Absolute Morals, Sins of Commission vs Omission etc.

sexdrugsmoney · #18 10-15-2005, 11:30 AM

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You should nitpick more carefully. The areas in my reply which you highlight were both sarcastic.

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And without use of emoticons how can one deduce sarcasm from mere text, which via this medium can only be taken subjectively?

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Let me be clear. Button three is the most obviously moral choice. Non-participation is significantly less moral. And it is decidedly immoral if we assume that refusal to participate will not influence the government policy. For the sake of the question, I make that assumption.

The main reason that it's easy to become a "desk murderer" is disassociation of one's actions and their consequences. David's scenario does a nice job of removing the desk, and because of this, I doubt that even very greedy people would fail to choose button three (at least not on day one). Some might pass the buck, but only a very few would take the cash.

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Rich people didn't become rich by willingly allowing $450-465 to leak out of their accounts at the end of the month, and while I doubt any rich person who isn't having a bad day or a sociopath would take option 1, option 2 is +EV and from a realist perspective and would be the most worn out button if "buck-passing" was eliminated.

This scenario is naive because it assumes that the current situation may be different if rich people had to actively press a button instead of sub-contracting their 'questionable' exploits while they distract themselves playing Tennis with other distracted exploiters.

The whole fact that life is in your hands only reaffirms how unfair life is, and that it's better to be pushing the button and making decisions than to be impoverished - but have a clear conscience, and be at the mercy of a button pusher.

I'm just sick of the neverending "Atheist club vs Theist club merry-go-round" threads and the only alternatives offered by David which are about dogs and African kids. With all the supposed great minds in SMP, why are we even replying to these weak scenarios?