Bob and the Bugatti - Peter Singer

[Nalaar]

I can't hide the fact that your 'ideas' annoy me. I believe in two influences in this world. One for good the other for evil. To put the life of an innocent child into some sort of sick contest, even imagined, with the monetary value of a car, makes me sick to my stomach. For me it is the embodiment of all the evil influences in this world. Before you or anyone tells me this is just an emotional reaction let me assure you that it is indeed a logical reaction to what is in effect a not so subtle pseudo-scientific attempt to devalue life. I notice that although you request our choices in the decision you carefully avoid your own and that gives me even less confidence in the reasons for this thread to start with. Why don't you divulge your own view before you commandeer everyone else's, and if you are still making up your mind there is a far better reading list.

I think letting the train kill the child opens the path to many more children's lives being saved, as much as that may be against our instincts, I don't see how it's wrong.



I think the desired goal matters, and if the goal is to stop children dying, that would be better severed in Bobs case by saving the Bugatti.

[T00ts]

I'm more interested in discussing ideas than people, however the piece opens with " He is a Nazi" which (little as I know about Singer) is not true.



How do you approach the question in the OP?



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Mod Notice

Several off topic posts moved to the Tower.

I can't hide the fact that your 'ideas' annoy me. I believe in two influences in this world. One for good the other for evil. To put the life of an innocent child into some sort of sick contest, even imagined, with the monetary value of a car, makes me sick to my stomach. For me it is the embodiment of all the evil influences in this world. Before you or anyone tells me this is just an emotional reaction let me assure you that it is indeed a logical reaction to what is in effect a not so subtle pseudo-scientific attempt to devalue life. I notice that although you request our choices in the decision you carefully avoid your own and that gives me even less confidence in the reasons for this thread to start with. Why don't you divulge your own view before you commandeer everyone else's, and if you are still making up your mind there is a far better reading list.

[papasmurf]

Singer says we should spend our 'excess' money funding charities that aid the unfortunate.

I think we should spend it on an assassins guild dedicated to extermination of the government despots whose Panamanian bank accounts sag u der the kickbacks from those charities and who for the most part deliberately leave their people in these desperate straits so schmucks like singer will fund the endless stream of deposits into those panamanian bank accounts

Quite, get rid of the government corruption across Africa and it wouldn't need any aid. (Similar applies elsewhere.)

[johnofgwent]

Ah wonderful.



Reading the guardian article, I see Singer is myopic.



He is just as unable to exist without another's technology  than the anencephalic infants he wants euthanized on sight to save the wait for the inevitable.



If he truly believed his philosophy, he'd have committed suicide.

[johnofgwent]

Singer says we should spend our 'excess' money funding charities that aid the unfortunate.



I think we should spend it on an assassins guild dedicated to extermination of the government despots whose Panamanian bank accounts sag u der the kickbacks from those charities and who for the most part deliberately leave their people in these desperate straits so schmucks like singer will fund the endless stream of deposits into those panamanian bank accounts

[Nalaar]

I think the following quote just about sums up the philosophy  of this man





The most dangerous man in the world

He's a philosopher who eats no meat or dairy and thinks we're no better than animals. In fact, he thinks a chimp has more right to exist than a person, and that killing babies can be justified. He is hated and feared for daring to challenge the sanctity of human life, Kevin Toolis on the controversial philosophy of Peter Singer.



https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/nov/06/weekend.kevintoolis">//https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/nov/06/weekend.kevintoolis

I'm more interested in discussing ideas than people, however the piece opens with " He is a Nazi" which (little as I know about Singer) is not true.



How do you approach the question in the OP?



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Mod Notice

Several off topic posts moved to the Tower.

[Nalaar]

Unfortunately Nalaar, no I don't. It may be comforting to some people to examine whether they are a sufficiently "nice" person or not, but life rarely presents such binary choices between A) do a good thing and B) do a bad thing. To save a child, diverting a 10,000 tonne runaway freight train loaded with gasoline into an urban siding might present you with a few different problems to contend with. Life tends to throw choices at you in which the potential outcomes are not always simple or even apparent. In any case, I stopped giving a **** whether people think I'm a good person or a bad person a long time ago.

I think these are important questions which will have real world impacts, the simplicity presented in the Binary concept of the choices may be something you scoff at, but see beyond that.

[johnofgwent]

Well it wasnt a Bugatti and it was only £3500 to replace....



There is a stunningly magnificent piece of underwater kelp forest filled with all sorts of marine life about a mile west of Skomer Island. If you can put up with the bull seals trying to shag you. I kid you not.



The problem is the sea bed is very craggy  and the current is quite lethal. One false move and you will end up on the BBC news page being winched into a chopper half way to rosslare, or your corpse will be found by the Garda. ...



And to cap it all, at the edge of this kelp forest the sea bed plunges to depths only idiots with wierd gases go.



A group of us from two dive clubs were at 30 metres in the abyss marvelling at the geology and the wierd invertebrates that live in the Stygian gloom....



And then the kit of one of the girls in the BSAC club with us malfunctioned. Boiling her air into the abyss like there was no tomorrow



I have experienced this failure myself at this depth. Every diver involved in any way in training others at any level practices the drill to get out of this alive on a weekly basis. Because one false move now and you go home in a body bag.



