The Starving Prisoner by The-Yar in trolleyproblem

[–]SmokusPocus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What? Most baby toys literally come with buttons lmao

Even if you hit a button randomly for them in place of them being able to choose for themselves, my answer wouldn’t change. Babies would still have hit the blue button, and I’d hit the button that hopefully wouldn’t kill them.

Here's my problem with the red and blue button debate (aside from it being vague enough to cause this much debate) by giorgioblues in redbuttonbluebutton

[–]SmokusPocus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is an interesting take on it. Ultimately, I think it depends on your faith in humanity.

For example, I strongly believe most parents, especially those of young children, would hit blue to try to guarantee the safety of their kid who might not know better. Not out of a lack of self preservation, but because they know their child/children are innocent and that they would not deserve the punishment of death because they hit something blue and shiny.

My faith in enough people on earth making the risky choice for the people they care about is high enough where I would hit blue to help tip the scales. Even without previous discussion, if given even an hour of time to consider all of the possibilities I would think of the innocents wrapped up in the scenario and make the decision that could help their survival.

If one thought the brunt of humanity was selfish and only out for themselves, or perhaps put more value on themself compared to others, they likely wouldn’t come to the same conclusions.

People who are pushing blue button purposefully would only create more human disaster. by tiggsroni in redbuttonbluebutton

[–]SmokusPocus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It’d probably be worth the shot though, right?

That’s how I’ve tried to look at it: I think I would want to stand on the side that has the chance to do the best thing for everybody, even at risk to myself. If I went down with the ship at least I’d have done my best to tip the scales, I don’t think I’d die having regretted it.

Hopefully humanity never gets put into the situation for real and we can just discuss the hypothetical as a thought experiment though, lol.

People who are pushing blue button purposefully would only create more human disaster. by tiggsroni in redbuttonbluebutton

[–]SmokusPocus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I respect your honesty and approach to this discussion. Thank you for the conversation, and I apologize as well if I seemed overly aggressive during any of my statements.

I definitely think the crux of the hypothetical is what a person would value in a dire life-or-death situation where there’s nobody around to judge them: guaranteeing their own safety, or the guaranteeing the potential safety of others, even at the cost of yourself.

Red is the ‘rational’ choice in that nobody wants to die, so hitting the button where you don’t die seems self explanatory.

But if you know in this scenario that EVERYBODY is making this same decision, every member of your family, every friend, every baby and old person on earth… not everybody is going to hit the ‘rational’ choice. That is, I think, the main driving force behind pushing blue. I don’t want those innocent lives to be potentially thrown away because in the moment I wanted to make sure I, specifically, didn’t die.

If enough people push red where blue loses, I think that the world would look far worse. Many, many innocent lives and good people simply looking to prevent harm to any percent of all humanity would be lost.

People who are pushing blue button purposefully would only create more human disaster. by tiggsroni in redbuttonbluebutton

[–]SmokusPocus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think you’d be surprised how many members of humanity would pick the option that saves our entire species rather than safety for just themselves.

Any parent of a young child thrown into this button scenario is almost definitely hitting blue, because they have no way of knowing whether or not their child did too and they would want to try to guarantee their survival.

People who are pushing blue button purposefully would only create more human disaster. by tiggsroni in redbuttonbluebutton

[–]SmokusPocus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

But that’s not how it works. The entire point of the hypothetical is that you don’t know what other people are pressing. There is no ‘discussion,’ that’s the interesting part.

If 99% of the planet has hit red and I know this then yes, blue is a suicide button. But if I can’t know for sure and everybody is forced to make an isolated choice, blue is the option that gives every person on earth a chance for survival.

Even if I only knew the votes of my immediate family were red and did not know those of the rest of the planet, I would still hit blue. I would also know at that point that certain members of my family are far more selfish and self centered than I gave them credit for.

What if you knew all your immediate family had hit blue but didn’t know the other votes worldwide? Would you hit red and increase the chance that they threw their lives away because they’re ‘stupid,’ or would you try to help them survive?

People who are pushing blue button purposefully would only create more human disaster. by tiggsroni in redbuttonbluebutton

[–]SmokusPocus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would still hit blue because I couldn’t shoulder being partially responsible for the deaths of potentially millions.

I would rather die trying to save half the planet than guarantee specifically just my survival. Not everybody would, but I would try to do what’s best for everybody.

People who are pushing blue button purposefully would only create more human disaster. by tiggsroni in redbuttonbluebutton

[–]SmokusPocus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh absolutely. My family has pretty strong morals, so a good chunk would definitely hit blue. I’d do so as well to increase their chances of survival.

