Have you read Julius Reuchel’s essay “Bystander at the Switch”? It covers the trolley problem beautifully. His one graphic “Illusion versus Reality” in particular.
Have you read Julius Reuchel’s essay “Bystander at the Switch”? It covers the trolley problem beautifully. His one graphic “Illusion versus Reality” in particular.
"the seen vs the unseen" immediately calls to my mind henry hazlitt's economics in one lesson, which of course is based on bastiat's essay. from wikipedia:
The "One Lesson" is stated in Part One of the book: "The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."[2] Part Two consists of twenty-four chapters, each demonstrating the lesson by tracing the effects of one common economic belief, and exposing common economic belief as a series of fallacies.
I agree with the sentiment but there is an important correction… ‘ We invented universal human rights…’
No we didn’t. They exist, and always have existed, naturally - like gravity. We just discovered them, like we discovered gravity.
This is why they are in nobody’s gift. They exist in each of us by nature of our existence. Nobody can take these Rights away, although they certainly can stop us enjoying them.
In essence this is the difference between Common Law - which is discovered - and Code Law or Legislation which is invented. Under Common Law, everything is legal unless the Law says otherwise. Under Code/Legislated Law nothing is legal unless the Law says it is.
Some say that Legislation should not be called Law as it confuses provenance, integrity and legitimacy. A question of brand identity, as one might say. Not all colas are Coke.
Code Law is a much more restrictive and open to abuse and arbitrary judgement. It gives Government greater control. In a Common Law society, legislation is only permitted if it keeps to the letter or spirit of the Common Law - that is the sole function of Parliament/Congress to make sure it does, thereby protecting the citizen from the State.
Except - Parliament/Congress have joined the tyrant - that is no longer the case and legislation is designed to undermine Common Law or override it altogether and that violates this principle:-
“It forbids government from imposing a hierarchy of rights on their citizens. It forbids government from sacrificing some people for the benefit of others. It forbids government from knowingly imposing harm on some individuals in order to serve an alleged greater good”.
And that is exactly what legislatures spend the whole time doing.
Spectacular. It is why the American Revolution was truly revolutionary: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Well it does and doesn't. Let's not conflate it with false analogies... the article is full of facts and the author states (correctly) what a disaster the lockdown/vaccine policy has been.
BUT what if it hadn't been a disaster?
What if we'd faced a Covid that the average age of the dead wasn't 82, but rather was 8.2? Would we react the same way then? Wanna pull the lever yet?
What if these kids were dropping like flies and a vaccine came out that really was 95% effective and did stop transmission in it's wake? Wanna pull the lever yet?
No? Then, yes if the above conditions were true, I'd kill you and pull the lever. My children and their classmates lives are at stake.
If we're going to use thought experiments, let's use them accurately.
so if i can stop the gods from being angry and wiping out the town by throwing you into the volcano, that's the way to go as long as it saves 2 or more people?
also note that you're arguing from false premise. if the disease were that obviously deadly and any of the mitigations actually worked, why do you presume people would need to be compelled to adopt them instead of doing so of their own volition and in their own interest?
you're framing a slanted question that begs the reality.
Indeed, 'our' side (if I may so presumptuous) never said to do nothing at all. We simply said that totally voluntary measures would be enough to 'flatten the curve' and ensure hospitals weren't overrun. Places like North Dakota that never had lockdowns or mask mandates prove it.
Agree you hit a nail on the head with the " if it was that deadly" scenario. I would expect different behaviour too. That's my point, we didn't have a real trolly dilemma.
But why jump to ANOTHER false analogy yourself of volcano gods?
Yes, although assuming we have free-will (and it's not all pre-determined a la David Hume's billiard balls) we have to have an attempt at thinking policies through, and also having the humility to re-consider them if they prove to be clearly wrong like in the fixed-rents example many give.
If you believe in chaotic variance then the latter is even more important I reckon. Myself I think it's more Pythagorean repeating vibrations layers over layers, and we're probably on the cusp with machine-learning of being able to code past some of the seeming chaos. Hopefully it'll feel more like finding fractals within the rainbow than just unweaving the rainbow.
Yes, every technology from fire onwards can be used for good and bad. AI is likely very significant. Half the time I feel like going full smash-the-mechanical-loom luddite, and the other half I see genuine hope and progress in the area.
You’re arguing angels on the head of a pin arguments. Your analogy is as unreasonable as the trolley question. For one thing if the average age was 8.2 the virus would not be a Corona virus. And if people were dropping like flies NO ONE would have to be coerced into social distancing.
I would derail the trolley! Okay, there were thirty people on the trolley, all of whom died. But gosh darn it, I stopped the trolley. (Paraphrasing every public health officer over the last two years...)
