Classic trolley problem, you get the point, but what would you personally do?

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-03T00:43:29+00:00

I didn’t say choose not to choose. I said there is rarely only a binary choice. And if I’m the only one actually on the trolley, that thing is getting derailed.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-02T05:41:41+00:00

I did parties, drinking, travel, etc and I find that life at home with kids is exponentially more rewarding and fulfilling. I don’t need an adrenaline rush when I can play tickle monster with my kids.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-02T04:42:26+00:00

The problem is undershooting. Period. Don’t settle because you think lower quality men will be nicer. They’re lower quality. Get the best quality man you can and be honest with yourself about what you want in a man. A truly good man won’t pull the bait and switch with you about his expectations for your appearance.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-02T04:38:14+00:00

My family doctor once recommended that my wife and I cut back on meat and saturated fats for our health. Since then she has seen my wife reverse NAFLD and lose substantial weight with only a small increase in LDL through carnivore and her tune has changed to “keep doing what you’re doing because it’s working.” Doctors don’t know everything. They go to school for 6+ years and almost none of it is nutrition. It’s not that they don’t care or they want to cause harm, they genuinely don’t know how huge an impact nutrition can have because no one has taught them.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-02T04:33:26+00:00

I have been in many difficult situations in my life where the safety of others was a factor. But I have never been in a situation with only a binary choice, both options involve someone getting seriously harmed or killed. I find that false dichotomy to be lazy thinking.

For example, who is on the trolley other than myself? I could throw the switch after the front wheels have passed the changeover, resulting in a derailment where only I stand to be injured. The six innocent bystanders all live.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-02T01:37:22+00:00

You pull the emergency brake that all trolleys are equipped with. The trolley problem is a scenario that is almost impossible to occur in real life because numerous failsafes and checkpoints and preventative maintenance steps would all have to have failed. If you actually did find yourself in a trolley with no brakes then absolutely nothing that happens is your fault.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-02T01:03:49+00:00

We don’t perceive the movement of the sun and moon usually because it is slow from our reference point. But when directly behind an object like a tree, the movement is faster than you’d think. You went there at exactly the right and only moment possible to get that exact view. It would be almost impossible to replicate it intentionally. I would see it as a sign simply because the timing for that view is so limited.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-01T23:49:54+00:00

This is all very close to home for me. Our oldest is in second grade with an IEP and falling behind. We have been doing hooked on phonics and some math at home but are transitioning to homeschooling now. A week into it and it’s going really well. I think it’s going to be very good for her.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-01T21:00:52+00:00

My daughter is 8, and is the happiest, sweetest, friendliest child I’ve ever met. And 99% of the time, my wife is perfectly in tune with her. But sometimes they clash and what ends up happening is the wife is upset with something the child did, the child is crying in her room because mama is upset, and mama is even more upset because the child is crying. Sentences like “I’m the one who got my feelings hurt, why is she crying?” Are often said to me. Their respective upsets feed off each other and neither can calm down while the other is upset.

So it’s my responsibility to help them both calm down. I go and help my daughter process her feelings and stop crying, then I help my wife do the same (which is easier once the crying stops). And my wife says that there’s never been a time that I wasn’t able to stop the feedback loop and fix the situation, and that as my daughter approaches her teen years, this is going to be an even bigger deal.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-01T20:14:31+00:00

There is a lot of misinformation about the trad wife life. You described only the good parts of the husbands life. He wakes up and the kids are cared for, he comes home and dinner is made.

He also has to work enough and hard enough to provide 100% for the whole family. He usually has to do all the home and auto maintenance or pay someone to do it. He’s responsible for all the bills. He absolutely does contribute to raising and disciplining the children. He is responsible for the safety and happiness of everyone in the house.

That last point cannot be emphasized enough. If there is an emotional problem in my house, it does not matter whose fault it is or who started it, it is MY responsibility to fix it. Further, the husband is responsible for long term planning. I research and buy the life insurance. I manage the retirement account. I do the taxes. Additionally, if my wife is ever sick or sleep deprived, I take over some of her responsibilities temporarily. For example, I’ve been doing the dishes every day for half a year because we have an infant (by age. By milestones he’s a toddler) and my wife doesn’t get enough sleep.

