Summer means no religion or politics?

[LimpingFish]

Taking the questions purely on the situations laid out by Davy, I would pull the lever and push the dude.

If we add personal layers to the situation, I would neither pull the lever nor push the dude if either the person on the tracks or the dude on the bridge were in any way related to me.

If the person on the tracks/bridge and the people on the train were direct family (siblings, parents), I would like to think I would somehow sacrifice myself.

...

Now where's my halo?

[miguel]

LimpingFish, that's very Christian of you. Such noble acts have an iconic figure head, his name Jesus.

RickJ, following your logic can I conclude that:
Do you mean that if I see you in Portugal and somebody is stealing your passport  and I'm talking to this cop 2 meters from where you're standing and decide not to tell, then it's not my fault that you had to stay a month in jail?
Or maybe:
I see a car moving at full speed and an old lady is crossing the road, she is deaf and I'm sure she'll be killed if the car hits her. But, why should I pull her to the side walk if it's not my problem?       

[Babar]

I can see what you mean, (and what RickJ means), so what if you take the morality question further?


What if you know for a fact that a child (mostly babies) dies every 3 seconds in Africa. What if you know that there is a chance that you sending money there could help one a bit. Would you do it? Or would you go to Africa and try to help out hands on? Or would you go crazy realising that you can't really make a difference?

What if (to take Layabout's example ) there is a subway train full of babies that is about to derail any minute, and you're the only one who knows. Nobody believes you when you tell them so, how far would you go to stop it?


Humans are generally a pragmatically moral group of jerks....how else would you explain the fact that a family member scores higher than a stranger, a "subway full of babies" scores higher than a hitler, something right in front of you scores higher than something far away, something convenient scores higher than something difficult, when they all should be equal.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with the way we are, it is the way we are. Why shouldn't we be more worried that our grandmother is on the subway tracks rather than a complete stranger?
But when you insert a "golden standard of morality" into it, everything starts looking screwy.


Bah.....I just find morality mind-games involving Hitler and old ladies and subways full of babies generally silly. And usually nothing more than lip service.

[miguel]

We invented morality, humanity is a different thing, it's in us. It's US.
That's why you would cross the Sahara to find your son but stand still, powerless, watching that train full of babies crash into a wall.
That's why you would warn Hitler of the train coming but leave that darn weird bunch to die. Even if Seal sings 'Kiss from a Rose' to Mother Teresa.
The key?
Who has it?

[Babar]

Eh...what?

I have the key.

...to a subway train full of babies. And...to the kingdom?


But still....what? Seal sings to Mother Teresa? What?
I think he sang at a Victoria's Secret event once.


Has anyone ever told you that you are a remarkably strange person, miguel?

[Akatosh]

So much potential for complete whackiness, wasted on mostly sane persons... 'tis enough to make one weep for the possibilites denied.

Did you hear that?

You make grown men cry.

[miguel]

Babar, I'm not. Maybe you didn't read all the posts.
...
Because there is a connection, right?
...

[Lionmonkey]

If one truly wishes to get an answer to a question of this kind, one must arrange the situation: one must arrange 5 people to be on one track, in front of a train, 1 on another one and 1 near the lever.

People tend to lie about what they really would do in extreme situations: "I would hit the burglar and call police", "I would donate my heart", "I would sacrifice myself in order to save the others". I doubt that many would do such things in real situations, because they have survival instinct, which tends to be hard to overcome.

So why do people lie? So, that nobody would say "You indesicive piece of pathetic!" or "You black-hearted creep!". People are afraid of even revealing what they really are, no wonder most would simply helplessly stare at the train crushing people, their bodies frozen with fear of responsibility.

That said, I do not know, what I would do in the second situation. But I can guess that most likely I would be able to do nothing. Then again, if I was high on some drugs, I probably would drop mysef under the train. Or, if I had a bitter, cynical mood, I would save the most. If I was feeling a bit angry at the whole world, like some Youtube commenters, i may have just laughed at other people's problems and walked away.

People let so many things take over their minds and bodies, that there is no way to tell what will happen, until it already has.

A better, more productive question, in my opinion would be "What good have you done today?".