This is my problem with the academic sphere of philosophy in general. In principle, I understand the need to eliminate extraneous variables to try to explore a fundamental concept- you can "but what about" anything to death if you don't stipulate to any conditions in a thought exercise.
But it never, ever ends up creating practical value. Of COURSE in real life the better thing is to find the solution where no one gets run over or put on the tracks in the first place.
Yup. They're exercises with limited use, but even here we can at least see different thoughts emerge... Kinda like how your tribe is going to behave once you've led it out the dessert.
In your counter situation, the same logic is maintained. Authorities would suggest and the wise would obey. The unwise might perish in greater numbers, their choice.
Now if it was obvious I was an immediate threat to your child and yourself, you are allowed to kill me. But shooting up the neighborhood because some person in that area might be a threat to you and kiddies would not be lawful ordinarily - except in crazy-town lock-down.
Hmmm, yes agree with first scenario mainly. The unwise fraction would likely be vanishingly small this time. The bigger problem would have been those supermarket scenarios... the staff really would no-show and the fights in the aisles would be hyper-violent and I expect martial law would be important for any order. Military distribution of food etc.
If there was a year delay to this hypothetical child-saving vax, the lockdowns would be the thing policed harder. I read evidence they were useless as implemented, but the Chinese-style weld people into their apartments and reduce interactions to 2 or less per day seemed to flatten the curve (I accept we're still in datageddon but there seems some logic in that policy). So if in that scenario some infected zealous family felt they were going to waltz down your street coughing and spitting to prove their point, and this would likely lead to several more kids dying in your vicinity, what do you do?
The Chinese example is awful. Isolation in apartment block is impossible as they have discovered.
The best we can ever do is try to confine, quarantine the infected and allow the world to go about their business. That's what public health always did in the past with more or less success. Force has been used but that was rare.
Once something becomes really deadly, it stops circulating. I gather we don't really know how deadly vs spread relate. Ebola can't really get going because it's hosts perish rapidly. Shortly after exposure they develop symptoms. Now the worse would be a deadly virus with a longer incubation time but enough replication to spread. That is what was feared most about SARs-CoV-2. Turns out to be at best a few days for that.
Yes that natural balance is a strong hope although the black death in the 14th century killed about a third of Eurasia. But I think there's why the evidence at times are really tough maybe the sun wasn't shining as much and crops yields were terrible
I’m not 100% convinced of what you meant to say but as I read this I totally disagree. People often do terrible things unthinkingly. They seemingly are unaware of the consequences of their actions. But if they had thought for one minute those consequences would easily have been foreseeable. That’s why we have different degrees of murder. But they’re all murder. And you go to jail for all of them.
Socialist policies are perfect examples of this. Rents are too high? Restrict rental rates. Twenty years later there are no rentals. Gee! No one could have anticipated that! In Canada there is an elderly politician fighting the mandates saying they are against the Charter of Rights. He was one of the writers of the Charter. NO! They are fully in line with the Charter. Which gives governments tons of loopholes to work around it. Enshrined in an unchangeable document. At the time of its writing I was young and naive and I was outraged. As were many others. But we were a tiny minority. I said at the time ‘as soon as we have elected a tyrant our rights vanish’. It took 40 years, but it happened.
All your examples- which are good ones- are examples of people pulling a lever as opposed to not doing anything to disrupt a "natural" pre-existing system.
I'm reminded of the adage "don't tear down a fence until you find out exactly why it was there in the first place."
I agree that intent may play a role in how we decide to morally evaluate behavior, but I argue that it is CHOOSING TO ACT to interfere or change a state makes you truly culpable when the consequences results in harm- no matter what your intentions were.
Have you read Julius Reuchel’s essay “Bystander at the Switch”? It covers the trolley problem beautifully. His one graphic “Illusion versus Reality” in particular.
https://theideasinstitute.org/2022/02/04/bystander-at-the-switch-the-moral-case-against-mandatory
had not.
i like his graphic very much. it finds great consonance with basiat's ideas about "the seen vs the unseen."
"the seen vs the unseen" immediately calls to my mind henry hazlitt's economics in one lesson, which of course is based on bastiat's essay. from wikipedia:
The "One Lesson" is stated in Part One of the book: "The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups."[2] Part Two consists of twenty-four chapters, each demonstrating the lesson by tracing the effects of one common economic belief, and exposing common economic belief as a series of fallacies.
Good link. Thanks.
I agree with the sentiment but there is an important correction… ‘ We invented universal human rights…’
No we didn’t. They exist, and always have existed, naturally - like gravity. We just discovered them, like we discovered gravity.
