Yes, this is another video on 'Last of us
2'; on my last video, I talked about player
complains and the reasoning behind it. Link
would be in description below.
This one is all about ethics and morality;
No, I'm not talking about ethics and practices
by 'Naughty Dog', but the morality in the
game itself.
There have been many thought experiment in
ethics over the years. The one is relevant
to this video is known as 'The Trolley Problem'.
In simple form this is what it is:
There is a runaway trolley barreling down
the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks,
there are five people tied up and unable to
move. The trolley is headed straight for them.
You are standing some distance off in the
train yard, next to a lever. If you pull this
lever, the trolley will switch to a different
set of tracks. However, you notice that there
is one person on the side track. You have
two options:
1. Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill
the five people on the main track.
2. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto
the side track where it will kill one person.
Which is the more ethical option? Or, more
simply: What is the right thing to do?
This dilemma was introduced in this modern
form in 1967 by Philippa Foot. But it's the
earlier form was part of a moral questionnaire
given to undergraduates at the University
of Wisconsin in 1905. In this variation, the
railway's switchman controlled the switch,
and the lone individual to be sacrificed (or
not) was the switchman's child.
Do you see the similarity here? A dad or mom
can choose to take action that would kill
their own child; or do nothing and let five
people die.
Okay fine; let's change it a bit to be more
similar; suppose the trolley is going down
the track where the child is; and inaction
means letting the child die; and taking action
means 5 people die.
How about the similar question of whether
it is ethical to deflect a projectile from
a larger crowd toward a smaller one; or a
pilot whose airplane is about to crash is
deciding whether to steer from a more to a
less inhabited area.
A utilitarian view asserts that it is obligatory
to steer to the track with one man on it.
According to classical utilitarianism, such
a decision would be not only permissible,
but, morally speaking, the better option (the
other option being no action at all).
An alternate viewpoint is that since moral
wrongs are already in place in the situation,
moving to another track constitutes a participation
in the moral wrong, making one partially responsible
for the death when otherwise no one would
be responsible
The trolley problem has been the subject of
many surveys in which approximately 90% of
respondents have chosen to kill the one and
save the five.
If the situation is modified where the one
sacrificed for the five was a relative or
romantic partner, respondents are much less
likely to be willing to sacrifice their life.
Problems analogous to the trolley problem
arise in the design of software to control
autonomous cars.
Situations are anticipated where a potentially
fatal collision appears to be unavoidable,
but in which choices made by the car's software,
such as who or what to crash into, can affect
the particulars of the deadly outcome. For
example, should the software value the safety
of the car's occupants more, or less, than
that of potential victims outside the car.
An actual case approximating the trolley problem
occurred on June 20, 2003, when a runaway
string of 31 unmanned Union Pacific freight
cars were barreling toward Los Angeles along
the mainline #1 track. To avoid the runaway
train from entering the Union Pacific yards
in Los Angeles, where it would not only cause
damage, but a Metrolink passenger train was
thought to be located, dispatchers ordered
the shunting of the runaway cars to track
4, through an area with lower density housing
of mostly lower income residents. The switch
to track 4 was rated for 15mph transits, and
dispatch knew the cars were moving significantly
faster, thus likely causing a derailment.
The train, carrying over 3800 tons of mostly
lumber and building materials, then derailed
into the residential neighborhood in Commerce,
California, crashing through several houses
on Davie Street. A pregnant woman asleep in
one of the houses was injured but managed
to escape through a window and was uninjured
by the lumber and steel train wheels that
fell around her.
So what does it all point too? Oh simply,
that we are all different; and there is not
real right or wrong side for an ethical dilemma.
You might act in one way when it's five human
life in balance to when there is a hundred,
or a thousand.
Me: I'm a horrible person; and a horrible
parent. If it's for the survival of entire
human race, I will pass the scalpel, as utilitarianism
considers the interests of all humans equally.
So getting back to Last of us, and Joel's
decision to save Ellie that had put the events
in motion for the second game.
Yes, yes, I will hear that there was never
a guarantee. Now I'm not being Batman and
saying if we believe there is even a one percent
chance: of course not; but maybe the same
success rate like most surgery, which is shockingly
not 100%
The main driving force behind Last of Us part
2 is revenge:
Few people can blame 13-year-old Ali Abbas
for wanting revenge.
In April 2003, Ali lost both his arms, his
parents, his brother and several other relatives
to an errant U.S. bomb during combat operations
in Iraq. The image of the wounded and burned
boy crying in pain on a hospital stretcher
inspired people around the globe to raise
money for his medical care and further outraged
those who opposed the U.S.-led war against
Saddam Hussein's regime.
After being fitted for prosthetic arms at
a London hospital, Ali said he hoped the people
responsible for his disfigurement and the
loss of his family would suffer some of his
pain.
"I hope that the pilot who hit our house would
be burned as I am burned and my family were
burned," he told Independent Television.
Bud Welch fought his rage and desire for retribution
when his daughter Julie was killed along with
167 other people in the 1995 Oklahoma City
bombing. Welch had opposed the death penalty
before his daughter was killed, but he reversed
his stance as he tried to cope with his loss
in the weeks following the bombing.
"People used to tell me, particularly when
Julie hit her teenage years, that 'Bud, you'd
change your mind [about the death penalty]
if your daughter was murdered,' " Welch said.
"After the bombing, I was so full of revenge
and retribution, I didn't even want a trial
for [Oklahoma City bombers] McVeigh and [Terry]
Nichols. I thought the federal government
and prosecutors were useless and I just wanted
them fried."
One day, about 10 months after Julie's death,
Welch went to the bomb site: which he routinely
visited because that was the last place where
his daughter was alive: and began to examine
himself and search for a way to get past his
grief. He found that he was being consumed
that the same rage and thirst of revenge that
had driven McVeigh and Nichols to blow up
the Murrah Federal Building and kill his daughter.
"I finally asked myself three questions: Do
I need to have a trial right away? Do I need
to have a conviction? Do I need to have McVeigh
and Nichols executed?" Welch said. "I came
to the conclusion that none of those things
needed to be part of the healing process I
had to go through to get past this and stop
the alcohol abuse and stop smoking three packs
of cigarettes a day.
That is what real world is like; you have
both sides of the coin. So was Abby just for
her thirst for revenge? Was Ellie just for
her thirst for revenge? Is it perceivable
that Ellie would change her mind at the end
of her journey? Personally, I think yes to
all three.
What is your though? Put it down in the description
below - we can have a civil conversation,
right?
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Stay safe.. Signing off.