[discordance]

Perhaps this would work better as a chess problem. For example: You are the reincarnated body of Garry Kasparov, engaged in a chess match against Skynet that will determine the fate of humanity and the universe as we know it. Through an immensely complicated series of moves, Skynet traps you in a painful forking position. In one case, you will lose your queen; but saving your queen will result in the methodical and inevitable loss of three pawns, a bishop, and a rook. What do you do? Well, the value of the queen is usually placed at 9 points, whereas the other pieces add up to a total of 11. The answer is obvious.
Seriously, how do you place values on human life? You don't. You wake up from the imaginary moral dilemma and return to the real world where your problems have less to do with the heroic preservation of human life and more to do with not yelling at your fellow man and not burning any more meatloaf. Unless you're Batman. Then yeah, I guess you'd have to thrash that one out.

[Tuomas]

Do we only think about sex when it's hot?

Well, tell me what you think!

Well, I for one don't usually think of cold sex. I mean, rough porn, though harsh, can also be described as hot. I guess it dependds on how far you're willing to go as a spectator.

Seriously though, it's usually, that you don't think about sex when you've got something else to do or something on your mind. People don't usually think of sex as the act itself in occasions such as hanging out at the beach, checking out girls in bikinis, as was pointed out. Of course there's erotical tension seen there, but most of it is just matchmaking, that doesn't really have the reproductively necessary spark, if you know what I mean.

I mean: if I see a nice lassie at a discoteque, I won't probably get an immediate boner and go about rubbing myself to her. I'll go because it's the social, proper thing to do, and it's what they call a mating ritual, best seen with birds, making their chest feathers all fluffy. After I've awoken her interest, I'll start thinking about setting a nest and inserting my semen into her vagina, though there are people who make exceptions which I'd rather not mention here. Sex as it is might come up if I manage to get her to join me back home and enter between my sheets of sheer loveness. Before that, it's just a battle of minds, with of course a thought in the background.

At home, if you've been away for a while, say at your relatives, and hadn't had the chance to touch yourself properly in peace, like, if your cousin was sleeping in the same room, and (s)he was not as sexually open as you were. after that, you come home, and the plain sight of your laptop with an internet connection could make you think of sex of course through several innuendos. There's computer, which has Windows on it, which allows you to access IE, which takes you to the internets, and basically that's all about sex. Computer could be at this point seen as just an euphemism for sex. Or masturbation. Though the computer won't masturbate, it'll just provide visual/audial services, as you might have known by now.

Now about the nice girls/boys at the beach. Have you noticed, how all the girls, no matter how big or small they are, look as if they had a great piece of... rear end when they're lying in the sun on their stomachs, as in reading a book or something. I mean, breasts tend to squeeze down a little when lying on your back, but the other way around the rear just gets better. Still, watching them, you might find some you can't stop looking at, but it won't make you grab the joystick, not before you're home, or unless you really are a social freak and a scary person that shouldn't be allowed outside.

It's a funny thing. I've been studying German for a year now, and being almost the only guy in the year class, I basically just hang out with girls. There's one girl that everyone's had an erotic dream about, and at first we found it a bit scary, but after a while there started being more and more of such cases reported, and now we're laughing about them. After all, you can always imagine, and you can't control your dreams. Of course I've checked everyone out and imagined how it would be like with all of them, but the real thinking of sex I would have to say was there only on one case when she also expressed interested in me. I'm spoken for though, and so is she. but we talked about it, and apparently both would want to have sex with each other

Where was I?

Oh yeah, I don't know how much time there would be to consider, but letting the train ram into 5 people might make it go off rail too, which would be bad. And I wouldn't care about the fucker, unless it was someone I know. Why? Because losing someone I know is a loss for me. It's makes my life emptier. An unknown person dying is everyday life. OK, I've never seen a person die, and am happy about that, but still. This wisdom I learned from Drizzt Do'Urden.

Here's an example. I heard that my mother had a cousin near Helsinki. A week or two ago he took couple of "friends" of his back home with him. They were around 22, born the same year I was, I guess. He wouldn't give them booze, so they beat him up. At the moment his in the hospital with a scull fracture worse than the one Massa got, he won't be able to talk or walk ever again. But then, I first heard of this guy when my mum told this. She hadn't seen this guy since the day he was born, so basically she couldn't really think of how to feel either, after all, the man was completely strange, but somehow related. Oh well.

