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rule (lemmygrad.ml)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
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Just reposting this excellent point from lemmygrad

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[–] 8 points 3 years ago (1 child)

Sometimes people really do make decisions with uncertain and incomplete information, and sometimes people kill a black teenager for fun and pretend they feared for their lives. These are not the same thing. I wouldn't have killed the kids, but it probably saved a lot of other kids.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 years ago

    but it probably saved a lot of other kids.

    Why we don't say stuff like this? We can't tease out the tread of time and say 15 years late what our actions are going to cause. Not with any degree of certainly but also not with any objective or even methodical notion of "probability" that we seem so eager to fall back on. We can stand in the moment and make a decision. Do I shoot the unarmed kid or not? That answer is pretty cut and dry for any humanstic strain of thought.

    The fact that I can conceive of a possible chain of events where that has unfortunate ramifications doesn't change that.

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