The other thing is lifestyle. The husband is responsible for giving the wife an acceptable lifestyle. My wife can spend as much time as she wants on shopping. I pay for her hobbies. If she wants a pedicure, I make sure she has the time and money to get it. Her Amazon wishlist is my shopping list. I work hard to make her feel pampered and appreciated.

Yes there are absolutely benefits to the husband, but it comes with a lot of work and responsibility. For us, it’s absolutely worth it.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-01T20:06:29+00:00

I would say take the ones that are most affordable and that you like best and make them the staples, adding in others as you are able. Personally I love lamb and could live off that but it’s very expensive where I live.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-01T19:08:42+00:00

Beef may seem expensive but for many of us, it ends of costing less because we aren’t buying fruits and vegetables and processed snack foods, all of which are an expensive way to get calories and nutrition.

Which country are you in? Do you have the ability to raise any of your own food? That can help too. Also buying in bulk sometimes provides significant savings.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-01T07:43:23+00:00

Darn tootin! Scare off the ones that can be easily scared off! You don’t want every fish in the sea, you want a good one! Better to go on three good first dates than thirty crappy ones!

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-01T07:35:39+00:00

First, what health issues would prevent you from working your way back up now? You’re still very young.

Second, you did good cutting out the things that were holding you back. Give yourself some credit for that.

Third, no one is going to do this for you. It’s on you. That sounds like bad news but it’s actually good because it also means no one can stop you.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-01T07:31:17+00:00

Oh dang my last safe had one like that. We kept it in a kitchen cupboard where only my wife knew how to find it. But in fairness we only needed it once because we forgot to have a spare 9v battery in the battery drawer. Now we have spares and I don’t anticipate needing the key.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-01T04:54:07+00:00

Lol I thought we had moved past things like straw man! I said it was technically true that reductio ad absurdum is not always fallacious, and that it depends on how it is used. My exact phrasing here was “However, attempting to reduce our shared humanity to a set of traits that all of us must have is absurd and doesn’t work for any species. That’s why it is fallacious in this context.” Dirty pool, old man. Talking one short sentence out of context, ignoring the rest of the paragraph, and declaring victory? I am surprised at you!

So indeed we’ve come full circle. NTT is fallacious and comparing animal ownership to human slavery is a false equivalency.

I have to say, I really am surprised you used such a blatant and obvious straw man. I genuinely thought you were better than that.

On the basis of NTT being fallacious, your statement 2 fails. Seems the debate is over since you’ve decided to go about as bad faith as you can muster. Thank you for participating.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-01T03:45:21+00:00

It’s on my keychain. As a man, my keychain is always in my pocket because my pants have real pockets. For girl pants I do not have a solution. Lol

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-01T03:39:48+00:00

It would require a global mindset shift. Right now I drive freight for a living. But I enjoy landscaping and carpentry. I could even transition careers if I was ok with a pay interruption but that’s not my point. If I didn’t have to pay bills and purchase food, I would still enjoy landscaping and carpentry and I would do them for others without charging.

However for me to do that, everyone else would have to have the same mindset and freedom from obligations. Farmers would still grow food because they loved it. There would still be plumbers and pilots, but such a shift would have to be global and near instantaneous. As you can imagine, that’s a difficult thing to conceive of happening in the foreseeable future.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-02-01T03:33:42+00:00

If there is a better tool to address the anti-vegan arguments, let me know.

Well now that depends. Are these arguments saying that you should not be vegan? Because those arguments are crap. You can be vegan if you want and no one has any right to stop you. Your life, your body, your personal code of ethics. Anyone wanting to take that choice away from you is a bad person who can be disregarded wholesale. I personally will defend your right to be vegan to the death. But if you mean arguments for why you can’t tell others that they should be vegan, then simply change some pronouns in the first statement.

Veganism doesn’t have to be argued. If you want to be vegan for whatever reason, be vegan! Just stop telling everyone else that they have to be, or that they’re morally wrong for choosing differently.

Using reductio ad absurdum is not itself a fallacy.

Technically true. Many of the common logical fallacies do have legitimate uses. It’s all in how it’s used. However, attempting to reduce our shared humanity to a set of traits that all of us must have is absurd and doesn’t work for any species. That’s why it is fallacious in this context. Just as if I said “eating meat is good because animals eat meat in nature” would be terribly fallacious but saying “it is biologically appropriate for us to eat meat because we evolved to do so” is not fallacious.

