A little thought experiment (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Dinsdale
- Start date
No, but I find it extremely annoying that basically every time a topic is discussed in this subforum the majority of people who post in the thread feel the urge to derail the thread by cracking jokes, make mocking or insulting comments or start talking about something completely else. Why post in a thread you don't care about? And you, althought in a lesser degree, are one of those posters. Honestly, I thought you had more class.
As for the analogy, make it cripples. But then it still wouldn't make sense because soms cripples can move their arms, right? Yeah.
As for the analogy, make it cripples. But then it still wouldn't make sense because soms cripples can move their arms, right? Yeah.
Polls are flawed, man. And you're asking a hypothetical question, which is a very sketchy poll premise. It's much easier to ask people about their beliefs or habits. You're asking them to tell you what they would have done if... which is a best estimate of their behavior. But people can't predict their own behavior, because they don't know what it would be like to be put in that situation for real. On top of that, some people have extremely poor abstraction skills (as we've discovered, unfortunately) and can barely reason about hypotheticals at all.
The funny thing is I took the idea from another forum where they discussed the same question, but I reformulated the hypothesis to make it way more clear and to make the downsides of doing the 'morally right' thing look even worse. Still the concept was grasped way better on the other forum. It also doesn't surprise me that a historician like Alen says he would definitely vote yes. And it also tells you a lot.
Anyway, to state one of the underlying ideas, let me quote the guy who originally came up with this illustration:
Before this gets too crazy I better spell out that my OP was meant to illustrate that the great majority of people will not endure moderate hardship to save millions from major hardship. I like to point that out whenever I see arguments as to whether theists or atheists are more likely to be immoral people. I think it is a silly debate because the percentage is at least 90 for both groups.
I think this is totally true, as we've already seen a few muslim in here too who said they would vote yes.
Anyway, to state one of the underlying ideas, let me quote the guy who originally came up with this illustration:
Before this gets too crazy I better spell out that my OP was meant to illustrate that the great majority of people will not endure moderate hardship to save millions from major hardship. I like to point that out whenever I see arguments as to whether theists or atheists are more likely to be immoral people. I think it is a silly debate because the percentage is at least 90 for both groups.
I think this is totally true, as we've already seen a few muslim in here too who said they would vote yes.
For what it's worth I think this is completely misguided. I don't think morality works at all the way that people traditionally imagined. Obviously it has nothing to do with religion, but it's also not a static thing. Take a look at Milgram experiment or the Stanford prison experiment and those assumptions get blown right out of the water.
In other words if you actually put people on the forum in this situation of choosing slavery they would give you very different answers depending on how you set up the circumstances.
In other words if you actually put people on the forum in this situation of choosing slavery they would give you very different answers depending on how you set up the circumstances.
That's not how I would put it. I think it's more accurate to say that morality is about reinforcing your own self image, both individually and socially. Which is why you can manipulate people if you know how. For instance if you put people in a situation where it seems that it's "okay" to be mean (Abu Graib), they will be mean even though it violates their conviction about who they are and they would never do this (or allow anyone to do it) if they themselves felt responsible for it.
And if you put people in a context where "it's normal to be nice" then they will be nice even though this doesn't seem to be their dominant nature.
In other words our morality comes from our identity and the role we're trying to play, which in turn is continually shaped by societal pressures. And there's an evolutionary element to it, that seems obvious.
And if you put people in a context where "it's normal to be nice" then they will be nice even though this doesn't seem to be their dominant nature.
In other words our morality comes from our identity and the role we're trying to play, which in turn is continually shaped by societal pressures. And there's an evolutionary element to it, that seems obvious.
Just to make it clear though, i never said that i'd vote yes. Ideally i'd say no, and asking me the question right now, i'd say no. But i agree with Martin on the notion that we cannot predict our behaviour unless we are really put in such a situation. Being put in such a situation, you'd have to be a strong believer(Insert religion, your morals, human rights, whatever) to vote no.
But I'm convinced that every person working in Abu Graid who tortured and humiliated the prisoners derived pleasure from it. Emotional fulfillment is one of the biggest advantages man can have. And there were obviously no disadvantages here, since they thought they could never be caught or judged by anyone.
So in the end who is enforcing our morality? We are doing it for each other. Which quite easily explains how the same group of people can get along at one time and then be at each other's throats at another time. It has everything to do with our perception of the unwritten rules that apply.
Which is why trolling is such an interesting thing. Here you have a group of people who are all in harmony and in comes a troll who's trying to upset the balance. The question is will he succeed? If the people in the group are alert, they will discover the troll's motive right away and he won't succeed. If they are not..
Which is why trolling is such an interesting thing. Here you have a group of people who are all in harmony and in comes a troll who's trying to upset the balance. The question is will he succeed? If the people in the group are alert, they will discover the troll's motive right away and he won't succeed. If they are not..
Exactly. And I believe that almost every sane person (if not every, but it's of course kind of hard to define sane) would give up his beliefs/faith for a certain price. The only way to never give up your beliefs, is when you believe that you will always get punished more severely in your afterlife, than by the price you have to pay in your current life. And that doesn't sound like a reasonable belief to me.
You could be right about everyone having a sadistic personality burried deep inside. But that's not even the point. Sane people don't act like psychopathic sadists because they'd experience too many downsides in a lot of ways. Obvious punishments are of course legal persecution and social exclusion. The less obvious downside is creating the risk of someone doing the same thing back to you.
Mainly to show that there's nothing absolute or superhuman about morality. It all comes down to doing the dry math of weighing the advantages over the disadvantages. But this weighing process is subconscious and takes into account very subtle factors, that's why most people don't realize it.
Mainly to show that there's nothing absolute or superhuman about morality. It all comes down to doing the dry math of weighing the advantages over the disadvantages. But this weighing process is subconscious and takes into account very subtle factors, that's why most people don't realize it.
That's a looong video you got there, Martin. 
I don't know what it's all about, but I probably have a whole other point of view. This is the way I see it:
The risk of something bad happening to you always plays a part if it's there. But sometimes that risk is outweighed by the reward of emotional fulfilllment.
The importance of emotional fulfillment is huge. It's why degenate gamblers go broke. For every normal person, the advantages (risk going broke) and the disadvantages (winning lots of money) of gambling for all your belongings are nearly the same. But a degenerate gambler, he has the added advantage of emotional fulfillment because gambling makes him feel extremely good.
I don't know what it's all about, but I probably have a whole other point of view. This is the way I see it:
The risk of something bad happening to you always plays a part if it's there. But sometimes that risk is outweighed by the reward of emotional fulfilllment.
The importance of emotional fulfillment is huge. It's why degenate gamblers go broke. For every normal person, the advantages (risk going broke) and the disadvantages (winning lots of money) of gambling for all your belongings are nearly the same. But a degenerate gambler, he has the added advantage of emotional fulfillment because gambling makes him feel extremely good.