Or even better, would you shove a fat man standing by the side of the road in front of a bus, if it ment saving the lifes of 5 people who's car was stalled out in the path?
Suppose you can be sure that the action will save the 5 people but the fat man will die in the process. Also, the 5 people will die if you do nothing.
Sorry to hijack, but I have always found that kind of "moral" questions completely nonsensical. There are several problems with how it is posed and interpreted.
Firstly, it assumes that if you do nothing you are choosing to let the 5 people die. In a real situation that would be *hesitation*, not a choice. You are not choosing absolutely anything, you are just hesitating because you don't know what to do. There's no morality there, just panic. Thus it would be completely unjust to interpret that in the way that you are *choosing* to let the 5 people die.
The situation as posed is just not realistic for a moral choice scenario. It happens too fast. You don't have time to think about it. It happens too fast for you to even realize that there's a moral choice to make. Even if you realized it, there would be too little time to actually think about the actual dilemma and all of its ramifications. It's not realistic.
Even if the situation was different, where every single detail is carefully explained and you have hours to make your decision, it would probably still be quite unrealistic to expect that anyone would make a calm, rational choice. Most people would still hesitate, panic, go to catatonic shock or at the end make a choice based on panic, not rationality and morals. People don't tend to think rationally when they are confronted in such situations where people are in danger. The person's own safety is probably in danger too because he has to make the choice (ie. someone is forcing him to do it).
It just doesn't make any sense. It's not a question of morality.
do you have any favourite TV show (excluding anime)? Or is there any TV show you're actively watching, or watched?
Well, anime excluded...
I am currently (as in within a span of two years or so) following Stargate, Stargate Atlantis, The 4400, Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Outer Limits and Battlestar Galactica.
I have also watched recently (as in within a span of two years or so) some episodes of Iron Chef and Mythbusters.
All from Internet though; I don't own a TV (nor do I plan to own one).
Randil wrote:
And what's your favourite movie? (not TAS, I'm talking about real movies here :P)
I watch movies way too rarely to be educated well in them (less than one per year by average), but I suppose the one with most profound effect was The Matrix.
Dear Bizzy Bone,
What's the best gift you've ever received?
What's the best gift you've ever given?
Why did you undelete and respond to an 11-day-old troll post?
↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A Start,
JXQ
<Swordless> Go hug a tree, you vegetarian (I bet you really are one)
⑴ What's the best gift you've ever received?
⑵ What's the best gift you've ever given?
⑶ Why did you undelete and respond to an 11-day-old troll post?
⑴ A microwave oven. It has been quite useful.
⑵ I cannot recall. I didn't give christmas presents (or any other presents) as a child (nobody encouraged me to, and there would really not been anyone who would have appreciated anything I could have given) and the habit has sticked on me.
⑶ I suddenly realized a reasonable way to respond to it. And, it was being referred to. I think unclouding the mystery lowers the temperature surround it more than keeping it censored would.
Please name some examples of such ritualistic morals. I found this question hard to answer.
Pretty much the entire set of rules of etiquette, starting from semi-mandatory to follow answer formulas to common questions (— "How are you?" — "Fine, thanks; how are you?" etc.) which are sometimes opposite to the person's condition, and concluding with certain ways of handling the silverware in restaurants. In other words, things you are expected to do in the modern society to not pass off as caveman, even if they don't bear their original or any functional value at all anymore.
Bisqwit wrote:
Theoretically speaking, one should always (I suppose) strive for the greater good. In practise, whether one is able to do it depends on many factors. One cannot really know until faced with such situation.
Well, I know it's difficult to say beforehand, but theoretically, what would you expect (or want) yourself to do in such situation, generally speaking?
I know I'm "passive" (hesitant, basically) and more prone to avoiding danger myself rather than doing some actions which will require bearing great responsibility. Since I'm inherently lazy, it's generally easier for me to accept a loss than to take certain actions to prevent it (though it doesn't mean I always decide to act this way).
Also, what about my last question? You're made no indication whether you are going to answer it or not.
moozooh wrote:
Imagine that you have a choice of either you or one of your relatives getting killed/raped/anything similar. Who would you choose? Can you endure something you panically fear or despise so that someone you value the most could remain safe?
Warp wrote:
Firstly, it assumes that if you do nothing you are choosing to let the 5 people die. In a real situation that would be *hesitation*, not a choice. You are not choosing absolutely anything, you are just hesitating because you don't know what to do. There's no morality there, just panic. Thus it would be completely unjust to interpret that in the way that you are *choosing* to let the 5 people die.
