Pthigrivi’s Moral Dilemma:

[TheSaint]

Just now, tater said:

The madman analogy would need to be he will kill your wife, your kid, or if you don't decide, all 3 of you. The morality of the killing at that point doesn't matter IMO, it's a value choice between 2, or everyone dies anyway, you have no choice as framed.

In the madman case, I'd have to say my wife—because if it was her being asked, I'd want her to pick ME, and I am sure her decision would be to protect the kid(s) first as well.

I agree though that this shows the aliens to be depraved (and hence deserving of extinction ). We need to live to build the Star Destroyers and Death Stars.

Just pointing out that it's a False Dichotomy. In my own sort of half-arsed way.

If it's truly a moral decision then you have to allow for the possibility of moral judgement, which requires a disinterested third party who weighs your actions against a fixed code of conduct. And once you allow for that possibility, then the only logical course of action in the OP's scenario is to stand and and let the moral implications of the aliens' actions weigh entirely on their own heads. Unless you're going to somehow claim that the third party's moral code only applies to humans, which seems unlikely.

As for the madman scenario: I'd pick my kids and let him shoot my wife. If I let him shoot my kids my wife would be sure to smother me with a pillow in my sleep afterwards.

And instead of Star Destroyers and Death Stars we should concentrate on bomb-pumped x-ray lasers and fusion torch drives. Those seem much more achievable to me.

3 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

It's a problem of the aliens that they've still not presented themselves to us, so we could treat them as humans.

They're probably terrified because they're reading our Internet and all we talk about is developing Star Destroyers, Death Stars, bomb-pumped x-ray lasers, and fusion torch drives. They're worried if we do meet them we will treat them as humans. How sad is that?

[AlamoVampire]

There was no hesitation on my part. To borrow from the Matrix:

Agent Smith: “Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we… are the cure.” – Matrix

Humans are harming this planet. I will with out regret press the green button.

013608182022

[kerbiloid]

About the maniac dilemma.

An evil maniac dilemma: after the asked one has done the choice, shoot noone and go away, leaving them to discuss.

 

[SunlitZelkova]

3 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

An excellent example of how far the mass-suicidal "humans-are-evil" "green" propaganda has gone.

Looks like just one from Russia is voting for the humanity survival.

At least in my case, this has nothing to do with propaganda.

As I said here

On 8/16/2022 at 11:24 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

Not because of any particular logical reason (none exist)

To put it simply, choosing between the destruction of all human life or all non-human life is no different than choosing between Coke or Pepsi.

I could make an argument like this (in favor of saving humanity)

2 hours ago, tater said:

We're the only beings on Earth that are certainly aware of the fact that we are here. The hard problem of consciousness is, well, hard, but even with some continuum of consciousness, the bulk is in the humans.

Eliminating all humans eliminates the only consciousness we know certainly exists in the universe. The universe without consciousness is no more interesting than a parking lot.

Or like this (in favor of saving the rest of Earth/Solar System life)

23 hours ago, Nuke said:

well cannibalism is still an option so there is that. i wont have to give up my carnivorous existance. 

the problem is, im a cat person, and dont want to live in a world without cats. or bacon, or things to eat other than algae that tastes like chicken and humans. also think of the bacon!

i mean in the world without humans, the possibility exists that a pig will fall into the dead sea, drown, get appropriately salt cured, then washes ashore and gets struck by lightening to become bacon, which then later gets consumed by a cat. cats then later grow thumbs and evolve into the dominant life form on earth, build grand starships, and take over the known universe with their refined predatorial instincts. this is more grand than anything a bunch of algae (and human) fed humans could do. therefore i am obliged to hit the green button. 

But both are equally valid.

In the case of tater's, what is interesting is subjective, so the rest of life may be what is truly interesting while the super predator humans that threaten biodiversity are the "threats to interestingness" whose elimination is acceptable.

In the case of choosing to exterminate humanity, I could go on a tirade about how humans are evil for slaughtering cows and utilizing mental asylum prisoners to beat stray dogs to death, but in reality this is no different from a cat playing with a mouse it has caught before killing it, or a bird of prey massacring the nest of a smaller species for lunch. There is no "humans oppressing nature" because humans are part of nature too. The so called destruction of the environment is no different than termites burrowing in a tree to build a home and reproduce. But we don't call bears reproducing "destroying the environment", so we don't call termites reproducing "destroying the environment", so therefore humans decimating forests to build apartment complexes which babies will later be raised in can not be described as "destroying the environment".