This is why they are in nobody’s gift. They exist in each of us by nature of our existence. Nobody can take these Rights away, although they certainly can stop us enjoying them.
In essence this is the difference between Common Law - which is discovered - and Code Law or Legislation which is invented. Under Common Law, everything is legal unless the Law says otherwise. Under Code/Legislated Law nothing is legal unless the Law says it is.
Some say that Legislation should not be called Law as it confuses provenance, integrity and legitimacy. A question of brand identity, as one might say. Not all colas are Coke.
Code Law is a much more restrictive and open to abuse and arbitrary judgement. It gives Government greater control. In a Common Law society, legislation is only permitted if it keeps to the letter or spirit of the Common Law - that is the sole function of Parliament/Congress to make sure it does, thereby protecting the citizen from the State.
Except - Parliament/Congress have joined the tyrant - that is no longer the case and legislation is designed to undermine Common Law or override it altogether and that violates this principle:-
“It forbids government from imposing a hierarchy of rights on their citizens. It forbids government from sacrificing some people for the benefit of others. It forbids government from knowingly imposing harm on some individuals in order to serve an alleged greater good”.
And that is exactly what legislatures spend the whole time doing.
Spectacular. It is why the American Revolution was truly revolutionary: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Great link; thanks for sharing...
Well it does and doesn't. Let's not conflate it with false analogies... the article is full of facts and the author states (correctly) what a disaster the lockdown/vaccine policy has been.
BUT what if it hadn't been a disaster?
What if we'd faced a Covid that the average age of the dead wasn't 82, but rather was 8.2? Would we react the same way then? Wanna pull the lever yet?
What if these kids were dropping like flies and a vaccine came out that really was 95% effective and did stop transmission in it's wake? Wanna pull the lever yet?
No? Then, yes if the above conditions were true, I'd kill you and pull the lever. My children and their classmates lives are at stake.
If we're going to use thought experiments, let's use them accurately.
so if i can stop the gods from being angry and wiping out the town by throwing you into the volcano, that's the way to go as long as it saves 2 or more people?
also note that you're arguing from false premise. if the disease were that obviously deadly and any of the mitigations actually worked, why do you presume people would need to be compelled to adopt them instead of doing so of their own volition and in their own interest?
you're framing a slanted question that begs the reality.
Indeed, 'our' side (if I may so presumptuous) never said to do nothing at all. We simply said that totally voluntary measures would be enough to 'flatten the curve' and ensure hospitals weren't overrun. Places like North Dakota that never had lockdowns or mask mandates prove it.
Agree you hit a nail on the head with the " if it was that deadly" scenario. I would expect different behaviour too. That's my point, we didn't have a real trolly dilemma.
But why jump to ANOTHER false analogy yourself of volcano gods?
Yes, although assuming we have free-will (and it's not all pre-determined a la David Hume's billiard balls) we have to have an attempt at thinking policies through, and also having the humility to re-consider them if they prove to be clearly wrong like in the fixed-rents example many give.
If you believe in chaotic variance then the latter is even more important I reckon. Myself I think it's more Pythagorean repeating vibrations layers over layers, and we're probably on the cusp with machine-learning of being able to code past some of the seeming chaos. Hopefully it'll feel more like finding fractals within the rainbow than just unweaving the rainbow.
Change is inevitable, progress isn't.
Yes, every technology from fire onwards can be used for good and bad. AI is likely very significant. Half the time I feel like going full smash-the-mechanical-loom luddite, and the other half I see genuine hope and progress in the area.
You’re arguing angels on the head of a pin arguments. Your analogy is as unreasonable as the trolley question. For one thing if the average age was 8.2 the virus would not be a Corona virus. And if people were dropping like flies NO ONE would have to be coerced into social distancing.
I find hobbesian competition for survival a lot more honest than whatever the fuck is going on now.
You try to kill me and pull the lever, I kill you because me and mine are on the other track. It's simple and fair and has nothing to do with morals.
I just don't like it when people delude themselves into thinking their position at the lever make them "the good guy" and me "the bad guy."
No one wants to get run over by a trolley, and fuck whoever wants to run you over.
Game on.
How has nobody pasted this link in yet?
https://youtu.be/lDnO4nDA3kM
Hahahaha! I watched that but forgot all about it!
I would derail the trolley! Okay, there were thirty people on the trolley, all of whom died. But gosh darn it, I stopped the trolley. (Paraphrasing every public health officer over the last two years...)
This is my problem with the academic sphere of philosophy in general. In principle, I understand the need to eliminate extraneous variables to try to explore a fundamental concept- you can "but what about" anything to death if you don't stipulate to any conditions in a thought exercise.
But it never, ever ends up creating practical value. Of COURSE in real life the better thing is to find the solution where no one gets run over or put on the tracks in the first place.
