[seahorse]

Timely article on brain damage and its affect on moral choices.

Yahoo News

[kevincarter]

This article is about killing your child, not a complete stranger. And there is a BIG difference between what you'd do for your kid or your loved ones and what you'd do for the dude sitting next to you who you don't know at all.

btw the conclusion of the article is:

"They [brain damaged people]are perfectly capable of endorsing the kind of extreme high-conflict dilemma in which indeed you would produce harm to someone because there would be greater good coming to a larger group. And this is something that human beings in general reject."

So in an extreme situation (and yes, there are extreme situations in life):

1 killing a stranger to save the group is "brain damage"

2 not choosing and therefore killing everyone is "perfectlly normal"

and 3 killing yourself to save the group of unknown people is "the moral thing to do"

What a crazy fucked up world we live in!

[Chaparral]

Intentionally taking a dirt nap to save a group of strangers when one is perfectly healthy is just stupid IMO.

Now, if I had a terminal illness, or knew that I did not have much time left in this world regardless and those who remained on the boat had enough wisdom and accumulated knowledge to pass on to the teenagers and children, I might consider a tuck n' roll exit and just sit back and enjoy the sunset as involuntary shivering gave way to the feeling of warmth.

I can imagine myself on that boat. I'd tend to be like Jack or Plants. The first person who rubbed me the wrong way; that individual who always seems to be the bully may well find a sharp object quickly jabbed into each eyesocket just before his feet are lifted into the air and the cold water embraces his back. My decision would not be instantaneous mind you. I'd want several days of observation. I might have to wait for verbal threats and physical violence to emerge from the mark's mouth. I'd need to passively build a consensus of the others on the boat by tolerating a little violence. Perhaps I'd even have to allow myself to be beaten a bit and insulted, for turning the other cheek may give me a moral imperative in the judgement of others; the old maxim of winning by losing one might say. People's character in many situations can reveal itself fairly quickly sometimes. The dumb reveal theirs first, then the smart and finally the wise.

I can imagine myself on that boat with the people I saw on C-SPAN the other night grilling Jay Hanson about his remarks on supression of speech. Some representatives were tactful, others were scolds. Some were blunt, others were shrewd and circuitous. Some allowed others to speak without interruptions. Others interrupted and would never allow others to speak. Those who watched that hearing or view this thread know the types from their own lives. Sooner or later, a bully of the likes of the Republican congressman from Utah, the one who never lets others finish their sentences, will reveal him/her self as the one who will eventually take a swim.

On a larger scale, where Cascadia is the lifeboat, or my overcrowded farm, teeming with friends and family living in trailers along the driveway is the boat, a Rwanda type equation might come into play. This might be addresed in a different thread, or not at all.

[BlisteredWhippet]

I see a few options. One is float an individual, maybe on a rotation. (He can maybe hunt for food, drag seaweed, etc.)

And the baby?

Lets not BE babies about this. The kid is the least aware, and therefore the most sacrificable. The abhorrence of infanticide is simply one of the most unexamined moral precepts of this society. Our preoccupation with a baby's moral exceptionalism doesn't seem well established. In fact, it is every bit as arbitrary and sentimental as it seems.

[Madpaddy]

Hey,

I know.

Everyone must cut off 10% of their body to use as food for the group. Hence overall mass of people reduced by 10% ie. room for everybody. Anyone who refuses to cut off their 10% gets chucked out.

[Madpaddy]

Sorry,

We can't expect children to cut bits off themselves so we allow for that by cutting 12.5% body mass off the rest.

[ennui2]

I'm not sure that the poorest half (or more) of the citizens of the earth are going to be quite so willing to just 'forget justice and equity.'

What degree of justice and equity is to be had in the face of lifeboat ethics? Those who can raise the drawbridge will, and those on the outside will rush towards it like a zombie horde. There's no room at that point for sit-ins and "I have a dream" speeches.

That's the problem with abstractions. We're all at some point moral creatures and we'd like to avoid thinking of overshoot as a zero-sum-game, but it is. It's already established that if everyone lived like people did in an ecovillage it would still not be enough to achieve sustainability.

That's not to say we should not strive to make things better, just that it's ultimately not going to somehow solve this problem or allow us to raise everyone out of poverty.

[Ibon]

Dohboi,

I think Ennui summed it up pretty well regarding social justice. I will remind you what I wrote in my last post

When it comes to issues like civil rights, social justice, freedom and emancipation, environmentalism, there was a place for activism back about 40 years ago and there were some measurable successes.

You would like to still hold these ideals against the onslaught of consequences coming our way. You know I have written in my most optimistic writings about the possibility of a spiritual renaissance rising out of the brutal bottleneck of human overshoot as our population contracts. There will be a place for social justice and equity sometime ahead. But like I also mentioned you are putting the cart before the horse at this moment in time.

You know as well as anybody how entrenched the worlds cultures are. There is no place for activism to have a chance in hell before the catalyst of consequences do their work. Just saying.

[dohboi]

Activists are actually doing lots of work all over the world.

I'd rather stand with them, embattled though they may be, than chide them for their naivete.

But I guess that's just me.

[ennui2]

You know as well as anybody how entrenched the worlds cultures are.