So at the end of the day it comes down to a purely subjective personal choice. There is no right or wrong, in the same way no one can truly say Coke is better than Pepsi.

Or in your opinion are Pepsi fans "brainwashed" by "Pepsi propaganda"?  or vice versa.

1 hour ago, Hotel26 said:

(Everything always dies.)

Not my doing.  And not my choice.  I'd prefer there be no kidnapping, murder, corruption and deception, but I don't go around killing indiscriminately to prevent it...  (I leave that to the authorities.)

Philosophy is great only to make people think, I suppose.

In the scenario, there are three choices, but one wasn't listed in the poll.

This isn't really the same. Murder takes place away from you (hopefully 100% of the time), so you can't be considered responsible as you aren't there.

What this choice is really like is if a runaway trolly was headed towards a switch track, and you were standing next to it and could flip the tracks. One route goes off an incomplete bridge and kills the passengers, the other runs over people tied to the tracks while the trolly continues unharmed. You can't run over to free the people tied down in time to save them.

The tracks are already switched one way, so if you do nothing that still counts as a choice. Except in this case both parties are annihilated by choosing inaction.

1 hour ago, Nuke said:

most house cats die, but there are a large number of wild cat species, as well as feral cats that will do just fine. so the prospects of a future stellar empire dominated by cats with a profound hatred of sicoms still sounds like a good idea. no chicken flavored algae whisky could compare. 

There are thriving feral guinea pig populations in South America, who have been successful for so long they have become their own species.

Also... (quoting myself from a geoengineering thread in the Science & Spaceflight section)

Quote

Using the dark side of the force relying on innate behaviors of Homo sapiens to pit them against each other, impeding upon their development and damaging their ability to solve problems.

They continue to pump CO2 into the atmosphere (the geoengineering part) and based on pure profit related reasons destroy farmland and dry up aquifers. Several decades later, a massive famine occurs as a result of climate change, poor agricultural practices, and ocean acidification. Alongside this will be general ecological collapse on certain fronts. It won’t be enough to send Homo sapiens to extinction, but this will kick off a cascading series of problems that should doom them within 10,000 years to go extinct as a result of an inbreeding depression. The inevitable conflict and slaughter that follows the famine will only ensure this.

The climate will continue to grow hotter as trapped methane is released. The survivors fill the tens of thousands of now emptied ecological niches.

The objective of all of this? The return of megafauna. Crows will evolve into new terror birds and rodents will become the size of cows. We will see both herbivorous, carnivorous, and omnivorous variations.

The Revenge of the Pleistocene Megafauna shall be complete, and the new post-Holocene fauna will rule the Earth for 10 million years.

With the intelligence of rats and crows eventually evolving to work together and master technology, the First Terran Empire will expand into the cosmos, mercilessly annihilating any other life forms and transforming other worlds into Earth copies. The Empire will expand to the edges of the universe, develop interuniversal travel, and then proceed to conquer all of existence. With unlimited worlds to inhabit, the First Terran Empire will exist infinitely.

You didn’t say what goal the geoengineering had to have, after all 

My favorite for any post-human intelligence is in rodents and crows.

If my proposal already has rodents and crows (rivals IRL) collaborating, I guess we can throw in cats too 

[kerbiloid]

The rodents are primates' bro.

And they have separated about 70 mln years ago.

50 mln years later the Earth will become hardly habitable for the highly organized lifeforms, and 250 mln years ago only the simplest ones will be living here.

So, there is no time left for another attempt, and the human species is probably the first and the last endemic sapient species here.

***

Also, one more dilemma for those who prefer the green button.

So, you are ready to die to allow another species replace you?

Then why not gift your home and all money to anyone right now?

[kerbiloid]

Just remembered, a classics on topic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Running

Spoiler

 

 

[Pixophir]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The rodents are primates' bro.

Rodents are not primates. Both mammal groups are thought to be monophyletic, so one could search for a common ancestor.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Pixophir

[kerbiloid]

Just now, Pixophir said:

Rodents are not primates.

I said "are bro", not "are".

And that's why do we think that rats are clever. They just operate in same manner with us.

[cubinator]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Then why not gift your home and all money to anyone right now?