Hesitation eventually defaults to the choice of inaction (even if it is un-/semi-conscious: in state of emergency a human is doing what their instincts are telling them, hesitation is a result of an internal conflict between instincts and the brain's struggle to produce a rational solution through the debris of panic-induced thoughts), and the more is the time span between the realization of the jeopardy and its conclusion, the less of an excuse one has when it comes to reflecting upon the possible courses of action that could/should have taken place. In many countries, inaction can be considered a crime if it's proven that you've been a witness to the events yet decided not to do anything to prevent or stop them. It might depend on the definition of choice you are used to, but to me, a choice is a power to influence the event branch. Inaction will merely result in one of its possible resolutions, and as such, will be a valid choice in my book.
Warp wrote:
Edit: I think I understand now: It's my avatar, isn't it? It makes me look angry.
Dear Bisqwit,
if you met God, and he'd offer to answer three of your questions. What would you ask him?
if he offered to change three things in this world to your liking, what would those be?
greetings
Tub
Joined: 5/2/2006
Posts: 1020
Location: Boulder, CO
Warp wrote:
It just doesn't make any sense. It's not a question of morality.
its supposed to be more a question fo ethics, if a person is willing to sacrifice one for many, of they have issues seeing the difference between killing someone and letting them die.
I realize that its a totaly contrived situation, and in reality one would just react on instinct, but that is kind of missing the point.
Pretty much the entire set of rules of etiquette, starting from semi-mandatory to follow answer formulas to common questions (— "How are you?" — "Fine, thanks; how are you?" etc.) which are sometimes opposite to the person's condition, and concluding with certain ways of handling the silverware in restaurants. In other words, things you are expected to do in the modern society to not pass off as caveman, even if they don't bear their original or any functional value at all anymore.
Oh, you were talking about etiquette, not morals.
Well, yeah. You're right about that. As some people have noticed, I have tendency to ignore rules like that to some degree; for example, when someone asked me yesterday "how are you today", I replied "ill", which was the truth. I am really not a smalltalk person. Incidentally it is characteristic for geeks, I believe.(*
Re: Restaurant etiquette, there are some things that don't make sense today (the way you place the knife after eating does not necessarily imply a secret plan to assassinate someone after the supper), whereas there are some that do (placing the utensils in a certain position allows the waiters to read from afar that you're done and may need more service).
But that is not a question about morals.
moozooh wrote:
Bisqwit wrote:
In practise, whether one is able to do it depends on many factors. One cannot really know until faced with such situation.
Well, I know it's difficult to say beforehand, but theoretically, what would you expect (or want) yourself to do in such situation, generally speaking?
I know I'm "passive" (hesitant, basically) and more prone to avoiding danger myself rather than doing some actions which will require bearing great responsibility. Since I'm inherently lazy, it's generally easier for me to accept a loss than to take certain actions to prevent it (though it doesn't mean I always decide to act this way).
I would have wanted to avoid answering that question, but.. here goes.
(A) In such situation, I would likely do nothing. I'm too slow to realize what's happening.
(B) In a tool-assisted world (i.e. if I had all the time in world to think about it as it happens), I would still probably not do anything. As I posted earlier, there's more at the stage than merely a game of numbers. The value of each individual's lives.
- In a moral sense, each life is priceless. As mathematics shows, infinity times five is not greater or less than infinity. You cannot compare them. So moral does not provide an answer.
- In a materialistic sense, the value might be determined by their respective potential accomplishments towards the good of the society. However, how are you going to compare the potential future accomplishments of complete strangers you've never met before? Even if you knew them, could you compare it? Would your decision be correct? Hard to tell.
- And in the Christian sense, each person is given their respective amount of time to come to terms with God, and the rest of the life after that to deliver the message of that to others. One cannot know the moment God has decided for each person. When I first started writing this paragraph, I thought that if the person to potentially be sacrificed was a Christian, I would probably sacrifice him so that the other five may still have time. However, I'm not sure if that's a good choice, either.
Ultimately, I find none of these three ways to think of the issue providing an answer in either way. What remains is the fourth:
In the egocentric sense, doing nothing would probably yield you no consequences, but sacrificing that one person would probably yield negative legal consequences for you. Therefore, doing nothing would be the choice.
moozooh wrote:
Also, what about my last question? You're made no indication whether you are going to answer it or not.
