the current choices. That doesn't make them Trump supporters or bad people.