Cause I'm not currently being held at gunpoint by aliens.

I'd also die on Mars to let future generations travel the stars. 

And I also have high hopes for corvids, many other types of birds, cetaceans, cephalopods, elephants, and primates. I would argue that many of them already are self-aware. Some of them are capable of creating art. Overall my feeling is that the great biosphere of Earth is a single living thing, and killing off nearly all of it is a worse idea than killing the tiny part of it that knows a lot about the universe and tends to pave over the planet like a volcano. 

Also, if I'm being held by aliens, it means that aliens exist around other stars in the universe, so the plight of humanity to become bearers of consciousness for the universe becomes less critical - there are others who can carry that burden. Life on Earth can accept its natural fate knowing that there are others who will still observe and create.

Edited August 18, 2022 by cubinator

[Admiral Fluffy]

Press both buttons.

What happens?

Spoiler

I would press the green button because I like turtles and i want them to live.

 

Also, how do we know they aren't lying?

[kerbiloid]

34 minutes ago, cubinator said:

I also have high hopes for corvids, many other types of birds, cetaceans, cephalopods, elephants, and primates

What if human is the most moral, and they are much worse?

7 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

At least in my case, this has nothing to do with propaganda.

As I said here

On 8/17/2022 at 9:24 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

Not because of any particular logical reason (none exist)

To put it simply, choosing between the destruction of all human life or all non-human life is no different than choosing between Coke or Pepsi.

I could make an argument like this (in favor of saving humanity)

The very fact of  being making choice and explaining it is telling.

[cubinator]

22 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

What if human is the most moral, and they are much worse?

It doesn't get THAT much worse than humans. My guess is most are about the same. They are under the same stresses of food, shelter, society...

Toothed whales are maybe a little worse

Edited August 18, 2022 by cubinator

[kerbiloid]

11 minutes ago, cubinator said:

It doesn't get THAT much worse than humans.

Even the cats could argue about that, but wouldn't in sake of their profit. 
Very egoistic and cruel cuties.

And they are one of the most clever of them, let alone others.

***

Cephalopodes can't develop technology, as they can't live outside of water.

Elephants can't do anything staying big, but once they get smaller, they will be a soft prey for any predator.

Cetaceans are deer, just big and reduced.

Except the dolphins, who are much more violent beasts than the tales tell. They just don't treat a human neither as a prey, nor as a danger.

Edited August 18, 2022 by kerbiloid

[magnemoe]

13 hours ago, tater said:

The relevant mistake of the madman (or the aliens) is letting ME live. Cause I will then hunt him down and kill him. Humans live, and our mission becomes exterminating those aliens. Worth keeping humanity alive just for that.

That is the oblivious point here and you will not hunt him down, humanity will or at least make this tricks much harder to pull off next time. 
And if you kill all humans and say in 20 million years cats become sentient and create an civilization they might be back playing the same evil tricks. 
 

[tater]

11 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

So at the end of the day it comes down to a purely subjective personal choice. There is no right or wrong, in the same way no one can truly say Coke is better than Pepsi.

I'd say I'm human, I have human kids, I put them first.

I can imagine many trolley problems where countless lives (human, animal—doesn't matter) are on one track, and my kids are on the other... sucks to be on the countless lives track, that's where I send the trolley (note that I could be on the track with the countless other people, I still pull the lever).

[Nuke]

14 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The rodents are primates' bro.

And they have separated about 70 mln years ago.

50 mln years later the Earth will become hardly habitable for the highly organized lifeforms, and 250 mln years ago only the simplest ones will be living here.

So, there is no time left for another attempt, and the human species is probably the first and the last endemic sapient species here.

***

Also, one more dilemma for those who prefer the green button.

So, you are ready to die to allow another species replace you?

Then why not gift your home and all money to anyone right now?

other than saving cats (and bacon), there is the matter of my own misanthropic tendencies to contend with. 

4 hours ago, magnemoe said:

That is the oblivious point here and you will not hunt him down, humanity will or at least make this tricks much harder to pull off next time. 
And if you kill all humans and say in 20 million years cats become sentient and create an civilization they might be back playing the same evil tricks. 
 

cats would be worse, which makes them a contender for a galactic empire.

i can see humans arguing for alien rights at the expense of their own, cats would just be eating them.

