this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
625 points (97.6% liked)

Science Memes

11130 readers
3250 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Arguably these are different amounts of bad even before considering this: We generally consider existing preferable to non-existence to some extent when suffering isnt taken into account, consider that if you murder someone quickly and painlessly in their sleep without waking them, they dont really themselves suffer from it, but people will still find you to be a murderer, and would object to the idea that you might do it to them. In the top example, killing the people actually kills them, but in the lower example, it arguably doesnt, because the experiences of the people involved never actually cease, therefore, the lower path seems to me to be preferable because you supposedly get equivalent amounts of "suffering", but different amounts of time that people spend in non-existence.

[–] Johanno@feddit.org 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Morally speaking people could argue that torturing immortal people is worse.

However legally speaking to you don't kill them and therefore the immortals are preferred.

[–] Scubus@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

No murder charge, just infinite attempted murder charges

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 month ago

Though I do wonder whether a sufficiently good lawyer could argue that it's not attempted murder if you knew they were immortal

[–] Johanno@feddit.org 1 points 1 month ago

That would mean you did it on purpose. But you didn't power the trolley. You "accidentally" flipped the switch... And left. Since you can't do more.