After my own kit failed I went out and bought a tiny extra tank and regulator. We call them pony systems. They are what save your life when no one else can, but they mean you are diving with more weight on one side than the other and many divers hate that as it causes an imbalance underwater that will eventually fatigue you.



From her reactions, and sheer panic in her eyes, I saw she was not only out of practise but this was the first time she'd had this malfunction.



She started to do the one thing that would kill her, strike out for the surface.



I let go of £3500 worth of underwater video camera to overtake her, rip her buggered mouthpiece out of her mouth and shove my pony system mouthpiece in her mouth instead. Mercifully she recovered her composure as she realised she now had a working air line and remembered the drill to clear the seawater from her throat so she could use it....



It took five minutes to ascend to 5 metres and we drifted half a mile in the huge current at the 5 metre safety stop, with two BSAC guys with those underwater handheld motorised propulsion systems in the water each side of us in case my air ran out.



On the boat there was a certain amount of guilt on the part of the other club for in their eyes costing me three and a half grand



Somehow, I actually found the means to.say F@@@ that, it's only money, I can fix that  i cant fix dead. ...



And I was actually very grateful.



I had, up to that day, always had misgivings. If i ever found myself at risk, would i be able to kiss bye bye to that much money to save myself, or would i stupidly not let it go and drown.



Well, now i knew the answer.



I was, at that time, invoicing £5000 + VAT a week to the pension company who hired me to make the incessant alterations to their software.... which was repeated every time Gordon Brown opened his gob.



I'm not one for hypothetical philosophy.



But as the above shows, you can get another Bugatti.



For all you know, that kid is Willam Randolph Hearst's love child. Save her and he'd buy you seven, one for every day of the week...

[T00ts]

I think the following quote just about sums up the philosophy  of this man





The most dangerous man in the world

He's a philosopher who eats no meat or dairy and thinks we're no better than animals. In fact, he thinks a chimp has more right to exist than a person, and that killing babies can be justified. He is hated and feared for daring to challenge the sanctity of human life, Kevin Toolis on the controversial philosophy of Peter Singer.



https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/nov/06/weekend.kevintoolis">//https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/1999/nov/06/weekend.kevintoolis

[DeppityDawg]

Do you have answer to the question?

Unfortunately Nalaar, no I don't. It may be comforting to some people to examine whether they are a sufficiently "nice" person or not, but life rarely presents such binary choices between A) do a good thing and B) do a bad thing. To save a child, diverting a 10,000 tonne runaway freight train loaded with gasoline into an urban siding might present you with a few different problems to contend with. Life tends to throw choices at you in which the potential outcomes are not always simple or even apparent. In any case, I stopped giving a **** whether people think I'm a good person or a bad person a long time ago.

[Nalaar]

Is this what expanded minds spend their time worrying about?

Do you have answer to the question?

[DeppityDawg]

Is this what expanded minds spend their time worrying about?

[Nalaar]

Well this is an adaptation of the train track puzzle where you can divert the train and sacrifice one life to save several.



I'm actually surprised if you are saying that most people instinctively adopt Barry's solution.  My instinctive reaction would be to sacrifice the car.



I can see how you might think about it later and think it would have been better to do that, but in a snap decision in the heat of the moment, are you suggesting there would be no mental health consequences from making that choice?

Yes given the 'flip switch or not' choice I think most people would flip the switch.



Barry chose not to, extending the situation to have a third option.

Given the third option I think most people should chose what Barry chose.



However, despite that, when applied to most people's actual lives, we chose to act like hypothetical Bob.

Further, what about if I see someone drowning in the river, but I have lots of money and give a lot of money to charities.  If I jump in to save them, there's a high chance I will drown in trying to rescue them.  Does that mean I shouldn't attempt to save them as if I die, it will cost those charities too much money and other undefined and unindentifiable lives will be lost?

Yes. This is the inherent fault in consequentialism, when do you 'cash the cheque' of Pros/Cons in a particular argument?

[Javert]

Well this is an adaptation of the train track puzzle where you can divert the train and sacrifice one life to save several.



I'm actually surprised if you are saying that most people instinctively adopt Barry's solution.  My instinctive reaction would be to sacrifice the car.  



I can see how you might think about it later and think it would have been better to do that, but in a snap decision in the heat of the moment, are you suggesting there would be no mental health consequences from making that choice?



Further, what about if I see someone drowning in the river, but I have lots of money and give a lot of money to charities.  If I jump in to save them, there's a high chance I will drown in trying to rescue them.  Does that mean I shouldn't attempt to save them as if I die, it will cost those charities too much money and other undefined and unindentifiable lives will be lost?



I must say I do find these type of conclusions a little troubling.  More troubling than the choice of whether to sacrifice one life directly to save several - the classic example here is would you push one person in front of the train to derail the train if it would save the 10 people who were tied to the track further down the line.

[Nalaar]

He should let the train run its course.

Sell the Bugatti and give the money to the RNLI who will save more than 1 life as a result.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-47908761">//https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-47908761

That would be Singers position.



Intuitively I think most people agree with this line of reasoning, however when it is then implied that they themselves should sell the hypothetical bugatti, a tension forms.