DJL

So the person flipping the switch knows the one guy on the right side has tied five people to the track on the left? I think the known attempt at murdering 5 people makes the choice a little easier. I guess we also have to assume the guy on the right got his foot stuck or something.

I think you're oversimplifying this a bit and doubling down. Now, if he also posted a picture of his jacked up truck with Calvin peeing sticker we would have some more material to work with.

What do you mean, that the one guy who is on track 2 somehow caused the situation that could kill the 5 on track 1, the normal path of the train? Not sure what you mean by "if the event has already happened".

Being utilitarian does not equate to being moral. It also doesn't necessarily mean the choice is immoral. This scenario is easier because it's more defensible when one group is a factor of 5 larger. Let's say we changed the group to not be about the ratio but about the difference which is five people dying vs 1 if the track were switched. 10 vs 6, 30 vs 26? That tends to bring the decision back to allowing inaction but only because they're more equally sized. However it's the exact same result because of a difference of four people per group size. Nobody would ever tell the person after the fact that they should have switched the track to kill the group of 41 people instead of the group of 45 because it's about the same result, overall. So starting there and marching it back to 30 vs 25, 10 vs 6, 5 vs 1 it's not an issue of morality but on deciding the best of purely numerical bad outcomes based on a limited knowledge of the people and situation. Neither choice is moral, neither choice is immoral. Now again relating the situation of compelling a person outside of the system (pushing them off the bridge so they die hitting the switch that changes the track) that is immoral as you are bringing them into the system. It IS utilitarian but it also IS immoral.

The difference is causing death vs. preventing death and never mind oaths, doctors through history have had to make triage decisions. Some have favored the 5 allowing the one to die, others have favored a preferred one allowing 5 to die. Every scenario we look at in which someone was compelled to die for a greater good has come with very obvious ethical ramifications even if that person is already dead and their organs are sold illegally. Other scenarios include using a group of people to test drugs, diseases or things like radiation without their knowledge. Causing the death of someone who would otherwise have normally survived is different than allowing the death of someone who is already in the path. The train MUST go somewhere and just because switching tracks causes that death it's still a life on the path of options for where the train must go. That's getting back to the scenario of pushing the person into the path so that they die and therefore save the others. They begin as an observer and are no more involved than the pusher. Simply put, decisions don't have to be utilitarian to be right. It's OK to not jump on the grenade, it's OK to not cause someone else to jump on the grenade.

I trust you have a license for those firearms.

Also, it wasn't an embassy. It fact it was so unofficial of a station that it likely wouldn't have been on the list of places getting additional support. Stevens was planning to be there for only days. Could you provide a source for this? Would like to show it to a few people.

I've heard this scenario involved in the "Son trapped on the railroad bridge" situation. They can pry up the track and save the kid but the father sees that it's a passenger train and hundreds will perish.

First you have to pretend the Hypocratic Oath dosn't exist in a hospital, specifically "First, do no harm." 5 dead. One simply can't be admitted to the hospital under the risk of being harvested for other patients.

Only if there will be cheeseburgers on it.

I'm trying to reduce meat in my diet, I've had equal success in my plan to become an astronaut.

I don't blame the victims but I do blame everyone from the cockpit to each country's equivalent of the FAA. Remember, this was 5 hours after Iran shot missiles at US targets. I only wonder how there were not more planes getting shot down.

A while back Trump dragged these families out on stage to for a dog and pony show about illegal immigrants killing Americans. The families all were given photographs of their loved ones to hold and true to brand Trump walked in and autographed them and made comments about how one of them looked like Tom Selleck.

I think what we're all getting at it the fact that actions in the Middle East cause things to go haywire and if you take those actions you need to also be ready for the consequences in human and civilian lives. That said, what the fuck was anyone doing flying into, out of or over Iran five hours after they'd launched a missile strike against US targets? This is one of the most volatile countries in the world and they had just attempted to escalated a fight with the most well armed military on the planet. Cancel all flights.

And turned her into a reptilian overlord.

I realize this sounds like a whatabout but.... Holy shit, whatabout:

You'll need to say what your statement is and what the proof is of your statement. This appears to link to a study about fish behavior again with links to papers all over the place.

Please show your references and proof of that with quoted excerpts. So far you've posted things that disprove the very point you're trying to make.

I didn't say there was anything stable and predictable, I said "The predictability we're looking for doesn't mean and perfect spread of weather but an end to a feedback loop." We're not trying to eliminate natural variability, we're trying to eliminate the variability caused by our own actions that have a short term AND long term effect on our species. You're talking about things that happened because of a confluence of the end of an ice age and THE TILT OF THE PLANET. This is referred to as the Holocene Climatic Optimum. We'll get to another of those periods and we will have to deal with it. Right now we're dealing with our own manmade issues that we need to reverse before they get out of control.

And the veracity of that individual, Peter Ridd, has been rebutted by the exact same researchers he quoted in his own amalgamations saying that he cherry picked papers of theirs that were typically quite old and left out the research which would have provided better clarity. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0025326X18301425?via%3Dihub The court case was not about whether he was right or wrong but whether the university followed legal steps for dismissing him. Again, if someone is using your institution to spread academic falsehoods you can fire them, you just need to do it the right way. They didn't. So, you posted an article that doesn't show that the threats of ocean acidification are irrelevant and followed it up with an article about a guy who was debunked by the very people he cited in his work.

Pre-industrial revolution levels of CO2 would be the ultimate goal but we'll likely only get to an 1850's to 1900's level and have to live with that. The predictability we're looking for doesn't mean and perfect spread of weather but an end to a feedback loop. The benchmark for stability is zero change in Artic Sea Ice and Ocean temps on average on the scale of decades. We know there will be variability in the short term.

I mean, you even quoted the words but still missed the point.

Yet the proof you provided for why there are fewer wildfires doesn't support that and says it's because we're farming more land. Also, while plants may swell with water when there's rain, that doesn't mean it's so much that they hold onto it through the high temp summer months during which these fires are happening.

And the article you linked said it's because of an increase in land used for agriculture not because of any of the reasons you've provided.

And if you wouldn't mind saving me the read, it's because of the increase in stomatal density? Edit: HA, didn't take long: "We find that there is a strong statistically significant decline in 2001–2016 active fires globally linked to an increase in net primary productivity observed in northern Africa, along with global agricultural expansion and intensification, which generally reduces fire activity." So basically we're turning everything into farmland so no fires if there's nothing to burn. #lifehacks