https://medium.com/@AmericanPublicU/drowning-child-scenario-exposes-moral-hypocrisy-part-i-4b308e36b1d5

https://medium.com/@AmericanPublicU/drowning-child-scenario-exposes-moral-hypocrisy-part-ii-257e1e9e5475

i cant function anymore the knowledege that my life is obnjectively worst for everyone else because i consume so many resources fucks with my head i dont wan tto spend my entire life slaving for moral purposes but i know its right i dont know what to do i think im having some kind of mental breakdown

  • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
    ·
    2 years ago

    My comrade. My sweet, caring comrade.

    Even if you are close to the switch, the switch is a diversion. The trolley is moving forward with kinetic energy KE that will be partly dissipated as it crushes bodies. You did not push the trolley to reach that level of energy, and more importantly, nor did you tie those people to the tracks. Everything happens for a long chain of reasons, some more influential or determinative or culpable than others. In the trolley problem the main guilty party is the one that tied the people to the tracks, or made sure that the trolley would be on track to kill people, or didn't have a functional onboard hazard-detection mechanism, etc. In the drowning child scenario there is someone who either put the child in danger or let them become endangered. In the global reality there are people who are too poor to afford bednets.

    Whenever we are put in a reductive quandary where we have to choose between two evils, we must see the power forcing us into that situation as the evil that is to be resisted.

    We have a large amount of control over what we directly experience in our own lives and a small amount of control over what we are indirectly connected to. I hope you are able to see yourself as a good person after reading this, because I do.

    • catposter [comrade/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      2 years ago

      yes, but when you get to the point with the trolley, if you can't stop the trolley, you still should pull the lever. better yet, you should do everything you can to stop the trolley, no matter the cost to you.

      • infuziSporg [e/em/eir]
        ·
        2 years ago

        Any effort to pull the lever is justifiable, and any effort to stop the trolley is commendable. It's still the trolley itself doing the killing and the out-of-picture actor putting all the people in harm's way.