Yes, they are separate problems that highlight problems with trying to apply the logic of pulling the lever more broadly to other circumstances.

The trolley problem is a philosophical thought experiment designed to examine differences in schools of moral philosophy and of people’s moral intuitions. It’s not necessarily about demonstrating that you have to live with the consequences of the choice.

The problem with it comes when people assume that the act utilitarian answer is objectively correct, and that it is broadly applicable to real world problems even when there are huge differences. At that point the trolley problem stops serving as a tool to explore moral philosophy and becomes a rhetorical tool to justify and feel better about throwing people under the bus.

Another thought experiment designed to critique this perspective is as follows: while travelling through the woods, you come across a group of armed men holding prisoner a group of people who were protesting their regime. The leader of the armed men says that if you take a gun and kill one of them yourself, he’ll let the rest go, but otherwise, he’ll kill all of them. From the perspective of act utilitarianism, or trolley problem thinking, taking the offer is morally obligatory.

The problem with that is that you can be manipulated into causing harm by a malevolent actor. All they have to do is threaten some greater harm, and you become their tool, which can increase their power and their ability to threaten larger harm. “You must go out and kill one person, or I will command another of my agents to go out and kill three.” This essentially precludes standing up to any powerful entity in any meaningful way.

Refusing to kill one of the hostages, or pull the lever to run over Palestinians, leaves open the possibility of forming a united front to defeat the people forcing us into such situations in the first place. Keeping one’s own hands clean is not simply a matter of “moral purity,” but rather, an intentional strategy of avoiding actions taken against a particular group.

We can imagine a trolley problem where on the switched track is a foreign diplomat who, if killed, will cause an alliance between two countries to fail, leaving them both vulnerable to a third, and making it essential to save them. This is the hidden cost of pulling the lever to sacrifice Palestinians. But it goes beyond their specific value as allies, it also tells other allies that they can be sacrificed in the same way. In this case, it is better to accept a future where an external force commits a greater immediate harm than to commit a smaller immediate harm ourselves but which jeopardize alliances and solidarity.

Other countries are not the scope of the US vote. Especially now more than ever.

Conflating internal problems with external ones is just missing the point. Can’t have it both ways. Either the US dictates world policy and you accept that with that will come chaos to other nations, possibly without their consent. Or the US stays completely out of world policy, and you accept that with that will come chaos to other nations, possibly without their consent.

This is the weird take. The decision to arm and support Israel is not “world policy,” it is US foreign policy. Calling on a change of US foreign policy to avoid causing harm and to stay out of other countries affairs is not “dictating world policy” it is the complete opposite of that. I would be perfectly fine with the US staying out of world policy, although you’ve also set up a false dichotomy here, it is possible to have a foreign policy that’s somewhere in between “complete isolation” and “arming and funding genocide.”

To say “other countries are not the scope of the US vote” is utterly bizarre. Obviously US voters can, should, and do consider US foreign policy when casting votes. It’s also relevant to domestic policy because so much of our tax money is being wasted on the military rather than being used to address actual problems.

Now, your own country is in jeopardy, and with that comes jeopardy to all the people in your nation and many other nations. Not just trans rights. Everyone’s rights. Everyone’s lives.

RIP: critical thinking.

Everyone’s rights would be in jeopardy either way. The only question is whether we allow the ruling class to divide us and turn against each other, like crabs in a bucket trying to screw each other over for our own advantage, or whether we attempt to forge a united front. If we betray each other, our defeat is completely inevitable, and all we’re doing is buying our in-group a little time. To stay united means a willingness to pass on some fleeting offer of short-term security for some of us, but in exchange we have an actual fighting chance in the long term.

You think I’m not thinking critically only because you aren’t aware of the factors that I’m basing my analysis on. The immediate, direct outcome is not the only thing that matters. What we are now seeing, only a few years later, is the beginning of a massive shift towards more progressive, more antizionist politics.