Sorry, I must have grouped it into that previous question without noticing that it was different.
> Imagine that you have a choice of either you or one of your relatives getting killed/raped/anything similar. Who would you choose? Can you endure something you panically fear or despise so that someone you value the most could remain safe?
Intuitively, I would refuse such a lose-lose choice at all.
But if I really, really, did not have any options remaining (such as overpowering or confusing the perpetrator), I would probably opt to protect the other. But then again, situations may be different. My reasonings may be faulty. (Such as the assumption that out of my relatives, I'm probably the one who's most exposed to the negative nature of humans and thus the least likely to traumatize.)
*) It may also be characteristic for Finns...
A man stands in front of a store, as out steps a woman whom the man apparently recognizes. They greet happily and the man initiates smalltalk with the woman in English.http://www.salakuunneltua.fi/index.php?entry=entry070921-174456
what are "quantizers" ? any general clue about how to set them ?
I assume that you are talking about codecs, because that is the only context where I recall seeing that term.
In the context of codecs, a quantizer is a parameter that scales the amount of data stored about each event (quanta of the original signal). A higher quantizer means less data, and a lower quantizer means more data.
More data fits more information about the original picture / motion / other signal, and thus a lower quantizer means that more of the original signal will be preserved at the cost of more data being transmitted (i.e. a larger file).
The translation between a quantizer and a bitrate depends on the amount of quanta (i.e. amount of data required to represent the source signal precisely). For low-signal-rate movies, the same quantizer produces less data (smaller file) than for a high-signal-rate movie. Hence, the quantizer setting is often synonymous to a quality setting, though it is not directly proportional to the signal-to-noise ratio.
In mencoder, the quantizer can be set differently for each codec:
-- For libavcodec codecs (-ovc lavc), use the vqscale setting in the -lavcopts parameter. Alternatively, you can use vqmin and vqmax to control the minimum and maximum quantizers used in bitrate-throttled encoding. Other control parameters also exist, but they are more expert-oriented.
-- For xvid (-ovc xvid), use the fixed_quant setting in the -xvidencopts parameter. Similarly to lavcopts, many expert-only options exist which affect quantizers.
-- For x264 (-ovc x264), use the qp or crf settings in the -x264encopts parameter. I'm not sure how those two differ.
-- For other codecs, see the manual.
Joined: 2/13/2007
Posts: 448
Location: Calgary, Alberta
Dear Bisqy,
Note: I do not mean this in any offensive way.
Why did Cristianity proclaim for world peace yet kill millions of people because they were not Christian?
Renting this space for rent.
Trying to fix image on this site. Please cut slack.
As of April 6th, 2012:
After a long absence, here we go again?
Why did Cristianity proclaim for world peace yet kill millions of people because they were not Christian?
It is my personal belief that many of the people who killed "millions of people" (the amount may be disputed) were not really Christian at all.
In search for material to use as a reply to this question, I found an article that writes this:
"The crusades were actually large, but unplanned attempts to restore the Islamized near-East back into Christianity. It however also includes the battles of Christian military commanders against the paganese neighboring countries in other areas, such as those in the Baltic Sea Area (such as the crusades into Finland!).
The motivation of those who left for crusades was usually a sincere religious keenness and a will to redeem one's own sins by fighting actively against the unbelievers. But there were also those who left fighting because of a will for adventures or lust for victory, or because they had heard exaggerated stories about the riches of eastern countries. Also people, who had some dubious reason to leave the country joined the crusaders. Thus there ended up being corrupt people amongst the crusaders."
I find the part about "redeeming one's own sins" dubious, but since the article also writes that the crusades were authorized by the head of the Catholic church, the Pope at that time, I cannot be sure about its factuality. (I'm not catholic.) The Christianity which I believe in, has no teaching like that. Yes, Zacchaeus "said unto the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold", but as far as I know, that was a spontaneous act and was less about "redeeming one's sins" (a selfish act) than it was about "recouping the trouble caused to others".
A member who has been hanging around long enough and posted enough posts to intuitively understand the implicit rules of this community.
"Vested" is here synonymous to "Been around for a long time".
D. Bq.:
Why ".org"? Was it the only option you had, or did you think .com or .net (or something) was a bad idea?
Also, why isn't there a way to go directly to someone's post from either their post history or from using the search function? Or if you can, how? =[
Why ".org"? Was it the only option you had, or did you think .com or .net (or something) was a bad idea?