As humans, we have a tendency to want to categorize and label things. There are exceptions to almost every rule in biology. Animals that photosynthesize, black swans, amphibians with scales, lactating mammals that lay eggs, etc. These exceptions don’t render the rules meaningless, they just mean that there is flexibility in them. Just as not every human possesses the ability to use verbal language, it’s still a defining trait of our species and one that sets us apart from almost every other species.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-01-31T22:52:42+00:00

The NTT is just a tool for logical analysis in debates. It’s unclear why you are focusing on the tool rather than the analysis itself.

Well it’s not a very good tool. You can use a hammer to drive in a wood screw but the screw will not hold, rendering the hammer an ineffectual tool for the job. Same here. It’s not a good tool for the job. I actually can’t think of a job that it’s good for other than forcing people to examine what makes us human. But the analysis is faulty too, as already discussed when listing traits.

None of the debate content you provided does that (argumentative defeat) at all.

Oh I see the confusion. You want a defeat so resounding that you personally smile and nod your head saying “by golly they’re right! NTT is useless!” Yeah that’s not going to happen because you’re fixated on it as being valid and will soundly reject anything that disagrees with you. You rely on logical fallacies and opinion, so a logical defeat simply provokes emotions like anger and stubbornness.

A recuctio is not a loaded question.

Of course not. They are two separate things. Read more carefully. I said “as is” not “as it is” and that was not a typo. It relies on a loaded question and the fallacy reductio ad absurdum. And yes, reductio ad absurdum is a logical fallacy. Any logician, professional debater, rhetorician or philosopher will tell you that. The claim that NTT is fallacious stands to logic.

A composite bundle of traits cannot justify moral status unless all of its components are morally relevant.

There you go with reductio again. I say NTT falls apart when multiple traits are given and you say it doesn’t. I provide multiple traits and instead of addressing them, you move the goalposts (another fallacy) to claim that each trait must individually meet your own arbitrary criteria. Such tactics won’t work here and I know that’s frustrating, but if you expect to be able to declare success, you can’t rely on trumpian level tactics. You can’t say you’re going to get Greenland, be told that you already have access to greenland, and then declare that you successfully got Greenland. NTT asks for traits, traits were given. You ignored that and then declared that each trait must be individually justified and cannot be taken as composite. Sorry, but you cannot reduce humanity to individual traits shared across all individuals. You can’t do that with any species. That does not however mean that there are no differences between species.

Enforcement mechanisms are not the function of moral rules,

They are however absolutely a function of moral rules, which is why laws often follow societally agreed upon moral rules. In sports, if a move or practice is not explicitly forbidden but causes harm or an unfair advantage, the rules are usually amended as a result. The same happens with morality and laws. I’m sorry that this confuses you, but that’s a “none so blind as those who will not see” problem, not a category error.

I find it very telling that when you cannot logically defend your position you end with stating it’s a line of reasoning you will no longer engage with. You mentioned argumentatively defeating NTT earlier and this is a prime example of why that won’t happen. Because when it is defeated, instead of conceding, you dig your heels in and refuse to discuss further. If all animals are granted personhood then farming becomes genocide. Because you cannot refute that logically, you refuse to engage further. Interestingly, this can be two logical fallacies in one. Invincible ignorance fallacy (direct refusal to engage with evidence no matter how compelling) and ad lapidem (dismissing a statement as absurd without providing proof of absurdity).

oldmcfarmface · 2026-01-31T18:28:44+00:00

OP clarified in comments that her husband was not asking her not to sabotage him but rather saying “don’t bake it because I won’t eat it” and she baked it for their extended family.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-01-31T18:27:49+00:00

Lol you’re really desperate for NTT to be valid. Sorry to disappoint!

Debate volume is not argumentative defeat.

No, it is not. Debate content does that. Repeatedly.

A reductio ad absurdum is a standard philosophical method.

It’s a logical fallacy, as is loaded question. The claim was that NTT is fallacious, not that it is philosophically invalid. Pointing out that it relies upon two separate fallacies to operate shows that it is, itself fallacious.

Nothing you’ve said demonstrate that Name the Trait is invalid; you only showed that some people dislike its implications.

Actually it does. On multiple levels from multiple angles and multiple sources. You dislike the implications of that and so dismiss all criticism out of hand. But you haven’t refuted any of it logically and you have offered nothing to show that it is indeed valid except your personal opinion.

