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luvdids 
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
Location: work
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| David wrote: | | That's an interesting question, but it's considerably less interesting than the central philosophical problem here (which is, more or less, "how much is a life worth?). If archaeological ruins don't do it for you, perhaps transpose something that is important to you � in my case, say, every European film ever made. Would/should I be willing to sacrifice that for the life of one person? What about 100? |
Can't think of anything. Would you really sacrifice a human life, or 100 lives, to save some movies?? I honestly can't come up with 1 thing that would make me think, yeah, someone should die so that can still be around.... |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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The Collingwood Football Club? 
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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luvdids
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
Location: work
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| Pies4shaw wrote: | | Everyone dies, so no death is "unnecessary". |
Untimely may be more appropriate then. |
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luvdids
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
Location: work
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| David wrote: | | The Collingwood Football Club? |
Right at this moment???  |
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Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| David wrote: | | Pies4shaw wrote: | | The eradication of ideas is much, much more dangerous than the killing of large numbers of people. |
All ideas, really? And if not, which ones? Would you, for instance, happily subordinate the tragedy of x number of lives below the end of sincere belief in a flat earth? |
That's just wilfully silly and doesn't warrant a response. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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So by ideas I take it you mean less specific ideas and more 'ideas' as a phenomenon?
Sorry, just thought it was a point worth probing. Re: "everybody dies", that's very true; but why then do we treat murder as such a heinous crime? Why is "untimely death", as luvdids puts it, generally considered such a tragedy?
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| David wrote: | | pietillidie wrote: | | Not to be a thread wowser, but surely you're allowed to feel simultaneously horrified by different things in different ways and for different reasons, everyone! |
 What a cop-out!
Come on, this is hardly such a difficult philosophical question to grapple with. |
Hardly difficult? You're kidding me! This gets to the heart of the most cutting-edge cognitive science on the planet; that's how hard! All this stuff is in the lab as we speak.
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Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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think positive
Side By Side
Joined: 30 Jun 2005
Location: somewhere
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| luvdids wrote: | | David wrote: | | That's an interesting question, but it's considerably less interesting than the central philosophical problem here (which is, more or less, "how much is a life worth?). If archaeological ruins don't do it for you, perhaps transpose something that is important to you � in my case, say, every European film ever made. Would/should I be willing to sacrifice that for the life of one person? What about 100? |
Can't think of anything. Would you really sacrifice a human life, or 100 lives, to save some movies?? I honestly can't come up with 1 thing that would make me think, yeah, someone should die so that can still be around.... |
Totally agree.
I always find it crazy when people die in bush fires trying to save their boat, pictures etc.
Mind you I'd have no objection to sticking a few pedophiles in front of the pyramids to protect them.
I remember watching Oprah a few years back and they had a scenario where a train was about to go over a folding bridge, and someone was in the bend part, if the operator dropped the bridge the person dies, but if the operator doesn't drop the bridge, a train load of people goes over the edge into the river below. Easy choice, sacrifice 1 to save the majority.
Now pretend that 1 person is your child. I think I would save my child, and I know that's the wrong decision. I guess I'd satisfy my answer with, well they might not die!
However, if the train was going to wipe out Stonehenge, the leaning tower of Pisa, or the Eiffel Tower, I'd save the train, even if it was only the driver still on it.
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You cant fix stupid, turns out you cant quarantine it either! |
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luvdids
Joined: 22 Mar 2008
Location: work
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| think positive wrote: |
I remember watching Oprah a few years back and they had a scenario where a train was about to go over a folding bridge, and someone was in the bend part, if the operator dropped the bridge the person dies, but if the operator doesn't drop the bridge, a train load of people goes over the edge into the river below. Easy choice, sacrifice 1 to save the majority.
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This was an actual scenario at my mum's primary school, a student was the crossing supervisor and for some crazy reason walked out on to Maroondah Hwy holding her stop sign when a semi was too close to stop. Semi driver had to choose between the 1 girl with the stop sign or the group of kids that had started to cross.... He chose the 1 girl and of course never got over it.
Sorry, little off topic. As you were. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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That's a horrible thing to have happened, LD. But it goes to show that these kinds of 'trolley car' hypotheticals do occur from time to time in the world, and it's our intuitive reaction to them that shapes our behaviour and values.
Personally, I'd like to think that most people, in the moment, would always choose to swerve into Stonehenge rather than bump off a few hapless train passengers. But why is it that our emotional priorities seem to be so often reversed when we read about these sorts of things from a distance? That's the paradox that I think nobody is really touching on here.
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Lazza
Joined: 04 Feb 2003
Location: Bendigo, Victoria, Australia
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| luvdids wrote: | | think positive wrote: |
I remember watching Oprah a few years back and they had a scenario where a train was about to go over a folding bridge, and someone was in the bend part, if the operator dropped the bridge the person dies, but if the operator doesn't drop the bridge, a train load of people goes over the edge into the river below. Easy choice, sacrifice 1 to save the majority.
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This was an actual scenario at my mum's primary school, a student was the crossing supervisor and for some crazy reason walked out on to Maroondah Hwy holding her stop sign when a semi was too close to stop. Semi driver had to choose between the 1 girl with the stop sign or the group of kids that had started to cross.... He chose the 1 girl and of course never got over it.
Sorry, little off topic. As you were. |
Wow.
What a horrible choice. 
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Don't confuse your current path with your final destination. Just because it's dark and stormy now doesn't meant that you aren't headed for glorious sunshine! |
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watt price tully 
Joined: 15 May 2007
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Pies4shaw
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| Have the emergency workers been able to fix these ruins, yet? |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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The value of a single human life varies between different cultures. Some people put higher values on life than others as a part of their personal beliefs. For mine, everyone is going to die, it's just a matter of when. So no death is a tragedy except to those close to that person who have lost something tangible. The death of 100 people I don't know is less a tragedy to me than the death of a pet.
If it took the sacrifice of lives to save an item of historical significance, that's a fair deal. What's then at issue is the relative value of the item and what is the tipping point where it's fair to destroy the item and save the lives instead.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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^ Out of curiosity, why do you think we should treat the crime of murder so seriously, then? We're all going to die anyway...
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