Maybe I misunderstood this, but the reasoning here seems to be that, for example, Rwandans who both helped in the killing and saved some victims (in this case two each) acted at least as well as those who didn’t kill anyone.
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aug 31, 2025, 7:04 pm • 0 0 • view
I have absolutely no idea what they are saying.
aug 31, 2025, 7:09 pm • 0 0 • view
Roughly: what matters is net deaths, not how they come about. But then we have no reason to choose between the agent in A (world with 0 net deaths where a genocidaire kills as many as they save) and in B (no genocidaire, 0 net deaths).
aug 31, 2025, 7:28 pm • 2 0 • view
For extra drama, the genocidaire possible world is probably actual: there are plausible cases (here: Rwandan) of genocidaires who saved as many as they killed. It seems to follow, on the story we’re offered, that they should be treated as we would treat those who killed no one at all.
aug 31, 2025, 7:30 pm • 2 0 • view
I think that relies on interpreting "innocent" as innocent. It sounds to me like they're trying to make (i) a causal argument about Harris winning in 2024 rather than Trump (ii) linked to a causal argument about criticism of US-Israel policy under Biden
aug 31, 2025, 7:45 pm • 1 0 • view
It's nestled right next to a tweet where someone else appears to be trying to say "If only hadn't called it genocide ".
aug 31, 2025, 7:45 pm • 1 0 • view
Both of these have the same level of thick descriptive beef + implausible claims as reading one half of theological arguments in 700AD Byzantium.
aug 31, 2025, 7:45 pm • 1 0 • view
It's fine for people to just ... find other people annoying. The overworked attempt to assert deep causal significance is wearying. Particularly since ... it's directed at no one - nobody with a name or office or job that you could be read as requiring accountability.
aug 31, 2025, 7:45 pm • 1 0 • view
Which is weird, because there are some individuals for which that is true, like this guy (being interviewed): www.youtube.com/shorts/YJ3Lv...
aug 31, 2025, 7:45 pm • 1 0 • view
Worth taking into account, since there’ll end up corrupting folk (so we have reason to pay attention even apart from their being annoying).
aug 31, 2025, 7:48 pm • 0 0 • view
*they’ll
aug 31, 2025, 7:48 pm • 0 0 • view
If there are two options, you choose the one that leads to less death and suffering than the other, because human lives are less important than your ego. One of two people was going to be the next president. There is no "blow up the trolley" option. Just more and less suffering
aug 31, 2025, 8:02 pm • 0 0 • view
Every person in this nation who did not try to defeat Trump last year by electing Kamala Harris failed an extraordinary easy moral test.
aug 31, 2025, 8:04 pm • 1 0 • view
Why are you directing this at (i) some nameless hypothetical random US voter rather than (ii) a named Democratic official with a paid job and responsibility to try to get the Democrats to win the the next presidency?
aug 31, 2025, 8:06 pm • 0 0 • view
Because the failure of (ii) does not absolve (i) for their selfish, venal nature Both deserve scorn. The latter for horrific policy and the former for putting their ego above humanity
aug 31, 2025, 8:08 pm • 0 0 • view
Whoever put the people on the trolley tracks is the bigger villain. We should find them and deal with them when this immediate crisis is over. It doesn't change that the only moral choice is to pull the lever
aug 31, 2025, 8:11 pm • 0 0 • view
Sophie’s Choice II: the *only* moral move (and an easy one too) is to send both kids to the gas chamber and to forget who imposed the choice in the first place.
aug 31, 2025, 8:13 pm • 0 0 • view
A good reason (sufficient, IHMO) not to carry Biden’s water for the genocide was the foreseeable corruption that would follow. You’ll eventually talk yourself into the take that even if it was genocide, *ours was better* or at least less bad.
aug 31, 2025, 8:16 pm • 0 0 • view
Every good wish.
aug 31, 2025, 8:16 pm • 0 0 • view
Srebrenica is objectively less bad than Rwanda. Both are atrocities. You still have an obligation as a human being to prevent suffering and death wherever possible
aug 31, 2025, 8:19 pm • 0 0 • view
Rwanda is less bad than Nazi Germany. A frequent talking point was that since it wasn’t as bad as Germany, it was excusable, or understandable—that those who had done it were in some way excused or justified by some causally independent event that happened to be worse.
aug 31, 2025, 8:22 pm • 0 0 • view
"We have already arrived at 'genocide' tier, therefore it is already the maximal badness level" only makes sense if you do not value human lives If a single person dies who might have otherwise lived, it fucking got worse!
aug 31, 2025, 8:20 pm • 0 0 • view
...no that is not my point
aug 31, 2025, 8:15 pm • 0 0 • view
It does, since you haven't established that there *was* a person pulling the lever or *that it was connected to anything*.
aug 31, 2025, 8:14 pm • 0 0 • view
That is certainly an argument - that limbos around stuff you didn't mention and avoids talking about relative weight quite a bit for someone asserting the importance of embracing binary dilemmas! ...
aug 31, 2025, 8:13 pm • 0 0 • view
... but the main thing it dodge is that there *definitely were* Democratic officials responsible for maximising the Democratt vote.
aug 31, 2025, 8:13 pm • 0 0 • view
But there's no evidence that there were Democrat voters - in any meaningful numbers - who made the choice you laid out.
aug 31, 2025, 8:13 pm • 0 0 • view
And yet they're all here on Bluesky, even proud of their moral turpitude
aug 31, 2025, 8:16 pm • 0 0 • view
You referenced no such people and they don't exist in the thread you responded to. Maybe you should spend less time on social media?
aug 31, 2025, 8:19 pm • 0 0 • view
The significant drop in US turnout was - as logic would predict - among people mostly intermediate between the two parties (not to the 'left' of the Democrats) and focussed on inflation/cost of living.
aug 31, 2025, 8:13 pm • 0 0 • view
I am not blaming them for the election loss? I think all of I/P was pretty irrelevant in the long run. They still made a terrible choice and should get scorn about it until they fix their rotten hearts
aug 31, 2025, 8:17 pm • 0 0 • view