[miguel]

I must say I'm very happy with the way this turned out. We are talking, ranting, joking and expressing our thoughts.

Discordance, I think chess puts everything in a logical way doesn't it? I mean, we play to win and to eliminate the opponent, like  soldiers. We win, no moral attached. Karpov would not sacrifice any of his army if it wasn't a strategic move. LimpingFish, however remind us that humans do sacrifice their lives for the lives of other with no reward other than their life.

Tuomas, what can I say? I've never thought of my laptop that way. Nice essay about sex though.

Conclusion: We are all selfish bastards that don't give a shit about people dying (depending on the distance it happens)

[Snake]

My thoughts of sex do not discriminate against seasons.

[Matti]

These days it's almost too hot to think about anything at all. I really have a hard time concentrating at the moment.

[Phemar]

Has anyone thought of sacrificing themselves to save the five and the other one? Would anyone jump in front of the train?

[Snake]

Has anyone thought of sacrificing themselves to save the five and the other one? Would anyone jump in front of the train?

I think I would. Especially if it were a kid, damn right. I don't know how I would live with myself knowing that I might have been able to change the outcome.

Conclusion: We are all selfish bastards that don't give a shit about people dying (depending on the distance it happens)

Bah - I must disagree.
There was a hell of a car crash up the road from where I live last weekend while my brother and sister and law were over. It's no suprise that something would happen before long again. People treat it like it's fucking Speedway 95.
We watched all the ambulances, police and firetrucks fly by and the road was shut down for an hour. At the end one of the ambulances drove by slowly with it's lights flashing but no siren. This is a usual sign that the person inside is already dead. They flash their lights out of respect.

No idea who the person was, but when seeing those ambulances fly by, my heart came in my mouth and I started to get a knot in my throat.

I suppose it was the thought that the accident JUST HAPPENED. I mean, whoever was in that ambulance was alive and well one hour prior. Probably thinking about what they were going to do once they got where they were going, whether it be with friends/family or just shopping, and thinking about what they were going to have for supper that night.

Shit happens, man, but death fucking sucks. No matter who the person may be - rapists, murders and molesters are all exempt from this sentance.

Luckily, come to find out in the paper the next day, nobody had died. They all had broken bones though. There was a 9 year old who was flown by helicopter to EMMC for his two broken legs.

Don't say that none of us give a shit. I had no idea who those people were and I had tears in my eyes.

[Ghost]

I think I have figured it out now.

If it's all down to math, saving five lives is the same as saving one live. Because of quantum. Basically a life is worthless, it is made "worthy" be the way it is lived.


In order to keep this light-hearted though, I would do the following:
- steal Hitler's time machine and prevent the invention of the train.
- then kick Hitler in the groin exactly five times.
- then unlock the train with all the babies and Marie Curie in it.
- I would then sell the babies and give all the money to Tuomas so that he can make a movie. I got a boner just from you describing beach butts, mate, I wanna see how you film that. And don't run away from that responsibility, because I'll tell Hitler that it was YOU who kicked him in the groin five times.

[Jared]

Quantum? Of course! Quantumn mechanics! By observing the train you are changing the results! The answer is to close your eyes and turn away. Nobody dies. Six people and a train are there. Open them and there is one and no train.

You then lock a cat into a lead box with a canister of nerve gas and thus allow it TO LIVE FOREVER!

It's Winter here in the Southern hemisphere. But quite nice today.

[miguel]

Jared, I'm touched by your deep thoughts. Maybe it's because it's winter over there?

A twist into the plot:
   
     - there's no time machine or quantum leaps;
     - the person by the lever is male;
     - the six persons on the track are the last one alive plus the guy on the lever;
     - Hitler, (the stupid guy collecting flowers unaware of the train coming even with Seal singing followed by a chorus by Gandhi and Joe Pesci)  is the lever man's brother;
     - your character is The Lever Guy!!!;
     - type help for Help, (S)outh,(N)orth,(E)ast,(W)est,(L)ook,(ESC) to call Larry Vales;

>

[Akatosh]

... xyzzy? 

[ThreeOhFour]

... xyzzy? 

That just made my day