You’re treating the trolley problem as a physics problem, not an ethical one. It isn’t asking whether you can put something on the tracks to stop the trolley, or hit the switch at the right moment and derail it, or untie the people before they get run over. It’s asking questions such as whether murder can ever be justifiable, if inaction is complicity, if you’re willing to sacrifice your morals for the sake of other people.
The actual mechanics of the situation are irrelevant because it’s a metaphor, and refusing to treat it as one means you’re interacting with the trolley problem in bad faith.
It is, and the answer to those questions, as is so often the case, is “I don’t have to, because I can save everyone anyway on account of having a brain and not being afraid to use it.”
EDIT: You know what’s ALSO a metaphor? People’s resistance to this solution, which is a metaphor of them being too ashamed to admit that, when given two bad options by a disingenuous party, they were too lazy to look for the obvious third solution.
Most philosophical problems are some sort of people not wanting to actually think about them. Like, Theseus Ship is STILL the same ship if you replace parts, and I can prove it.
There’s a certain arrogance to this attitude that comes off as extremely unearned if you know even a bit more about the ethical problems involved but also you’re drastically overestimating how easy it is to time the lever right to derail a train. The thing is going very fast, it is not easy to time. You can try but you still risk killing the one or three people.
Also you insisted just walking away was a valid solution. That’s just not pulling the lever. It’s the same thing.
Except you’re still not seeing it as a metaphor. The specific circumstances don’t matter, so “oh, I’m way too smart to ever be in this situation”, is just refusing to engage with the question(s) being asked.
That’s not what a metaphor is, but I’d say “taking the third option” is indicative of an inability or unwillingness to engage with a moral quandary that isn’t just black and white.
You’re the one who’s refusing to think about them as philosophical problems. You rationalize you way out of them with physics or dismiss them by saying you’re too smart to ever be in that situation, but you’re just refusing to acknowledge or think about, for whatever reason, the existence of complex moral dilemmas with no objective correct solution.
No one’s tying six people to train tracks and making someone pick who to save, but choosing between doing something you’re uncomfortable with in order to help others, or maintaining your moral integrity even if it harms others is a situation encountered in real life. The trolley problem is just a convenient way of expressing this situation.
As an aside, “refusing to think” is probably the funniest criticism you could level at philosophers.
Also trollies typically have people in them. Usually more than three. Train derailments kill passengers.
Train derailments tend to kill passengers. Unless there’s less than three people, you’re likely to have more casualties than the first two options combined.
But your moral integrity doesn’t come into play during the (basic) trolley problem. Like, if you think that pulling the lever to get the trolley away from three people and into one* is the right thing to do, that’s your moral integrity. It’s not threatened in any way. The basic version of trolley problem, at MOST, is showcasing what your moral integrity IS, it’s not endangering it.
If you want a problem that is actually threatening moral integrities, that’s the Prisoner’s Dilemma or whatever the one that lets you push a button to kill a random person you don’t know and give you a million dollars (or whatever) is called.
Yes, but all those passengers were Nazis, so yay.
*let’s ignore for now the variations that qualify the people in question
Can’t speak for everyone, but that isn’t the case for me. I think murder is wrong, whether directly or by inaction. While I fall on the side of hitting the switch because it saves the greatest number of people, I see this as a case of picking the lesser evil.
We aren’t even meant to still be arguing this, I’m not going to pretend this crucial detail is magically irrelevant so you can keep up this inane facetiousness to draw things out. I will not let you randomly say it’s a Nazi trolly while not quantifying the people on the tracks just because it suites you. What IS this conversation?
I think focusing on the trolley problem has gotten us too far away from what this thread is supposed to be. Can we go back to talking about story elements?
Ok, but see, your moral integrity isn’t at stake in the Trolley. If you think that causing death by either action or inaction is the same level of bad, then pulling the lever or not is bad either way, and the only difference in the classic TP is the number of people on the rails. You’re picking the lesser evil, but that doesn’t matter for your moral integrity, because you don’t have the option of “no evil”. The only way it does bad things to your moral integrity is if you, for some reason, pick the more evil option, which I have no idea why anyone would, seeing as in the classic TP the lever puller doesn’t stand to personally gain anything.
And yet you persist.
You’re the one who put people in the trolley, not me.
EDIT: Anyway, to get the thread back on track, BG3 made me realise something:
characters who I’m supposed to think they’re special or interesting because of their species/physical features. Like, Astarion is just an egomaniacal asshole, and he’s not less of an egomaniacal asshole I don’t want to hang with because he’s a vampire. It doesn’t make him any more interesting, it just makes me immediately suspicious that his creator has Main Character Syndrome. He doesn’t DO anything interesting. Oh, Gale banged the goddess of magic? That doesn’t even make you special dude, Mystra leads a prolific sex life. At least when the game tries to sell me on Lae’Zel, what gives her character… well, character isn’t technically that she’s a yanki, it’s that she grew up in the yanki culture, which is a different thing, and interacting with her at least provides a window into that.
To bring the conversation back to tropes in general:
I personally don’t really have anything against the Chosen One trope, especially since in recent times you see some really interesting variations and subversions. But on the flipside, I love love love its sibling, the Unchosen One trope; either where there is a Chosen One but it’s not the MC (MC is either a friend, a sibling, the parent, a family member, etc) or where there is no Chosen One at all, and the person who becomes the hero is just a random person who stepped up when it mattered.
