Thank you for falling for the propaganda and blaming people who didn’t want to support genocide rather than placing the blame at those in power who refused to take the most basic moral stance we can demand of our politicians.
I suggest you go read more about the Mathematical domain called Games Theory if you think casting one vote amongst millions once every 4 years in a Voting System Mathematically designed so that not all votes count the same, with the only information before casting the vote being what the people who can benefit from your choice say they will do (with no mechanism to enforce their promises), is anywhere near the same as an individual direct choice with guaranteed results between two actions whose possible outcomes the one making the choice knows upfront with absolute certainty.
There should be a special Falacy for pulling out the Trolley Problem for situations where it’s Mathematically not applicable.
Short-term harm reduction is not worth long-term harm multiplication. We cannot actually reduce harm by voting for politicians who will refuse to prevent the next republican from being even more fascist than this one.
Democrats will win future elections, as will republicans. Our solution to this problem cannot be to try and avoid letting any republican win ever again. We need democrats who will limit the harm that republicans cause, and if there’s a democrat on the ballot who will refuse to do that, we need to not vote for them. Force them to run candidates who will neuter the republican party instead of enabling them.
I believe in NOT being purposefully deceitful when trying to convince other people, which is what people misusing the Trolley Problem for this situation are.
This is especially so because the logic of the Trolley Problem is an hypersimplification which does not include the kind of things that might actually work in the totally fucked up anti-Democratic system in America - voting in Primaries and being part of Civil Society movements.
The Trolley Falacy is nothing more than tought closing political propaganda.
Those who really believe in harm reduction have been long talking about voting in Primaries and direct political participation supporting Primary candidates who are different in preparation for these Midterms, not parroting simplistic bollocks
I believe in NOT being purposefully deceitful when trying to convince other people, which is what people misusing the Trolley Problem for this situation are.
If you really think people are being purposely deceitful by pointing out a simple way to understand how to make a choice when you have two bad options, then you have a very dim view of people in general.
Last I checked knowingly presenting a false or misleading simplification, whilst not an outright lie, is deceit
Specifically for elections, this specific false simplification by denying the cyclical nature of elections can steer people away from the idea that you can punish a dominant political party in one electoral cycle when they put forward deeply unsuitable candidates to incentivize them to put forward better candidates in the next electoral cycle, something that has happened in the past even in America and is more common in other countries.
Whilst right now given just how shit Trump and the present day Republican party are, such a “punishment” strategy against the Democrats would be an incredibly bad idea, had it been used in previous elections it’s quite likely that America would never have become so extremely Far-Right.
That kind of false simplification was very much the political propaganda strategy of the mainstream Democrat politicians over the last 3 decades to steer voters away from punishing them as they moved ever more Rightwards alongside the Republicans creating the current political reality in America were the politics of the present day mainstream Democrats are to the right of the politics of Roosevelt, a Republican.
But it’s not false or misleading when you only have two choices. But in primaries you have more choices.
So the lesson is support the DSA in primaries and work hard to get them to win.
But even then, you still have only two choices in a general in the primary and you will NEVER have a candidate you agree with 100%. Democracy is an exercise in compromise in order to avoid violence.
Which is why it’s a bad analogy to apply to real world situations. It only helps trap people into thinking the problem is unsolvable because that’s the way the system works, when in reality if the system is making you choose between things like genocide abroad or fascism at home, you should just change the system.
Pretty good analogy for what a regular person finds themselves in US right now. You, an individual, has the same ability to “kill the driver” as that hypothetical guy in a dilemma.
Except not, because you as an individual have zero ability to affect whether the trolley kills one or 5 in America. Your vote only matters in the context of everybody else, and if we’re doing mass movements, why not work towards a mass movement that will actual change things?
That Palestine would be better with Kamala is pretty much the one thing you can’t claim since she promised to do the same as the previous Genocide-supporting US President who sent 2000lb bombs (know for their enormous collateral damage) to be dropped on an urban environment in Gaza.
There is a near infinite list of things Kamala would almost certainly be better at than Trump and you went and chose Supporting A Warmongering Supremacist Fascist Regime Abroad Killing Brown Kids which something that consistently has bipartisan support in the US to the point that the US Military itself often engages in a little (sometimes a lot) of brown-kid murdering abroad.
It’s like the entire boundary of the entire fucking field is the goal and you chose to try to score by burying the ball.
There is still a difference between “we don’t plan to stop selling arms to a genocidal country” and “we’re so on board with genocide that this country commits, we’ll do everything in our power to help them, also here’s the generated video of my golden statue on top of the corpses we want to see, and I can’t stress this enough how much I want those corpses”.