I thought a .com is ideologically bad idea, because TASvideos is not a commercial entity. A .net domain would perhaps been better than .org; I don't remember why I chose .org over .net. Perhaps the registrar which I used could not offer .net? I don't remember. .info was also an option, but it is so rarely used that it would probably have only caused confusion.
Also, why isn't there a way to go directly to someone's post from either their post history or from using the search function? Or if you can, how? =[
Sure there is. Click profile, click "Find all posts by", then click the subject of the post you want to read. Or did I misunderstand your question?
Two questions: Are you still intently pursuing DOSBox as a possibility on this site?
Perhaps I'm missing something, but the statistics for movies page is very hard to find. I had to google to find it before. Is there a reason why it isn't on the front page, or am I just missing something?
Sage advice from a friend of Jim: So put your tinfoil hat back in the closet, open your eyes to the truth, and realize that the government is in fact causing austismal cancer with it's 9/11 fluoride vaccinations of your water supply.
Are you still intently pursuing DOSBox as a possibility on this site?
I'm not "intently pursuing" it. However, I am eager to accept any emerging, robust, rerecording supporting DOSBox implementation for use on this site. The rules under which the TASes are created may need defining&refining though.
DarkKobold wrote:
Perhaps I'm missing something, but the statistics for movies page is very hard to find. I had to google to find it before. Is there a reason why it isn't on the front page, or am I just missing something?
It is linked from http://tasvideos.org/FAQ.html#MiscellaneousInformation.
I don't think it belongs to the front page, as it is an extra curiosity, not a potential starting point for browsing.
Where else should it be?
if you met God, and he'd offer to answer three of your questions. What would you ask him?
As I child I thought that when I meet God, I will ask him many questions regarding how exactly he created the world.
I suppose those questions might still take anywhere from one to three slots from your allowed number of questions.
As I cannot currently think of any better questions, I'll settle for that.
Edit: No, I would also probably want to know things like, when did he create angels. But the question might not even make sense, considering that time is a concept inherent to our universe, and that I believe that the whole universe is a creation of God.
Tub wrote:
if he offered to change three things in this world to your liking, what would those be?
I would yield and let him change three things into his own liking instead. My motivations could not possibly be as thoroughly considered for consequences as his :)
Okay, I'll try.
First, as an avid amateur scientist-wannabe, I would ask him to change the speed of light or some other parameter of the universe in such way that it enables the humanity to explore the distant space quickly, but without compromising the living conditions on Earth or any other planet we might encounter life on.
Secondly, implement kind of protection on the Earth so that humans are made incapable of harming any animal species to the degree that they would become extinct, but without compromising the food chain, and without making pests invulnerable or even more pestilential, and while still enabling us to enjoy the beauty of the nature.
Thirdly, stabilize the human reproduction rate so that it stays within manageable numbers without greatly diminishing or explosively increasing, but without leading into psychological problems and negative consequences thereof of humans whose brains are programmed with all things related to reproduction as a goal in mind. Possibly decrease it for a while until the population reaches some number that makes the second wish more manageable. However, if the first wish comes true, do it so that the population density in any offworld colony does not become smaller as humans spread to more worlds.
dear bisqwit:
why do you think that human lives distributively are infinitely valuable? also, do you think that other species animals lives (distributively) are infintesimally valuable in comparison?
why do you think that human lives distributively are infinitely valuable?
I was actually paraphrasing something I had read. Now that I searched for material to use in reply to your question, I found this page that mentions that claim:
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life
-- http://www.sachsreport.com/thehumanfactor2.htm
It comes from the fact that no money in the world can replace anyone when you consider all what the person is to their peers. Personality, etc.
Bob A wrote:
Do you think that other species animals lives (distributively) are infintesimally valuable in comparison?
Dear Bisqwit
Will you ever consider increasing the complexity of the member ranks? For example you already have records of what systems people have TASed as well as the genres they've covered. Also you have how they rate and the votes they generally recieve. For example Fabian could equal "Mario World speacialist"
Will you ever consider increasing the complexity of the member ranks? For example you already have records of what systems people have TASed as well as the genres they've covered. Also you have how they rate and the votes they generally recieve. For example Fabian could equal "Mario World speacialist"
You can read about the plans for the rank system in this thread: http://tasvideos.org/forum/t/5342
Mostly the idea is to use a minimal number of manually granted ranks. Ask JXQ why manually granted ranks (as in awards) are a bad idea.
