NIETZSCHE; DEAD PHILOSOPHERS' INBOX

[explosivecombat]

[TEXT; LOCKED TO doitrockapella]

The offer for conversation is always open, should you desire to take me up on it; I can't guarantee that I'll respond immediately, nor will it necessarily be the response you want, but I'll always respond in some way.

In the name of enlightened discourse.

Comments

[doitrockapella]

Now I'm curious which one he finds so objectionable: the cupcake, the sparkler, or both.

I'm all right. Kant's latest greatest hit has been trying to convince me to let him submit one of his friends to a contest he saw on the Network, so that's been...interesting. But all in all, life's quiet and pleasant.

[explosivecombat]

Honestly, it's probably both, though the sparkler was what I was thinking of at the moment.

You know, I still think that if I'd been told years ago that I would come to tolerate this much quiet pleasantness, I would have thought whomever was telling me that was either out of their mind or simply didn't know me very well. But as it stands...I find that I can't complain for the time being.

[doitrockapella]

Sometimes I catch myself wondering if this is what retirement feels like.

...For people who lead less...unorthodox lives than we do, I mean.

[explosivecombat]

Well, it's not the way I would have chosen to go about it, but if it is perhaps it's not so terrible.

As long as I continue to pursue my hobbies on the side, anyway.

[doitrockapella]

Your hobbies being impromptu philosophy classes for the network at large?

[explosivecombat]

I actually succeeded in not thoroughly ruining anyone's day last time I posted anything.

[doitrockapella]

I saw someone else trying their hand at it the other day.

It wasn't as artfully done as yours.

[explosivecombat]

...Suppose you're faced with a trolley travelling at great speed toward five people...

[doitrockapella]

Am I at the switchtrack, or faced with the unusually large man to push into the way?

[explosivecombat]

Come now, I at least have enough class to give you the switch.

[doitrockapella]

Spoken like a true gentleman.

I honestly don't know if I'd choose to turn it. It's easy to reduce the problem down to a simple matter of numbers — better five lives saved than one — but the part where I start to have trouble is the presumption on the switch-turner's part that saving five justifies orchestrating the death of one.

There's something about my intervention in the problem, and that intervention resulting in someone's death, that I can't get past.

[explosivecombat]

And what of the notion that making a decision to do nothing is still making a decision? Does that factor in for you at all, or...?

[doitrockapella]

I also have the problem of wondering why I'm still at the switchtrack, rather than already atop the trolley trying to stop it, or racing it to try to get one of the possible victim groups out of the way.

With regard to the inaction, though — this isn't going to go the way of a duty to rescue conversation, is it?

[explosivecombat]

I'm not interested in trying to pass judgment either way on it, if that's the concern; at the same time, it is something that most would take into account, am I wrong?

[doitrockapella]

Of course it is.

Like I said, I honestly don't know what I personally would do. Either way, I'm going to feel responsible for someone's death, whether it be through action or inaction. Would I sleep better at night knowing only one person had died, instead of five? Maybe.

But what bothers me about this problem in particular is that I know I have a bad habit of imposing what I think is right onto other people's lives whether they like it or not. I don't like doing it in a way that ends with people dying, even hypothetically.

[explosivecombat]

In the name of both candor and fairness, I'll admit that part of the reason I won't argue with you is because I've actually never been fond of the trolley problem in general. There's a reason I've never asked the network about it, despite knowing about it and asking them about far more obscure things, and that's simply that it irks me.

[doitrockapella]

Just not a fan of it, or is there something in particular?

[explosivecombat]

I dislike the notion that I'm going to be held morally responsible for at least one person dying when I neither asked for that responsibility nor did anything that warrants being held responsible. Literally stumbling upon a situation like that while having no hand in creating it and yet being held responsible for the outcome doesn't sit well with me.

I dislike the question of duty to rescue for the same reason, but at least the responses people give to it tend to be more interesting, whereas the trolley problem is fundamentally depressing; since I ask the network about things like this to see their responses, not to contemplate my own, that one strikes me as more acceptable to ask them than this.

[doitrockapella]

Now I'm just going to wonder if you'd like it better given the option to leap on the trolley and derail it yourself, the way I wanted to.

[explosivecombat]

I'm not an altruistic person, you know that.

However, in this circumstance perhaps I could be convinced.

[doitrockapella]

I was thinking more along the lines of the fact that riding a runaway trolley careening down a track seems like it's just your speed, actually.