On top of that, the left such as it is, have non-zero influence on Democratic party. Not a big one, but non-zero. And Palestine issue could be this pressure point, it has enough support to be one. You can’t do anything with Genocidal Donny.
Sorry mate but “sending to a nation comitting a genocide for use in an urban environment bombs so big and with so much collateral damage that your our own military refuse to use them because of that” is totally “being onboard with genocide” and “we’ll do everything in our power to help them”.
Even the fucking Brits who have been arresting their own people as “Terrorists” for demonstrating against that Genocide weren’t giving Israel the second largest conventional bombs in existence to drop in a very densely populated urban environment.
Unwavering unlimited support for Israel no matter what they do is the one policy that didn’t at all change when Trump replaced Biden.
Literally the subset of American top politicians who are against this shit are the Democrat Progessives (a small minority even inside their own party) and some of those still voted to send arms to Israel as long as it was claimed they were “for self-defense” so the jury is still out on those specifically.
Europe is very much politically divided on the question Israel and its Genocide, but not so America were the anti-Genocide politicias are a small enough group to be called a “fringe”.
In your stride to achieve 100% purity and 100% good, you got blindsided and don’t see that rejection of way less than an ideal solution in favour or 150% terrible solution. There are people dead today that could be alive if the party of evil wasn’t in power, and this includes people in Palestine. If you give a single shit about people’s actual lives and not just purity politics, you categorically have to be in favour of harm reduction.
Democratic party as an organisation isn’t great on the genocide question, but it’s undeniably better than the other one, and in two party system it’s the most important part, everything else comes later. Fucked up system, for sure, but it’s one that exists
It’s a bit weird to let an insignificant almost country on the other side of the planet, filled mostly with people who hate you and your way of life, be the most important thing in your voting decisions.
No, it’s not weird at all. Litmus tests exist for a reason. Because if you’re willing to betray your voters to support genocide, there’s literally nothing else you won’t be willing to betray your voters for.
They are willing to throw democratic candidates under the bus by writing in blank when they’re pro-Palestine, why should people rally behind them when they are up for election??
This is bus example is basically what they did with letting Trump loose on the world. Fucking idiots.
“But muh Palestine”. Yeah, I am sure Trump was soooo much better for Palestine.
Thank you for falling for the propaganda and blaming people who didn’t want to support genocide rather than placing the blame at those in power who refused to take the most basic moral stance we can demand of our politicians.
You have failed to solve the trolley problem.
I suggest you go read more about the Mathematical domain called Games Theory if you think casting one vote amongst millions once every 4 years in a Voting System Mathematically designed so that not all votes count the same, with the only information before casting the vote being what the people who can benefit from your choice say they will do (with no mechanism to enforce their promises), is anywhere near the same as an individual direct choice with guaranteed results between two actions whose possible outcomes the one making the choice knows upfront with absolute certainty.
There should be a special Falacy for pulling out the Trolley Problem for situations where it’s Mathematically not applicable.
So you don’t believe in harm reduction. OK.
Short-term harm reduction is not worth long-term harm multiplication. We cannot actually reduce harm by voting for politicians who will refuse to prevent the next republican from being even more fascist than this one.
Democrats will win future elections, as will republicans. Our solution to this problem cannot be to try and avoid letting any republican win ever again. We need democrats who will limit the harm that republicans cause, and if there’s a democrat on the ballot who will refuse to do that, we need to not vote for them. Force them to run candidates who will neuter the republican party instead of enabling them.
I believe in NOT being purposefully deceitful when trying to convince other people, which is what people misusing the Trolley Problem for this situation are.
This is especially so because the logic of the Trolley Problem is an hypersimplification which does not include the kind of things that might actually work in the totally fucked up anti-Democratic system in America - voting in Primaries and being part of Civil Society movements.
The Trolley Falacy is nothing more than tought closing political propaganda.
Those who really believe in harm reduction have been long talking about voting in Primaries and direct political participation supporting Primary candidates who are different in preparation for these Midterms, not parroting simplistic bollocks
If you really think people are being purposely deceitful by pointing out a simple way to understand how to make a choice when you have two bad options, then you have a very dim view of people in general.
JFC
Last I checked knowingly presenting a false or misleading simplification, whilst not an outright lie, is deceit
Specifically for elections, this specific false simplification by denying the cyclical nature of elections can steer people away from the idea that you can punish a dominant political party in one electoral cycle when they put forward deeply unsuitable candidates to incentivize them to put forward better candidates in the next electoral cycle, something that has happened in the past even in America and is more common in other countries.
Whilst right now given just how shit Trump and the present day Republican party are, such a “punishment” strategy against the Democrats would be an incredibly bad idea, had it been used in previous elections it’s quite likely that America would never have become so extremely Far-Right.
