Welcome to the trolley problem.
I always always hated that problem. It is so contrived. Have you seen trolleys? They are freaken slow and full of safeties. Also the workers would have locked out the line.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ones_Who_Walk_Away_from_Omelas
Basically the plot of this story. It poses the issue of how much we value society over the individual, and if that is good or not. Would you want to live in a world that depended on the the torture of a single person. You then could extrapolate that out to societies in the real world, US and chattel slavery. the west and the use of sweat shop labor for cheap products, the Emirates and their use of migrants as indentured servants. Even tipped wages for servers in the USA, the gig economy, and things like medical residencies could be considered a minor version of Omelas. As humans, we often tolerate the abuse or exploitation of others for our own benefit, or even just out of ignorance and inaction.
A great story that illustrates this question really well. It is by Ursula K. Le Guin, written in 1973, if anyone is wondering.
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Like what happens in the anthropocene to pretty much all animals except dogs & cats lol
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-ones-who-stay-and-fight/
Someone made a response story of sorts, figure I might as well share it here
If that one innocent person agrees to it, I say yes. Otherwise, no.
Do you mean ultimate badass Talenel’Elin , Herald of War?
He. Did. Not. Break.
First thought!
Username checks out. Lol.
Nope. That’s a world that’s not worth saving.
Is it really though? Injustices happen all the time here. I want to agree with you but I’m struggling to come up with good justifications for it. Can you explain your thinking a little bit?
So everyone including the innocent just ends?
Because regardless of the choice. Innocent people will die.
It’s how quickly you want that to happen I think is what we’re going after.
Is this voluntary? Is it random? Is the person truly innocent? Is this person known or will be remembered? Is it a child? Is the world aware?
I have a ton of questions that lean onto the “slow” side of things.
But I think it’s too easy to say “nope, just end it”.
It’s a fumbly one, eh?
I agree that in an existence with that decision on the line, we would have to question many things.
Does someone innocent have to die, or is someone lying about the rules of the decision to save themselves? Would people who expect to kill this person be willing to offer same thing themselves? If not, why can they really decide for someone else? Is the death actually necessary, and how? Will new religions form from this?
What happens if it fails? Will that person just be dead for no reason? Will their loved ones be cared for? Who would even qualify?
100%
There’s absolutely ground to wriggle on here. Maybe let’s try to make up a society where this is okay.
I would like to assume in this “perfectly ok to do this society” that the choice is fully open and known to all. As in all people in the society are subject to it. Like a complete random draw.
But then what about innocent people? I would define an innocent as a person who is sinless or hasn’t broken the law. Maybe if you try to do something evil you’re pardoned from this choice? That doesn’t seem right because everyone would do the least minor thing to be considered evil. And children or the neuro diverse might be left out on a huge disadvantage because how would they know what to do to be considered skippable.
Maybe it’s an external force working to destroy the planet. Someone has to be killed to stop it. So maybe innocent could just mean has no power over the process, no ability to affect it, no way to be skipped. If it’s seen that way, I would be kind of satisfied.
How often does this happen? Once a year? A decade? Every day? Eesh what a thought. What would society be like knowing that you might be randomly chosen to just end on a daily basis. It’d be like winning the anti-lottery.
If someone was chosen, in my model, they would be made known to the planet a while ahead of time, maybe 24 hours. And they would be given a huge life altering sum of money to do with however they please prior to being un-alived. Give it to their family, a charity, whatever.
Their name would be known as a hero of some sort, even if unwillingly so.
The death/torture can’t be painless, as the hypothetical implies so maybe there can be like a time limit here? Is this a long time torture thing? That sounds horrible.
Right now, if really feels like I’m trying to make my least favorite thing slightly palatable somehow.
Someone’s been looking too much into Procedure Montauk 110
Prepare for the
Metamemeticthreat to be quarantined and for this whole infection vector to be [REDACTED]
“healthy unemployment rate”
Old saying from rural Hampshire in England: “A little pain shared by many is better than the toil of the few!”
An inherently flawed world maintaining its function through cannibalism will inevitably devour itself into nonexistence. Why prolong its suffering?
Has that happened? No really I am asking for evidence. We have had forms of slavery since our species began. It wasn’t like one time we had a slave 20,000 years ago. The world still basically works with humans using humans. We don’t have to like it, we should fight it, but the idea that you are stating that if we are bad once we lose everything doesn’t match with the facts that we have.
I am typing this while wearing clothing made by children on a phone made by slaves in China.
That is many people’s mentality, yes. It probably depends if you were the one being tortured or were close. Pain can be ignored if not directly felt, especially if it means whatever you think your survival entails.
I’m not comfortable with it, but I’m not comfortable with life either.
In practice we all know what we would do. Given that morality is at best invented and aspirational that is the moral action. Or at least we think that it is.
Unfair to ask the question in the incomplete form… The tortured person is you. Now answer
So, who do we torture?