The conventional wisdom was always that if you run centrists who are essentially Republicans but like 10% less bad, then you’ll pick up the centrists and the left with fall in line behind the lesser evil, and so there is no reason to ever run progressives from the perspective of winning elections. If everyone followed your logic, then that’s where we would still be. But Harris’s loss is just one more point of data, together with the wave of progressives like Mamdani, that proves that theory false.

However, if you think I’m being unreasonable, I don’t mind. A “reasonable” person (by your standards) would fall in line behind whatever garbage candidate was placed in front of them. To win in an electorate with enough “unreasonable” people means that you have to start caving to their demands.

“I’m going to vote to help the vast majority of people the majority of the time,” Vindman told the crowd, according to the Advocate. “Is it going to help everybody? No.”

Dang, this reminds me of what I was saying two years ago:

If a minority group like Palestinians can be sacrificed for the sake of winning an election, then the same can and will be done for any minority group that becomes seen as an electoral liability. The only way for any minority, but especially one as small as trans people, to really achieve security is through solidarity, an alliance of the vulnerable that treats an offense against one as an offense against all. Right now, there might be cis gays watching the democrats blame trans people and thinking that they’ll be safe, but that’s not guaranteed at all.

I’m just saying, if you’re willing to accept excuses like, “Palestine isn’t on the ballot this year” then you’ll readily accept excuses like “trans rights aren’t on the ballot” and so on, until there’s no one left to stand up for you.

Reject trolley problem thinking.

Tbf he’s just a senator, he’s not writing policy, he just signs whatever the relevant industry puts on his desk.

What part of any of that am I supposed to be scandalized by, exactly? Because I read the whole article and I didn’t see a single reason I shouldn’t be touting the 96% home ownership rate.

Shout-out to the dude on the right going into cryosleep with a trans flag shirt in 1990.

housing absolutely isn’t affordable typically you need an entire families worth of income that goes to the son to afford a home, and on top of that, when you buy a home in China, you are given 70 year lease on the land, so not sure how many Americans would want that sort of thing.

Weird how despite all that, the home ownership rate in China is 96%

As an evil authoritarian tankie, this episode made perfect sense to me 😉

The old man had a knee-jerk opposition and lack of trust to any form of government or authority, understandably developed from living under the fascist occupation, but now extended to the fledgeling revolutionary government, which could not survive without cooperation and buy-in from the people. It was necessary for the Bejorans to adapt from the role of rebels to other roles. We see in other episodes Bejorans who can’t or won’t do this (the Maquis).

The whole point of overthrowing the Cardassians was not “blowing things up is fun and cool” nor was it “all governments are bad and individualism is good.” That specific government was bad, and the point was to set up a new government that could work for the benefit of the Bejoran people, and protect their safety and interests. Kira threads the needle between freedom fighter and civil servant, burning down the old order and building up the new one with equal resolve and determination.

By living with the old man, Kira showed that she understood him, that she felt similar things to him, that she wasn’t just a pencil pusher who didn’t care whose lives got ruined in the name of profits and efficiency and understood the weight of what she was telling him. But she also showed that, even from that perspective, she was still determined to get the reactor built. Ultimately, the decision she makes is forceful, authoritarian, even. But she also demonstrates by example how someone who is like the old man could arrive at her position. She is not only forcing him, but also leading by example, showing him that if she can switch gears to the changing conditions, he can too.

That willingness to build up after, to cooperate and ensure that a new peace can last, that is what separates the revolutionary from the rebel (the Maquis), or the individualist (the old man).

A sound argument is better than a reasonable one. Don’t use terms you don’t understand.

Relaity is China got out of poverty in spite of CCP not because of it. If they had democracy like Taiwan they’d be more rich AND more free.

Non sequitor, that’s also false and not supported by anything. Didn’t you just get done making the point that you can’t compare countries with very different conditions? You’re contradicting your own claims. How did you put it? “Which dicks do we measure and do we start at the balls or just the shaft?”

How did I move the goalposts? Justify the accusation or take it back, otherwise you’re just full of shit. Don’t just try to move on after getting called out for the fact that you have nothing to back it up.

Btw, the original criticism was over China having billionaires. Now you’re saying it should be more like Taiwan, which… also has billionaires. This demonstrates that the criticism that China is bad because it has billionaires is unfounded.

