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If we had to torture and murder millions of innocent children to stop global warming would that be okay? (self.asklemmy)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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EDIT Ok so it's just the trolly problem.

EDIT2 : AHA War Games 1983. "The only winning move is not to play." (We might call this the final product of a lot of smart philosophical digestion, because it's a famous movie). There's always the perfectly valid option to ditch the riddle. (Because maybe the riddle is dumb, or maybe the riddle is no better than a thousand others, utilitywise )

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[–] 4 points 1 year ago (8 children)

If there is absolutely no other option, yes. Even dropping nukes over the whole earth is okay if that solves a massive long term problem.

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  • [–] [S] -1 points 1 year ago* (7 children)

    Yeah I guess that's the ultimate math of it. I'm new to chewing this riddle. I think the most popular answer is to shout that the riddle doesn't exist. I'm still chewing on it.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (4 children)

    I will gladly torture some puppies if it means that no more dogs are killed after that. The end result is more important than short term “issues”.

    I used to have an ethical dilemma about animal testing in medicine but then realised that the animals would have been killed anyways and would have had a shitty life before that, in farms or something. Now, at least their suffering is not in vain.

    Ideally, there would be no suffering of any organism, but if push comes to shove, you have to make sacrifices.

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  • [–] [S] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Yeah the logic is clear. But consider the lesson of War Games.

    The riddle can also be a mindfucking trap. The first, implicit, assertion of these kinds of riddles is that you must solve the riddle because the riddle is important (because it accurately represents reality or something)

    But that might not be so.

    So if we're gonna cut through the riddle then that might be our access point.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I know what you are trying to say but I assume that there is no other option to solve the problem, what the post implied.

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  • [–] [S] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Well yes, that's my point. For the purposes of our game of riddle-solving the assumption is valid. But for the purposes of "reality" it isn't.

    So there's something going on with perspective there.

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