The way things are.
The way things are.
99 comments
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There was someone who worked in Washington who made a proposal that the nuclear launch codes should be printed on a little capsule that was surgically implanted inside a man who would travel around with the president, in kind of the same way that the briefcase or whatever-it-is travels around with him under the current system.
The deal was, if the president wanted to launch a nuclear strike, he had to take a big knife and kill the man to cut him open to get to the capsule. Kind of come to grips on an individual level with what he was dealing with, and what it meant on at least some level, instead of just pushing some buttons in an air conditioned office.
I don't think this was ever meant as a serious proposal. The person who invented it was just trying to make a point. But it did get relayed to at least one person who worked in the Pentagon who got very upset at the idea and started arguing against it. What if, he said, the president looks at what's in front of him and can't do it. That would be terrible.
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I get the idea, but what if the kill-guy fights back and at the last minute decides he doesn’t want to be a sacrificial lamb? I can imagine that as some sort of 70s tv series about a guy on the run from the government and a president who wants all-out war.
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I would unironically watch this show
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And they’re running out of time!
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That's fine. But also the guy could be handcuffed to a secret service agent or something. It's not like there aren't a bunch of buff dudes around the president at all times. The purpose of the exercise would probably be enhanced if the guy didn't want to die.
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The deal was, if the president wanted to launch a nuclear strike, he had to take a big knife and kill the man to cut him open to get to the capsule.
There are too many Presidents in history who would have done that gleefully for me to believe it would function as a deterrent.
What if, he said, the president looks at what’s in front of him and can’t do it. That would be terrible.
I'm less worried about the President who hesitates than I am the President who doesn't.
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This requirement is also the plot of the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Short Story, As the Last I May Know
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The full story is available here definitely worth a read.
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I dunno I mean it's a pretty different proposal to logically come to the idea of like. oh something that's an existential threat needs to be nuked, whether that be like, godzilla, which is NOT a good idea, or like, just ensuring MAD because fuck it, I guess, or like, north korea or something, right, there's a difference between that, which should probably be a pretty cold and calculated decision, and like, killing someone, presumably that you know quite well after travelling with them for you know, at most, eight years, and then rooting through their corpse to find a little code with what's probably a time critical objective. I think probably, as another commenter pointed out, you would want to elect the president that can't kill a person. That's a better president, than the one that can, probably.
Bigger hole than all that, though: the president would probably just ask the secret service to do it, and the secret service would probably comply.
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Errr yeah but it doesn't count as genocide, it only went over a small fraction of the people. It's not genocide until it's all of them! I am very smart.
/s
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According to the trolley operator, one in three people tied to the tracks is Hamas.
Why would you sympathize with Hamas? They've been trying to blow that trolley up for years. If we don't run them over now, they'll just try to do it again.
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According to the trolley operator, some people in the front of the trolley might not be Hamas, but every single one behind is.
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My thought exactly. Instead of talking if it's right or wrong and if it should stop, be should focus on more important questions like is it genocide and is it antisemitic.
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if we're "uhm akshuallying" here, technically genocide is a past tense term judging by its common contextual use, and any other use case of it is grammatically incorrect.
Mass murder/mass homicide would be more accurate, or perhaps a different term altogether. Genocidal is a different form of it so it doesnt count under this, though it could technically apply here as well.
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If you encourage the authority to pull the lever, though, you're complicit in the atrocities already committed, so you should definitely just sit this one out. /s
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Uh oh, I just realized I haven't condemned hamas in the last 10 minutes. People are going to think I hate jews now.
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You're complicit in the genocide just by living in the place where the switch is. Your tax dollars paid for that trolley.
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When will it be considered anti-Semitic to be Islamophobic?
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Jew is both a genealogical ethnicity and a religious designation. Islam is a different religion. So, never?
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Semite: “a member of any of a number of peoples of ancient southwestern Asia including the Akkadians, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs” So, how is it anti-semitic to be pro-palestine?
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Final comment for ya (always happy to continue chatting in our deeper thread though - that was lovely).
A lot of people conflate Islam with Arab, nowadays (maybe you’ve heard of brown-folks be described as Islamics before, for example)
So, maybe someday?
if the dictionary ever updates Islam to mean also mean “a Muslim”.
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Oh, shit. This hits hard.
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is the trolley named atrocity? Or is it actively committing an atrocity? Or is it's name atrocity, which is why it's committing an "atrocity" but actually it could be tongue in cheek so it may actually be both of them.
also what happens if you just pull it yourself, is that not antisemitism? Seems like a loop hole to me.
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If you pull it yourself, thats direct action, IE terrorism, and they super dont like that.
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what if you were to slip, and accidentally pull the lever, for instance, you fall on it? Is that accidental terrorism now?
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trolley named atrocity
The sequel to "Streetcar Named Desire"
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what would a train be?
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most of these should be children to be more accurate.
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Don't forget who provides Putin with DPI.
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I'm not even sure what the lever is supposed to be
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Giving billions of dollars of aids and weapons for decades of colonialism
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Supposed to be a lever that changes the direction of the track so it doesn't run over the people
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Asking or telling the authority to stop, is the same as voting (in 6 months) for a new authority who will (probably) drive the trolley a bit faster. Will there still be children on the tracks by then? Who knows!
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"Thank you for calling 911. We care about your emergency and will respond as soon as we vote on who will answer the phone. Our next election will take place in three days. Please hold."
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Incredibly oversimplified.
Edit: I was going to add more detail to my comment and speak to both sides but why should I have to? The cartoon endeavors to simplify the most complex issue of the last fifty years, why should I have to add more context to a comment on one post, on a small community, on a small social network?
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That's the point of a political cartoon...
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You're right, the IDF has slaughtered far far far more people than appear in the cartoon
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Not to mention that cartoon's lack of children.
A more realistic one would have at least 1/3 of the victims be children.
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Yeah they missed the part where the cop beats up the guy
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If you were expecting nuance and balance in a meme you might not exactly understand why you're here.
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Man... I hate when a meme fails to capture all the nuance of a situation and manages to tell a deeper truth at the same time.
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Yeah. The person preventing the lever from being pulled is also screaming that the person who wants to pull it is a tankie and a trump supporter in addition to being antisemitic.
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Saying "Trump would be even worse" whilst stopping people from pulling the lever.
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99 comments