The Gaming Den

Well, but the strawman assumes you can put him back together.
Reality, of course, is completely different. In reality this Doctor probably didn't manage to do 5 major transplant surgeries. Secondly, blood type is only 1 of some very major obstacles to organ transplants. A Submarine medical room is unlikely to be able to accomodate that many surgeries. Secondly, transplants are done by TEAMS, because of the time restraints, and how long transplant surgery can take.

Still, in this mythical world where you can do 5 transplant operations at once, and you can put humptydumpty back together again. You put him back together again, no questions. Then you shoot the god damn doctor in the head. (Cause you're the Captain and God)

It's not a fucking strawman, it's a poorly constructed problem.

The correct formulation of the problem involves directing the vent gas. Because then people can't get caught up in bullshit medical minutiae they do not understand.

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:For example: pressure is building up in the nuclear reactor, and automatic release valves are about to vent it into a compartment where five people are. But with a quick action, you can have it vented into a different compartment with only one person. Or you could override the vent entirely and everyone dies. That's a simple and reasonably plausible scenario. After all, if the compartment you are in is filled with pressurized, super heated radioactive steam, I think we can all agree that is a death sentence.

I'm going to argue that this is a strawman of a different sort, although a strwman in the opposite direction. I'm assuming that this is a military vessel, as apart from bizzare science fiction shows, the only general submarines are military ones. (And civilian nuclear vessels are generally right out.) This means that all the crew are military naval officers. There a social compact applies, the one is expected to give his life for the five, all things considered the choice is a no brainer.

(Unless it is known that the one is not a member of the military - for some reason - and the social contract does not apply. In that case the five would give up their lives for the one.)

I'll end with one observation - this is the nuclear sub corps - one of the best paid positions in the Navy. And this (after the posthumus awarding of an important medal of valor) is one of the reasons why.

tzor wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:For example: pressure is building up in the nuclear reactor, and automatic release valves are about to vent it into a compartment where five people are. But with a quick action, you can have it vented into a different compartment with only one person. Or you could override the vent entirely and everyone dies. That's a simple and reasonably plausible scenario. After all, if the compartment you are in is filled with pressurized, super heated radioactive steam, I think we can all agree that is a death sentence.

I'm going to argue that this is a strawman of a different sort, although a strwman in the opposite direction. I'm assuming that this is a military vessel, as apart from bizzare science fiction shows, the only general submarines are military ones. (And civilian nuclear vessels are generally right out.) This means that all the crew are military naval officers. There a social compact applies, the one is expected to give his life for the five, all things considered the choice is a no brainer.

How is that a strawman?

Swordslinger wrote:

tzor wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:For example: pressure is building up in the nuclear reactor, and automatic release valves are about to vent it into a compartment where five people are. But with a quick action, you can have it vented into a different compartment with only one person. Or you could override the vent entirely and everyone dies. That's a simple and reasonably plausible scenario. After all, if the compartment you are in is filled with pressurized, super heated radioactive steam, I think we can all agree that is a death sentence.

I'm going to argue that this is a strawman of a different sort, although a strwman in the opposite direction. I'm assuming that this is a military vessel, as apart from bizzare science fiction shows, the only general submarines are military ones. (And civilian nuclear vessels are generally right out.) This means that all the crew are military naval officers. There a social compact applies, the one is expected to give his life for the five, all things considered the choice is a no brainer.

How is that a strawman?

Because if you replace soldiers (who are expected to die for their country) with babies (who aren't), the problem changes, for many people.

Fucking God Damned Son of A Bitch. It figured the first time I forgot to copy and paste the fucking DEN FUBARS MY REPLY. I'm a write once guy. So if this reply sucks, fuck it.

Swordslinger wrote:How is that a strawman?

Because in this case all the members same a common social contract that puts their own lives on the line for others and for each other. Basically, one cn wrap the decision in a blanket excuse, "I'm sure he would have wanted it this way," where one cannot do the same thing with a completely generic situation where you can never know if any person in the group actually cares for anone else in the group, much less if they would actually give their own lives so others would live.

The only possible regret would be the lack of an option to flood the room where the person making the decision is. Such people are the ones who jump opn grenades, run up stairs of a burning building at the point of collapse and other things in order to save even a few people.

That's still not a strawman. Strawmanning is setting up an intentionally weak or flawed opponent in defense against your argument.

Part of the point of these scenarios is that if you change a detail here or there even though objectively it remains about the same, our subjective reaction often varies strongly. So of course some will come off as more sympathetic to one bent or the other.

We've officially reached the point where "strawman" is just a buzzword to this community.

Ah Chamomile, you're my favorite strawman.

I'm waiting to see if Ant will register a third account named "Strawman" with a picture of a straw man as his avatar, and appear whenever invoked.

echo

Someone would need to draw a strawman for that to happen.

Will this work?

Aww... He's kinda cute.