16 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

So at the end of the day it comes down to a purely subjective personal choice. There is no right or wrong, in the same way no one can truly say Coke is better than Pepsi

i usually just buy whichever is on sale.

Edited August 18, 2022 by Nuke

[Pthigrivi]

Another consideration: Has anyone read "The World Without Us?" Turns out leaving all of the worlds nuclear reactors and chemical plants permanently unattended isn't a great idea.

[Nuke]

the damage would be localized and it would take but a geological eyeblink for it to go away.  its unlikely to be an extinction level event. 

[Pthigrivi]

2 minutes ago, Nuke said:

the damage would be localized and it would take but a geological eyeblink for it to go away.  its unlikely to be an extinction level event. 

To some extent, but turning the 50-100mi area around every nuclear plant in the world into an unmitigated Chernobyl, plus an endless string of Bhopal disasters contaminating ground water and river deltas throughout the world over the next 10 years can't be great. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster

Of course this would be weighed against the mostly immediate halt of greenhouse emissions so, might be a wash?

[Nuke]

its survivable, was the point i was getting at. you might destroy some habitats and kill a few species. but there is still enough biodiversity to compensate. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Nuke

[Pthigrivi]

6 minutes ago, Nuke said:

its survivable, was the point i was getting at. you might destroy some habitats and kill a few species. but there is still enough biodiversity to compensate. 

I guess the implication being the immediate fallout from our instantaneous demise is less catastrophic than our continued existence? I know we’re asking dangerous questions here but it’s certainly relevant. 

[AlamoVampire]

@Nuke there is no might about it. Humanity is wiping out Earth. We are ourselves causing the 6th Great Extinction and its happening right here, right now, all around us.

The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the sixth mass extinction or Anthropocene extinction, is an ongoing extinction event of species during the present Holocene epoch (with the more recent time sometimes called Anthropocene) as a result of human activity. The included extinctions span numerous families of bacteria, fungi, plants and animals, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishand invertebrates. With widespread degradation of highly biodiverse habitats such as coral reefs and rainforests, as well as other areas, the vast majority of these extinctions are thought to be undocumented, as the species are undiscovered at the time of their extinction, or no one has yet discovered their extinction. The current rate of extinction of species is estimated at 100 to 1,000 times higher than natural background extinction rates. 

Please, do not just take me at my word. I urge you to read what I here link. It is just a start. We are destroying our planet. Its why I have no other obligation if given the choice @Pthigrivioffers us than to pull a modified Thanos and green button humanity away. But I will stop here lest I let passion carry me away. Well I think Ive been enough of a dark voice, off to watch Critical Role!

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[Pthigrivi]

Ive been asking random people this question for many years, and I always find it surprising that the answer is green button about 9 times out of ten. I find it interesting because the decision itself erases most of the context within most moral decisions are made. Im sure I don’t know the correct answer myself, but I find the way people almost immediately, instinctually select green despite any selfish or human-centric feelings or programming super interesting. In school I wrote a few papers on altruism and there were some fascinating studies on how kin-selection could extend to genetically similar organisms so long as the net effect was the preservation of shared, adaptive genes writ large. I wonder if through it all, the extreme abstraction we’ve achieved between our day-to-day behavior and the long-term effect on our environment that some humble, long-game interest in preserving life itself still remains at the core of our being. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Pthigrivi]

7 hours ago, tater said:

I'd say I'm human, I have human kids, I put them first.

Like in real life this is probably what I would actually, literally do, but Id feel no courage or honor in it. This is in the grand bio-geological scheme the Catelyn/Tully answer. 
 

“Family, Duty, Honor. Is that the right order?”

”You know it is.”

Edited August 19, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[kerbiloid]

5 hours ago, Nuke said:

cats would be worse, which makes them a contender for a galactic empire.

Spoiler

 

 

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Another consideration: Has anyone read "The World Without Us?" Turns out leaving all of the worlds nuclear reactors and chemical plants permanently unattended isn't a great idea.

I've read even greater trilogy by M. Kharitonov (The Golden Key, or Buratin*'s Adventures) (the extreme, the ultimate case of post-human multi-species civilisation, with a genetically and technically modified cat-persecutor as one of central heroes), but it's only in Russian, fully satirical, totally grim, absolutely 18+, and full of local cultural allusions and word play, so unlikely readable for anyone else or translatable .