The other person was being sarcastic.

I’ve made very well reasoned arguments backed by data and sources, you just randomly scream that I’m “moving the goalposts” somehow with absolutely zero explanation for how I’m supposedly doing it and just repeat that and throw insults at me. It’s obvious that you’re just a troll.

Where do you think the goalposts are supposed to be? What did I say that set the goalposts there? You have nothing, you’re just slinging shit against the wall and hoping something sticks.

Boring troll.

long standing contracts

That graph he just posted kinda pokes some holes in this narrative that it’s just “long standing contracts” when there’s a massive increase in aid during his term.

There’s also the reality that you lot tend to ignore/deny which is that Biden bypassed congress to send additional weapons.

And you describe the US as “the biggest weapon manufacturer in the world” as though that somehow makes it better instead of worse. We’re already producing ridiculous numbers of bombs, and then we’re sending even more bombs to arm a genocide, and that’s somehow OK?

It’s so ridiculous. All the US is doing is having Israel do it’s dirty work so it has plausible deniability that rubes and partisan hacks can hide behind.

Wtf are you even talking about? My first comment was about this, and that’s all I’ve been saying this entire conversation. The goalpost has always been exactly where it’s at.

It is entirely you and others who have tried to move the goalposts from “This one policy was successful” to “China is the best country in the world,” which was never my position, because it’s easier for you to argue against that.

You’re completely full of shit. You’ve just defaulted to random accusations and insults based on nothing because you know you can’t argue with the facts.

That’s completely absurd. This is the dumbest thing anyone’s said this conversation.

The sample size isn’t “n=1” it’s n=800,000,000. It’s clearly visible from the graph that I posted that the reduction in poverty began immediately after the reforms, and then continued extremely consistently on an extremely large scale.

In case you need a refresher on what the data looks like:

You’re just so committed to shitting on every single thing that China does that you’re willing to throw out all reason and logic, completely ignore obvious facts, and throw out any means of evaluating any policy just to avoid the conclusion that China may have done a single thing right.

What other possible explanation even is there? You’re just very objectively wrong.

As we can’t verify this in any meaningful extend due to - as you yourself pointed out - every country and culture being invredibly different. So why are you OK with attributing success to chinese policy but not failure?

I’m so confused by this conversation. Let’s recap.

Originally, OP asked why China has billionaires if it’s aiming to be socialist. I replied that the reforms that allowed billionaires also resulted in 800 million people escaping extreme poverty. WoodScientist randomly started drawing comparisons between the PRC and Taiwan, and I said that it’s apples and oranges, and that I didn’t see the relevance to what I had said. Then you started providing even more reasons why the comparison isn’t really valid, acting as if that contradicted my position in some way, which was even more confusing. You added that you didn’t like looking at other possible routes China could have gone, because it’s untestable.

Now, having established that you don’t like comparing China to other countries (calling it “dick measuring”), and also that you don’t like comparing other historical possibilities (calling them “untestable”) you’re now accusing me of being unwilling to attribute failure to Chinese policy.

First of all, which failure are you talking about? There are plenty which I’m willing to acknowledge. But also, on what basis could you call any policy a success or failure? You’ve thrown away all your epistemology. If we discount comparisons to other places, and also discount comparisons to other possibilities, then what can we look at to determine if a given policy was a success or failure?

I see today how unjust and miserable China is despite what tiktok might paint you.

Do you? What’s your point of reference for that? Some hypothetical ideal that exists only in your mind?

Citing one of my favorite philosophers, Aristotle, and the one that is my favorite book of ethics, Nicomacus Ethics, virtue is the just (or point) half between two vices, one by excess and one by default.

What defines the standards of what is considered excess? Go back a thousand years, and nearly any modern government would be considered “excessively” democratic. Or, look at the debates over slavery in early America. The idea of immediate abolition of slavery was the most extreme position then, yet it’s considered a given today. Looking back at all the compromises made to “keep the peace,” it seems like they only served to prolong the institution of slavery, and that conflict was necessary and unavoidable.