That kind of false simplification was very much the political propaganda strategy of the mainstream Democrat politicians over the last 3 decades to steer voters away from punishing them as they moved ever more Rightwards alongside the Republicans creating the current political reality in America were the politics of the present day mainstream Democrats are to the right of the politics of Roosevelt, a Republican.
But it’s not false or misleading when you only have two choices. But in primaries you have more choices.
So the lesson is support the DSA in primaries and work hard to get them to win.
But even then, you still have only two choices in a general in the primary and you will NEVER have a candidate you agree with 100%. Democracy is an exercise in compromise in order to avoid violence.
JFC
Psh.
The only solution to the trolley problem is to kill the trolley driver.
Go for it. Otherwise, by doing nothing you’re failing to support harm reduction.
More like: the only problem to the trolley problem is to preach extreme action and do nothing.
I’m pretty sure “the trolley cannot be stopped no matter what” is an integral part of the thought experiment.
Which is why it’s a bad analogy to apply to real world situations. It only helps trap people into thinking the problem is unsolvable because that’s the way the system works, when in reality if the system is making you choose between things like genocide abroad or fascism at home, you should just change the system.
Pretty good analogy for what a regular person finds themselves in US right now. You, an individual, has the same ability to “kill the driver” as that hypothetical guy in a dilemma.
Except not, because you as an individual have zero ability to affect whether the trolley kills one or 5 in America. Your vote only matters in the context of everybody else, and if we’re doing mass movements, why not work towards a mass movement that will actual change things?
Oh we ABSOLUTELY blame you.
That Palestine would be better with Kamala is pretty much the one thing you can’t claim since she promised to do the same as the previous Genocide-supporting US President who sent 2000lb bombs (know for their enormous collateral damage) to be dropped on an urban environment in Gaza.
There is a near infinite list of things Kamala would almost certainly be better at than Trump and you went and chose Supporting A Warmongering Supremacist Fascist Regime Abroad Killing Brown Kids which something that consistently has bipartisan support in the US to the point that the US Military itself often engages in a little (sometimes a lot) of brown-kid murdering abroad.
It’s like the entire boundary of the entire fucking field is the goal and you chose to try to score by burying the ball.
There is still a difference between “we don’t plan to stop selling arms to a genocidal country” and “we’re so on board with genocide that this country commits, we’ll do everything in our power to help them, also here’s the generated video of my golden statue on top of the corpses we want to see, and I can’t stress this enough how much I want those corpses”.
On top of that, the left such as it is, have non-zero influence on Democratic party. Not a big one, but non-zero. And Palestine issue could be this pressure point, it has enough support to be one. You can’t do anything with Genocidal Donny.
Sorry mate but “sending to a nation comitting a genocide for use in an urban environment bombs so big and with so much collateral damage that your our own military refuse to use them because of that” is totally “being onboard with genocide” and “we’ll do everything in our power to help them”.
Even the fucking Brits who have been arresting their own people as “Terrorists” for demonstrating against that Genocide weren’t giving Israel the second largest conventional bombs in existence to drop in a very densely populated urban environment.
Unwavering unlimited support for Israel no matter what they do is the one policy that didn’t at all change when Trump replaced Biden.
Literally the subset of American top politicians who are against this shit are the Democrat Progessives (a small minority even inside their own party) and some of those still voted to send arms to Israel as long as it was claimed they were “for self-defense” so the jury is still out on those specifically.
Europe is very much politically divided on the question Israel and its Genocide, but not so America were the anti-Genocide politicias are a small enough group to be called a “fringe”.
In your stride to achieve 100% purity and 100% good, you got blindsided and don’t see that rejection of way less than an ideal solution in favour or 150% terrible solution. There are people dead today that could be alive if the party of evil wasn’t in power, and this includes people in Palestine. If you give a single shit about people’s actual lives and not just purity politics, you categorically have to be in favour of harm reduction.
Democratic party as an organisation isn’t great on the genocide question, but it’s undeniably better than the other one, and in two party system it’s the most important part, everything else comes later. Fucked up system, for sure, but it’s one that exists
Just imagine how much worse Palestine would be if that wishy washy woman had been elected. /S
It’s a bit weird to let an insignificant almost country on the other side of the planet, filled mostly with people who hate you and your way of life, be the most important thing in your voting decisions.
No, it’s not weird at all. Litmus tests exist for a reason. Because if you’re willing to betray your voters to support genocide, there’s literally nothing else you won’t be willing to betray your voters for.
And most of those idiots don’t even know where it is on a map. It’s proof it’s not about Palestine.
They are willing to throw democratic candidates under the bus by writing in blank when they’re pro-Palestine, why should people rally behind them when they are up for election??