I was listening to NPR the other day and they covered the declining population of Japan. The overall spin of the people in Japan was that this was a slow-moving doomsday situation to have the population go down instead of up, despite the fact that cities like Tokyo remain one of the densest places on the planet and Japan has very limited natural resources.

How does anyone begin to attempt to right that ship when even smart and liberal-minded people view population as an arrow that must keep going up forever? This is NPR, mind you, and there wasn't a twinge of investigative followup in these interviews asking people if maybe there was an upside in seeing the population go down.

We're imprisoned by the tyranny of the majority, and the majority stands for growth and tragedy of the commons. You can keep leading the horses to water but you can't make them drink.

[dohboi]

En wrote: 'lifeboat ethics'

The 'lifeboat ethics' that the 80% of the poorest in the world are experiencing is that the 20% are taking up most of the room on the boat and sinking the whole thing with the weight of their consumption.

So let's picture this very small tippy boat. On one side you have four small scraggly kids huddled together, not weighing collectively more 200 pounds.

On the other, you have a 300 pound bully standing up and dancing around, splashing more and more water into the boat, surrounded by piles of food, half of which is falling out, the other half being crammed in his mouth, and carry many times his weight in gold, all of which is rapidly sinking the boat--but all the time (since he has listened to the profound and awesome wisdom of Ib and en) yelling,

"The time for justice and equity is over"

Denied justice, and faced with an insane pariah sinking the whole boat, the kids may just decide that real 'lifeboat justice' would be to just push the fat moron off the boat.

Just sayin'.

[Newfie]

Activists are actually doing lots of work all over the world.

I'd rather stand with them, embattled though they may be, than chide them for their naivete.

But I guess that's just me.

Doh,
I guess we each have some drum to beat. That is yours. I guess over population is mine. No doubt there is little harmony between these two rhythms.

That said I find your stance far out of line with the balance of your postings. Ever read John Batlycorn Must Die by Jack London? The whole book is a an attack on alcohol and its negative effects and how it effects all who touch it....except him who had it all in control. That's how you come across to me.

[ennui2]

So let's picture this very small tippy boat. On one side you have four small scraggly kids huddled together, not weighing collectively more 200 pounds.

Let's draw another picture...

Let's say we move your home to saharan africa. Stocked fridge and everything, then tell all the poor starving people where to find you. Would you be there emptying out your fridge to everyone for the sake of being magnanimous or would you be shitting bricks and grabbing the shotgun?

I'm not saying anybody's entitled to yachts and learjets, but it's natural to want to live comfortably even though we may not like that there are have-nots. The only difference between my scenario and the reality is the geographic distance between you and the poor people. That is currently the "drawbridge" between the first and third world.

Denied justice, and faced with an insane pariah sinking the whole boat, the kids may just decide that real 'lifeboat justice' would be to just push the fat moron off the boat.

You're just locked into the whole blame/rage/guilt cycle.

I've seen this debate circle around and around countless times before.

The poor breed like rabbits. The rich consume at a rate of a dozen poor people. It's just two sides of the same coin. The poor are not by nature saintly victims nor are the rich demons. We're all made of the same flawed human nature.

I just think this wealth redistribution thing (which is ultimately what you're hinting at with social justice) is a continuation of the battle of -isms which kind of peaked in the 20th century with fascism and communism.

The only thing I know about thew way humanity manages its affairs is that we'll NEVER be able to get everyone to agree on how to do it. NEVER. Someone will always be arguing that they got the short end of the stick.

[onlooker]

Not to deviate too much from the topic at hand, isn't this also one of the grievances of the Terrorists, this thing about justice. I think regardless of what the future holds in store for humanity, we should not be so eager to apply lifeboat ethics. It may come to that, but I for one would hope never to have to personally practice it. In the meantime, as Dohboi reminds us while we still can lets us practice the opposite, compassion and justice ethics.

[Newfie]

Ennui,
Perfect example of why I ceased my support of NPR.

[kiwichick]

@ ennui2


re Japan.......concur entirely.......if you look at the sustainable population of Japan , given their average current consumption levels and compare that to their domestic renewable resources , the country is over populated by at least 80 million

they can only keep afloat because of their ability to import raw materials and then export added value products

[dohboi]

Yeah, should be NCR--National Corporate Radio!

"The poor breed like rabbits." Some do. Some rich people do. But thanks for further dehumanizing the global poor. I'm sure they appreciate it.

"The rich consume at a rate of a dozen poor people."

Chang that to 'dozens' and you'd be closer. And by 'rich' we just mean 'average American.'

You get into the actual super-rich, and you have to add some orders of magnitude in there!

[ralfy]

Some more points to consider:

Suffering also allows the poor to adjust readily to the effects of global warming coupled with other catastrophes. The middle class, on the other hand, are in general not ready, and any hoarded supplies won't last.

The ones who prey on both are the armed, and eventually they attack each other.

In the end, the only ones who survive for as long as it takes are those who live in small communities that involve localization and cooperation. And those involve social justice and equity.

[Newfie]

We probably need a thread on life boat ethics.

The big fat person in the life boat? Suppose it's your daughter! That's the reality, blood is thicker than principal.

Am I the only one with this bloody "can't post so soon" stuff?

[onlooker]

Nope it seems part of the programming of this website. Oh and yes I can start the topic one if others feel like talking about lifeboat ethics