If we really want to play with the idea, I wonder if the Golden Mean implies that nonbinary people are better than everyone, because ideally you want to be balanced between masculinity and femininity. It’s pretty clear that we cannot apply the Golden Mean uncritically to all possible qualities.

If the objective is to guarantee the best possible conditions for its population, which I do not understand why they do exactly the opposite

They don’t. You’re painting a one-sided picture that only looks at the negative. They have eradicated extreme poverty, they invest in massive high speed rail projects and develop green energy. The average Chinese person has seen massive improvements in their material conditions in their lifetime.

Much of what you’re discussing are political freedoms. It’s true that I have more freedom to talk shit about my government than people in China do about theirs. But all I can really do is talk shit. The politicians aren’t going to care how much I criticize them, they’re bought out by corporate interests, and many of them are in safely gerrymandered districts. At the same time, economic conditions can restrain one’s freedom as well. My right to shit-talk my boss doesn’t mean much if my boss can fire me on a whim and I need the job to survive. Is being able to whine impotently about politics really worth having to follow whatever rules a landlord sets for you because you can’t afford your own home? Meanwhile, home ownership in China is over 90%.

With all that being said, China’s system is not my ideal. However, I do believe that China’s existence is necessary for more ideal systems to emerge around the world. Without China, the US’s status as global hegemon would be completely unchallenged, and it would be all the more free to ruthlessly suppress any remotely left-leaning political projects, anyone on the globe, through sanctions and coups. But, the more ruthless and aggressive they are, the more countries turn to China, because it exists as an alternative. Even if China were as bad as the US, it would still be preferable to have power divided between two superpowers than one.

I really hate this untestable argument as if we could go back in time and do A|B test to see which framework would have lifted people out of poverty the fastest.

What?? Then why even discuss anything about anything?

If you’re criticizing China’s policies, surely the point of that criticism is that you think different policies would have been more effective.

It’s also not entirely an untestable counterfactual because we can examine every other political faction that had a reasonable chance of controlling China, and see what their leadership looked like in practice, and make reasonable extrapolations based on that.

• The Nationalists did absolutely nothing to help the rural poor, embezzled foreign aid, and were more preoccupied with hunting down their domestic enemies than repelling the genocidal fascist invaders. Chiang Kai-Shek literally had to be captured by his own bodyguards to be pressured into defending the country. Life expectancy remained completely flat during his rule.

• The fascist, genocidal Japanese invaders weren’t a good option for obvious reasons.

• How about having no centralized authority at all? That’s what they had during the warlord period, a time of chaos and conflict that left the country vulnerable and did nothing to improve things for anyone.

• Before that, there was the Qing dynasty, an authoritarian monarchy which was so assured of its superiority that they completely failed to adapt to foreign innovations and technologies, out of pride, even when it was clear that those technologies were superior.

• Then you have the various European powers, carving the country up to divy up the resources between each other, while getting half the country addicted to opium.

• And, returning to how things played out historically, we have the one and only faction that had any intention whatsoever of helping the hundreds of millions of starving farmers, which doubled life expectancy within a generation and then adapted to changing conditions and enacted policies which, again, brought 800 million people out of extreme poverty. And the whole reason they won the revolution was because the starving Chinese peasants could tell that they were the only ones who gave two shits about helping them.

Which dicks do we measure and do we start at the balls or just the shaft?

I’m the one trying to avoid this pointless dick-measuring contest between countries with vastly different conditions, despite everyone else trying to draw me into it. I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t know why we’re comparing countries. Why don’t you ask WoodScientist whose dicks we measure, since he’s the one trying to measure dicks?

Which variables are allowed in the math depends on what the point of the comparison is. And as I said, I’m not really sure what the point of comparing these countries is. It’s pretty apples to oranges and doesn’t really tell us anything about the efficacy of China’s reforms in the context of their specific conditions.

The fact that there’s such a difference in landmass is just another reason why it doesn’t make sense to compare the two. If you want to compare China to another country for some reason, it would probably make sense to compare it to a country with more similar conditions, like India perhaps.