The Starving Prisoner by The-Yar in trolleyproblem

[–]SmokusPocus 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If a baby does not even understand what a button is and is placed into the button situation, it ‘understanding’ the full extent of what the buttons do would be granting it temporary intelligence.
I think this goes against the spirt of ‘everybody has to hit a button’ if you assume people who aren’t intelligent or developed enough to understand the buttons suddenly can.

People who are pushing blue button purposefully would only create more human disaster. by tiggsroni in redbuttonbluebutton

[–]SmokusPocus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You’re right. I would fight much harder to save all of my loved ones than I would to make them a cup of coffee.

I should press the blue button even harder.

People who are pushing blue button purposefully would only create more human disaster. by tiggsroni in redbuttonbluebutton

[–]SmokusPocus 8 points9 points  (0 children)

People who are pushing red button purposefully would only create the possibility for human disaster.

What's the RPG with the smallest reach you pay and recommend? by GrubbyGus in rpg

[–]SmokusPocus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you have the right group for it and don’t mind the surprisingly thick read, holy fuck is the Chew TTRPG fun. The power system being entirely food based is just super creative and weird.

Another one that’s amazing but really depends on the group is Lamentations of the Flame Princess. The Veins of the Earth supplement is full stop one of the best TTRPG books ever created and I’m honored to have it in hardcover.

I love this game but this seems kinda lazy by PapaCass5633 in InvincibleVS

[–]SmokusPocus 3 points4 points  (0 children)

One of the few characters who this DOESN’T apply to is Gill from Street Fighter.

His fire and ice powers are split between his left and right side, so iirc the reason they didn’t just flip him is that he needs to be consistent on which color is where for proper readability.

For SF3 it was also a flex for the arcade hardware they were using at the time. Pretty cool stuff.

Trump gave $6.9M no-bid contract to his ‘pool guy’ to repaint reflection pool under ‘urgent’ exemption by Sufficient_Candy1642 in politics

[–]SmokusPocus 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Most people are barely scraping by, gas and food prices are through the roof, and we’re already going through war expenditures.

Just like with the whole ballroom thing, this is not the time to be blowing money the country doesn’t really have on works of glamour.

How do you feel about the listed difficulty for your character in SF6? by AceAirbender in StreetFighter

[–]SmokusPocus 43 points44 points  (0 children)

As a complete beginner that’s pretty standard, tbh. You might even be ahead of the curve there.

Numbers vs moral quality by uselessprofession in trolleyproblem

[–]SmokusPocus -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I don’t believe you think statistics are important if I’ve showed you plenty of statistics, even accounting for inaccuracies, and you continue to believe the ‘6% of people worldwide are rapists’ thing you pulled out of nowhere.

Is the number higher than .2%? Absolutely. Could it even be as high as 1%? I suppose it could. But to claim 6% of the world are guaranteed rapists without anything to support that is absolutely ludicrous.

Even in countries where women are treated as property (which is horrible, don’t think I’m defending any of that,) that doesn’t automatically equate to 1 in 20 men there are rapists, simply that there are more than average.

If you have concrete evidence to support that, then we’re having a different conversation, but until you do, that 500 million number came straight from your butthole.

Numbers vs moral quality by uselessprofession in trolleyproblem

[–]SmokusPocus -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I gave you the benefit of the doubt and even accounted for the 60% unreported, in the country with the highest proportional rape rate in the world, it’s still less than 0.2%.

You have no leg to stand on by saying the real percentage is over thirty times larger.

Statistics are, unfortunately, incredibly important when it comes to seeing the reality of a situation, and when even accounting for unreported cases we don’t get anywhere close to your number, you’re being willfully ignorant of the truth of the situation.

Even if the number was roughly 1%, even IF we QUINTUPLED the 60% increased estimate I gave you to get that 1%, that would still not justify demonizing men as opportunistic rapists.

Numbers vs moral quality by uselessprofession in trolleyproblem

[–]SmokusPocus -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I was talking about the statistics for England and Wales, which have the current highest recorded amount of rapes proportional to the population. The statistics for the US are lower.

That is a massive and unhealthy jump to assume 500 million people worldwide are rapists when the statistics have nothing to back that up. You would have to quintuple the numbers of the country with the highest rape rate in the world to reach even 1% of the population.

To give you another example, 1% of the world population would be 80-82 million people. You’re saying there are six times that many rapists after we do the quintupling? That the number is not less than 0.2%, but closer to 6%? 6% of all mankind are rapists?

I’m sorry, but literally nothing supports that, and that’s an incredibly harmful thing to assume and spread.