I think my favorite variation is a combination of both possibilities; where there is a fated Chosen One with special powers, but at the end of the day the one who beats the Big Bad isn’t actually the Chosen One, for one reason or another.
I am! It’s been a while since I played through it, but I remember really liking the concept.
My personal recommendation for the trope would be Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End, if you feel like you can handle general themes of death, grief and the passage of time. The trope is only a small part of the story, but I really like how it was handled, and how the whole conflict with the Demon King was handled in general.
(Not that I really need an excuse to gush about Frieren lmfao. I love that story to bits.)
Technically, I abhor the heir requirement needing to be bloodlined. If it requires bloodline then let siblings go at it instead.
Few titles that were stupid about specific things. One was done to appease real world politics, so was the other, cause, baby making enthusiastic, groups, bleed into stories. I wont list the couple that did it then tried backpedalling after.
I get the choice to chat with partner about it. I will be the final line, siblings will not be though. They can carry further instead. If none, well, the world definitely burns in this case if requires my bloodline and no siblings/cousins (though usually stated too thin).
Otherwise I save the world myself. No kids!
Exception plays in specific stories. Mostly by external ways.
Yes, I hate kids so much. I’d let the world get destroyed instead. If I can’t have adopted or other means to do so anyway.
Good ones I am fine with, I can list. Star Captain (1 time only, partner via species way of doing things), The Lost Heir (2 full (allowing share via magic and partner pregnant, 1 not), Blood Legacies (quite happy on its handling and any others that go this way).
Goku is already an isekai protag though . He came from planet Vegeta. Goes to a fantastical world with demons, animal people and dinosaurs. Learns a move at a glance, has inherent advantages due to coming from another world. Has a girl obsess over him while being dense etc.
Hm i love having 25 words to mind control people.
Don’t we have like barely any stories with 5e Mystra?
Plus like as a chosen that meant Gale had 9nth level spells, automatically more protagonist energy outside of the dark urge. Starting party only laezel and wyll are really normal, but Wyll was also high level.
Anyway on the prophecy thing. Generally dislike. Reluctant protags can be fun though.
Prophecy wise they’re just cryptic call to actions many of the time to justify why they’re not more useful and so the author can call back to it later.
So like, they’re better if they’re inherently manipulative…
So like ffxv and fgo had prophecies i like.
Ffxv because it was a god just doing his evil plan.
And fgo was to sacrifice a girl for the sins of the british and then wipe out Britain. Had like 3 different prophecies all trying to destroy britain too. And the chosen one was a backup anyway because the last one said no and tried a different way. Girl didn’t even know about the sacrifice part or the destroying things and was still super reluctant because she hated the british and it was worded as salvation instead.
Anyway those prophecies were more spur of the moment curses too and just things people knew in the setting so them finding out more was a genuine discovery instead of people on your side holding out.
Admittedly this trope is, by definition, a YMMV one where the author doesn’t get across what they mean to in the eyes of some people but I really hate when a story treats a character as 100% in the wrong when they really aren’t. Even worse if a choice-based game does this and doesn’t let you express a different opinion on the matter.
I remember in Zombie Exodus, everyone got really angry at the hippie couple for barging in and telling people how to run things and yeah sure they were a tad condescending when they said it but what they ACTUALLY SAID was that it would be relatively easy to grow tomatoes and peppers in your base which would be incredibly useful in a situation where, as the game frequently emphasizes, food is scarce and good food even more so. And everyone just focuses on how rude they’re being and how they don’t like them and the idea never gets brought up again. And the whole time I just wanted to say “shut up you whiney little assholes. I haven’t had fresh produce in months and you’re ignoring a viable plan to grow food because the proposers are a bit rude.” But all your actual options were just tepid statements about how you think they meant well. I think if you focus so much on someone overstepping their bounds as the newbies than their actual ideas, maybe you deserve to get talked down to. I’d like to talk to you on your level but I can’t squat down that low long enough to hold a conversation.
Trying to grow own resources is best idea anyway. There won’t be a survival without doing so. I find it weird writers out there think scavenging alone will be survivable. (Not specific companies.)
Not giving an indicator of whats meant via settings - turn on show stat changes and/or hearts. Can lead toward the misinterpretation of some choices. ‘I thought it meant this! Gotta restart.’ Not just one word spelled a way but a word with more than one meaning or just think it meant that but author thought this.
I tend towards either save prior to options cause uncertain what will be vs what I expected or above to show exactly its stats.
Run across IFs that confused me with its options before. Oh, that wasn’t a flirt?! Damn. Oh thats a flirt?! Oops! Also came up a few times.
Do we have room in here for a disliked word? Because it’s seriously starting to bother me how often I see “garb” and how often I see “garbs” used incorrectly. “Garb” is like “sheep;” it is both singular and plural as a noun. “Garbs” as a verb just means to get dressed, it does not mean to have more clothing or to be wearing multiple items of clothing.
Why is everyone suddenly using “garb” (incorrectly) rather than “clothing” or “dress?”
I don’t know the answer to that, but you know what is weird? The word is always attested as “garb” for clothing, and not “garbs,” as you point out, except that there are two solid attestations of “garbs” meaning clothing, one in 1833 and one in 1883, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. What was going on with people and their garbs in those 50 years?
. He came from planet Vegeta. Goes to a fantastical world with demons, animal people and dinosaurs. Learns a move at a glance, has inherent advantages due to coming from another world. Has a girl obsess over him while being dense etc.