Yup. They're exercises with limited use, but even here we can at least see different thoughts emerge... Kinda like how your tribe is going to behave once you've led it out the dessert.
What if we'd faced a Covid that the average age of the dead wasn't 82, but rather was 8.2?
---------
No matter how dangerous covid was, nothing we did mattered at all.
Not true at all. Plenty of early successes from various MDs, municipalities, or even nations dishing out Vit-D/Calcifediol, zinc, steroids etc.
If it was 8.2 we'd really need to be attuned to this data and high trust sources and journalism. That's a real need.
Mostly the world adopted absurd measures like lockdowns and masks and authoritarianism.
In your counter situation, the same logic is maintained. Authorities would suggest and the wise would obey. The unwise might perish in greater numbers, their choice.
Now if it was obvious I was an immediate threat to your child and yourself, you are allowed to kill me. But shooting up the neighborhood because some person in that area might be a threat to you and kiddies would not be lawful ordinarily - except in crazy-town lock-down.
Hmmm, yes agree with first scenario mainly. The unwise fraction would likely be vanishingly small this time. The bigger problem would have been those supermarket scenarios... the staff really would no-show and the fights in the aisles would be hyper-violent and I expect martial law would be important for any order. Military distribution of food etc.
If there was a year delay to this hypothetical child-saving vax, the lockdowns would be the thing policed harder. I read evidence they were useless as implemented, but the Chinese-style weld people into their apartments and reduce interactions to 2 or less per day seemed to flatten the curve (I accept we're still in datageddon but there seems some logic in that policy). So if in that scenario some infected zealous family felt they were going to waltz down your street coughing and spitting to prove their point, and this would likely lead to several more kids dying in your vicinity, what do you do?
"lead to several more kids dying" hide the kids?
The Chinese example is awful. Isolation in apartment block is impossible as they have discovered.
The best we can ever do is try to confine, quarantine the infected and allow the world to go about their business. That's what public health always did in the past with more or less success. Force has been used but that was rare.
I'm of course assuming a nano-scale airborne viral pathogen with an airborne half-life.
Anyway I pray nothing as deadly AND viral gets created or released.
Once something becomes really deadly, it stops circulating. I gather we don't really know how deadly vs spread relate. Ebola can't really get going because it's hosts perish rapidly. Shortly after exposure they develop symptoms. Now the worse would be a deadly virus with a longer incubation time but enough replication to spread. That is what was feared most about SARs-CoV-2. Turns out to be at best a few days for that.
Yes that natural balance is a strong hope although the black death in the 14th century killed about a third of Eurasia. But I think there's why the evidence at times are really tough maybe the sun wasn't shining as much and crops yields were terrible
Happening after one year.
Yup 10% (overall excess)
Although I have seen a real breakdown off QALY effects, it does seem predominantly located in the elderly and co-morbid once again.
We can literally only hope it doesn't get worse over time. And also pray people come to their senses before dose 4,5,6
Or, say, one year, as well as reproductive failure and heart damage?
That essay is quite well written and lays out the case well. Required reading for our masters. (But they will never admit error).
One may forsee and make a judgement on the the intentional consequences of your actions, but not the unintentional.
May I recommend "Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt, if you are interested in that kind of thing.
I’m not 100% convinced of what you meant to say but as I read this I totally disagree. People often do terrible things unthinkingly. They seemingly are unaware of the consequences of their actions. But if they had thought for one minute those consequences would easily have been foreseeable. That’s why we have different degrees of murder. But they’re all murder. And you go to jail for all of them.
Socialist policies are perfect examples of this. Rents are too high? Restrict rental rates. Twenty years later there are no rentals. Gee! No one could have anticipated that! In Canada there is an elderly politician fighting the mandates saying they are against the Charter of Rights. He was one of the writers of the Charter. NO! They are fully in line with the Charter. Which gives governments tons of loopholes to work around it. Enshrined in an unchangeable document. At the time of its writing I was young and naive and I was outraged. As were many others. But we were a tiny minority. I said at the time ‘as soon as we have elected a tyrant our rights vanish’. It took 40 years, but it happened.
All your examples- which are good ones- are examples of people pulling a lever as opposed to not doing anything to disrupt a "natural" pre-existing system.
I'm reminded of the adage "don't tear down a fence until you find out exactly why it was there in the first place."
I agree that intent may play a role in how we decide to morally evaluate behavior, but I argue that it is CHOOSING TO ACT to interfere or change a state makes you truly culpable when the consequences results in harm- no matter what your intentions were.
Re: Canada *Eyes are opened now, what a disaster! You said it perfectly.
Foreseen consequences can't be unintended.