My siding with the decision isn't because most people share that view; it's because of the mathematics involved in considering what will most likely happen given the situation. I referenced its popularity because I wanted to establish that it would seem most people share this mentality, contrasting your unique view of the situation. Stop pandering to yourself and acting like there isn't any logical rhyme or reason to what I'm telling you. Choosing on a constraint that involves chance isn't automatically made irrational because of its partial arbitration. You make decisions with this constraint every day, and yet you don't seem to be bothered in the slightest.

Quote from: eggsalad on September 27, 2015, 12:32:02 PM

Who cares if it doesn't require education or anyone could do it given a day or two of training, the person is working and they are doing something productive

Clearly the economy cares, since the existence of a minimum wage means those jobs are artificially valued above what they're actually worth. You can't just magically make more money appear by raising that minimum wage, and it's not a constraint of capitalism that an increase in the cost of labor will result in an increase in price of goods sold or a decrease in the demand for labor; that's simply how economy works, in any form. So when confronted with the knowledge that, despite not being the intention of said positions, minimum wage is currently "supporting" nearly 5% of all hourly workers, and that itself is an issue due to rising costs of living coupled with a higher expectation of quality of life, what do you believe is a good policy solution?

It does make it not acceptable when there are options that express a greater sense of morality. I don't understand where the confusion is here.

I have yet to use the word "Objectively" throughout this entire argument. I never stated shooting the puppies was "Objectively wrong," there are circumstances where that would be the best course of action. This is not one of them.

I'm not making a "Personal" assessment of the risks involved, I'm being logically sensible. The statistical certainties you're asking for do not exist, and I acknowledge that. But through consensus and study, you can suggest which outcome will have a greater chance of beneficial results. I would care about this argument on your end if this was something more controversial and uncertain, but it isn't. This is a case where one option is quite clearly better than the other.

Stop saying "Both solve the problem" as if you know what's going to happen; you're doing precisely what I asked you not to do while answering the question. The point of the question is that you have no foresight into the future other than your intuition and reasoning. Pick an option. Shoot the depressed person, or help them out of the rut.

The importance of the idea I was talking about was less centered on the idea of killing them as an alternative, and more so centered around your supposed philosophical hold on the idea that helping them increases the chance of a possible outcome. To me, this negative outcome is so outlandish and ridiculous that it needn't be considered when weighing options. To you, it seems like it is. I fundamentally disagree with your perception of this type of decision-making- Which is almost certainly a pessimistic one. I never stated that the decisions were on, "Opposite ends of the moral spectrum." I said one was clearly better than the other, and that inference can be made without one being the polar opposite of its alternative in terms of possible outcome.

And you still didn't answer the question, because your response included in it the existence of foresight; as if you were looking back on it. That isn't how real-life decisions work- you cannot predict the future that accurately. Tell me what you would do in the situation I gave you. Do you help them, or kill them now?

It seems like you either ignored, or completely misread my post. Depression isn't the focus of that hypothetical, it's the resulting consequences. You're responding to the wrong aspect.

Where did I say that?

Quote from: eggsalad on September 26, 2015, 07:54:05 PM

I don't think it's fair to compare those two when one is leaving someone in a state of misery and the other is putting them in a state in which it is [seemingly] impossible for them to [humanly] experience negative [human] emotions.

edited appropriately

Quote from: eggsalad on September 26, 2015, 02:35:47 PM

the truly morally superior mentality

Oh, get off your imaginary high-horse. If the expected outcome did not reflect the probability that was established beforehand, then what else do you expect someone who supported that outcome to say?

Mathematically, the positive outcome outweighed the negative, and in this case, by a substantial margin. There is literally nothing you can do afterwards if the negative outcome manages to come forth.

And I can apply this principle to literally anything where you have to wager the most minuscule degree of uncertainty. And believe me, you do it.

I'm just dumbfounded that this is even a discussion. I never really expected to have to explain to somebody why offering the very high probability of an excellent quality of life to a dog is morally superior to killing them and providing no sensation of joy at all. The alternative outcome is so negligible that I view it being brought up in this discussion as extremely odd.

Egg also does not like considering the metaphysical implications of death ("Death is simply a no-risk alternative").

Quote from: eggsalad on September 26, 2015, 12:40:09 PM

Quote from: Winy on September 26, 2015, 12:08:20 PM

Turkey already beat the argument to death, but in this specific instance, I view it as very obvious that the proper course of action, given the type of dog, and the circumstances, would have been to give the puppies to a shelter. Always take the moral high road, what this owner tried to do was lazy and unethical.

The "moral high road" would have been to dedicate his life to making sure these pups had the best lives they're going to have and raising them himself without concern for cost or time. Who knows who the fuck is going to get the dog if it goes to the shelter, maybe the dog will find no owner, maybe the dog will wind up in an abusive family?

But wait, that's unreasonable to expect of someone, not everyone is or should be obligated to do everything in their power to do the absolute most ethical thing possible.

The alternative you just poised is also very unlikely. I could very easily say "Yes, but x could happen" in reference to any situation in which morals are coming into question, but that's grossly overthinking the issue. And it really didn't disprove that the choice he made wasn't the correct one. No sane person would think, "Hm, if I give these animals to a shelter, they might get abused. Better shoot them to spare the pain!"

Quote from: eggsalad on September 23, 2015, 01:47:34 PM

I'm not really advocating it, there just isn't much wrong with it.

Yes there is.

Quote from: eggsalad on September 25, 2015, 10:42:50 PM

As an antinatalist, and one that acknowledges that extinction is probably the only way to ensure that those living now don't reproduce, do you ever fear of new life springing forth after humans and putting themselves in the same dilemma? I suppose this depends on your idea of how the universe works, because if stuff like quantum tunneling or whatever proves valid, then even heat death doesn't prevent the development of new life.

If in that case it were inevitable that life will reemerge, do you think we ought to oblige ourselves, those that are alive now, to actively nip it in the bud? Yes, as of right now we are doing an immense injustice by continuing to breed, but if it means reaching a technological level that we can start to prevent the emergence of intelligent life anywhere, is it not a sacrifice made for the greater good? Hopefully with AI and longer life spans we can reduce the number of people we involuntarily martyr to that end.

At least that's the point my BF made that I couldn't really answer. I'm not sure it's possible for anything to survive heat death, or the event that creates a universe after it. I like to think rather that the system naturally takes care of itself, intelligence develops to the point it realizes its existence only is so to perpetuate itself, and then the intelligence promptly ends itself. I suppose this allows for a lot more suffering than active intervention though, because as far as we can tell, animals will spend magnitudes more generations living in the natural state and only just once it achieves the safety and pleasure of modern society will they rectify the situation.

And on another note, do you think killing someone you are certain is going to reproduce in great numbers (and thus creates a lineage that gets exponentially larger), even if it causes misery to those immediately around them is morally justified because it essentially prevents the creation of entire generations? (I recognize that other families will fill the "gap" created to some degree, but it goes without saying that if Genghis Khan was replaced with a non-sex-addict leader of equal brutality and efficiency, that the world would look entirely different on a social geographic scale)

christ

tl;dr for the video, plox