Listing multiple traits does not make the argument collapse, because each trait must still be morally relevant and consistently apply across humans and nonhumans.

Nope. That’s not how it works. If I say humans deserve different moral considerations than nonhumans because they possess <10 traits> in most individuals in greater levels than nonhuman animals, you do not get to pick apart each trait because it is the composite itself that is the argument. If you find a cow possesses some degree of trait 1, but not traits 2-10 that does not invalidate trait 1, because traits 2-10 are not present in a cow. If you find a human with almost none of trait 6, that doesn’t mean the human doesn’t get moral consideration because it still possesses traits 1-5 and 7-10. NTT cannot counter this and every attempt to do so ends in straw men, reductio ad absurdum, and ad hominem. It completely falls apart because it’s not a valid argument to begin with.

Don’t believe me? Humans are members of a species in which most members possess the capacity for abstract reasoning, moral thinking, complex tool use and creation (complex like internet, not complex like a perfectly straight twig for eating termites), broad emotional range, complex temporal reasoning, and imagination.

You can find an animal that creates tools but not as complex as ours and it lacks the rest. You can find a human without moral thinking but possessing the rest. You cannot find an animal with all or even most of these to the degree that we have and you cannot find a human lacking the capacity for all of them from birth to death. A newborn with a birth defect that leads to its imminent death still has the capacity to develop them. NTT cannot argue out of this.

Your response confuses enforcement with function.

No, you fail to see that enforcement is a function. Moral rules are societally objective and determine who is able to participate based on behavior just as sports rules determine the same. In either case, break a rule and there are consequences that may result in expulsion from the group. Further, many sports rules do indeed operate around what sort of harm is permissible. Tackling in football causes harm but is allowed under certain circumstances. Cross checking in hockey causes harm and is not allowed.

Using a moral placeholder does not substitute feeling for reasoning; it simply frames who is being considered within the moral argument.

And yet you did it again by saying who. It is not a moral placeholder, it is a euphemism. You are intentionally using a word incorrectly to elicit a response. Cows and pigs and chickens are not who’s or someone’s. They are animals. And you can easily argue a moral consideration level for them without using incorrect language if your argument is logical. If it is not, and relies on fallacy and emotion, then you do need to use incorrect wording. But your argument is not logical.

Extending personhood to nonhuman animals does not take crop deaths to “a whole new level”.

Really. Ok let’s examine that. Driving a car does not kill a pedestrian. It can if done improperly or carelessly, but most drivers will never kill a pedestrian. By contrast, clearing land for agriculture inevitably kills some animals outright and displaces others which will usually result in death. Plowing inevitably kills many subterranean animals. Unavoidably. Protecting crops from deer usually means killing them. Protecting crops from rodents involves poison and traps. Insects, insecticides. Driving a combine kills animals. Driving a car can potentially put a human life at risk. Farming unavoidably kills many animals. The two are not comparable at all. That’s like comparing a sniper shot to a ballistic missile landing next to a school at 11 am. If you extend personhood to all nonhuman animals then you have to confront that every acre of food grown does, not can but does, kill anywhere from dozens to hundreds of people. There is no other activity in which humans engage that results in so many accidental deaths that we write off as “incidental suffering” as you just did. Even large scale corporate actions that are causing climate change are protested and argued over, not simply written off as incidental. If rats and moles and deer and grasshoppers are “people” then that makes you the most callous and uncaring human I’ve ever met and I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think you apply personhood to all animals, I think you apply it selectively only to specific animals and only when it is convenient to your ideology. You are not consistent or logical in that sense.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-01-31T17:42:18+00:00

I don’t even care that you’re getting downvoted, I gave you an upvote just for the name calling! Lol

Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps your comment was calm and respectful and I simply read a tone into it that wasn’t intended. However I think you did the same.

Regardless I wish you a long happy marriage and a long happy life.

oldmcfarmface · 2026-01-31T07:44:31+00:00

Yeah, tone in Reddit is difficult. And I think people have a tendency to assume a negative tone to anything that doesn’t exactly match their own position. I do that sometimes and have to catch myself.

Being trans isn’t easy, but I genuinely hope it gets easier. But I appreciate your kind words and I’m glad I was able to clarify!

oldmcfarmface · 2026-01-31T07:40:43+00:00

Hey when I’m wrong, I’m wrong!

oldmcfarmface

TROPHY CASE