4 ms·

The problem here is reminiscent of the classic short story "The Cold Equations": A young woman is fooling around near a space ship and ends up accidentally stow

by msla 6y ago

The problem here is reminiscent of the classic short story "The Cold Equations": A young woman is fooling around near a space ship and ends up accidentally stowing away on a craft needed to move serum to a colony in the grips of disease. The mass on the ship is accounted for to the gram (the gramme, even!) so her excess mass means the ship no longer has the fuel to make it to the colony. The dashing space hero has to jettison the innocent young woman in order to save untold numbers of people. OK, what's blindly, blisteringly wrong here? First, the idea that a space ship small enough its fuel would be rationed out by the gram would have enough room in the crew compartment for someone to hide in is ludicrous. Second, launching without a checklist? Are you out of your tiny little mind? Third, allowing unknown people to bring unknown contaminants into a space ship? Having a "KEEP OUT" sign doesn't save the colonists from another plague, now, does it? The moral of the story is that it's hard to keep your mind on the supposed lesson when the flaws jump up and down and yell at you. Taking a different tack, by thinking too hard about the consequences of the thought experiment instead of the lead-up to it, there's the Jew in the attic. You know how it goes: A Jewish family is hidden in your attic or guest bedroom or someplace and the Nazis come knocking. Do you lie to save the Jews? "Of course", you say, and come up with a nice logical argument for why your ethical system demands you lie in this instance. All functional ethical systems can come up with such an argument with minimal fuss. However: The Nazis were not very nice, you know. If they thought a town was holding out on them, they'd initiate reprisals. They'd kill a whole town in a fit of fascist pique. Saving a half-dozen Jews could doom a few thousand innocents, likely including the original Jews. But that's out of scope for the thought experiment.

sukilot 6y ago
You reject science fiction for being too unrealistic in its imperfect space travel engineering, meanwhile NASA blew up two crewed Space Shuttles by launching shuttles that they knew had failed components.
- msla 6y ago
  The point is less that I find it unimaginable that space organizations have flaws, and more that those flaws spoil the supposed lesson by diffusing the responsibility: The story only works if the young woman is entirely responsible for her own death, by placing herself in a position where the laws of physics and morality dictate she has to die to save many others. If she died because the NASA-equivalent was run by buffoons, the moral lesson is lost and she becomes a murder victim as opposed to an inadvertent suicide.
  - mac01021 6y ago
    It doesn't change the dilemma ghost for the guy that has to eject her, though.
arkades 6y ago
> They'd kill a whole town in a fit of fascist pique. That's a new one to me. Any sources I can read up on that?
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  The story of Lidice doesn't precisely fit the scenario, but is close enough in spirit that I'd call it a match: The Lidice massacre was the complete destruction of the village of Lidice, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, now the Czech Republic, in June 1942 on orders from Adolf Hitler and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. In reprisal for the assassination of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich in the late spring of 1942, all 173 males from the village who were over 15 years of age were executed on 10 June 1942. A further 11 men from the village but who were not present at the time, were later arrested and executed soon afterwards, along with several others who were already under arrest.[2] The 184 women and 88 children were deported to concentration camps; a few children who were considered racially suitable and thus eligible for Germanisation were handed over to SS families and the rest were sent to the Chełmno extermination camp where they were gassed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice_massacre Memorialised in Bohuslav Martinu's "Memorial to Lidice". https://youtube.com/watch?v=DHWU27TD6UU https://youtube.com/watch?v=DHWU27TD6UU
- msla 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Anthropoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Anthropoid Anthropoid was the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. > More than 13,000 people were arrested, including Jan Kubiš' girlfriend Anna Malinová, who died in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. First Lieutenant Adolf Opálka's aunt Marie Opálková was executed in the Mauthausen camp on 24 October 1942; his father Viktor Jarolím was also killed.[52][53] According to one estimate, 5,000 people were murdered in the reprisals.[54] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre > In February 1944, the SS Division Das Reich was stationed in the Southern French town of Valence-d'Agen,[1] north of Toulouse, waiting to be resupplied with new equipment and fresh troops. Following the Allied Normandy landings in June 1944, the division was ordered north to help stop the Allied advance. One of its units was the 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment ("Der Führer"). Its staff included regimental commander SS-Standartenführer Sylvester Stadler, SS-Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann commanding the 1st Battalion and SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Weidinger, Stadler's designated successor who was with the regiment for familiarisation. Command passed to Weidinger on 14 June.[2] > Early on the morning of 10 June 1944, Diekmann informed Weidinger that he had been approached by two members of the Milice, a collaborator paramilitary force of the Vichy Regime. They claimed that a Waffen-SS officer was being held prisoner by the Resistance in Oradour-sur-Vayres, a nearby village. The captured officer was claimed to be SS-Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion (also part of the Das Reich division). He may have been captured by the Maquis du Limousin the day before. > On 10 June, Diekmann's battalion sealed off Oradour-sur-Glane and ordered everyone within to assemble in the village square to have their identity papers examined. This included six non-residents who happened to be bicycling through the village when the SS unit arrived. The women and children were locked in the church, and the village was looted. The men were led to six barns and sheds, where machine guns were already in place. [snip] > Several days later, the survivors were allowed to bury the 642 dead inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane who had been killed in just a few hours. Adolf Diekmann said the atrocity was in retaliation for the partisan activity in nearby Tulle and the kidnapping of an SS commander, Helmut Kämpfe.
efitz 6y ago
Here’s a remake of the “Cold Equations” story: https://youtu.be/-BL8GsHWtqc https://youtu.be/-BL8GsHWtqc
perl4ever 6y ago
That's a famous story I've heard of, not sure if I ever read it...but I feel like it could be compared and contrasted with "The Only Neat Thing To Do", kind of a different take on a young woman looking for adventure who ends up paying the ultimate price for the good of humanity. Edit: Haha, I clicked on a link to goodreads and the second comment compares it to "The Cold Equations".
mjevans 6y ago
Also out of the scope of the experiment... The rocket in question is already doomed due to the lack of any safety envelope at all. The mass included in the initial acceleration has already been accelerated, so even if they space someone it's not making it to the destination. Also; How would they eject someone into space without going off course or using more fuel?
wccrawford 6y ago
SpaceX just launched a shuttle into orbit that had a 1 second window for launch. They had zero extra fuel on board. It had 2 passengers and room for 2 more. It's not ridiculous at all to think that they'd fuel a supply ship with exactly the fuel it needed and not more, and that that supply ship might have some empty space in it, especially if it were very, very large.
- Majromax 6y ago
  > They had zero extra fuel on board. Nitpick: it had excess fuel on board. Even beyond any institutional safety margins, the first stage landed on the drone ship. That portion of the mission required the stage carry fuel in excess of the requirements for its primary mission.

by msla 6y ago

sukilot 6y ago

You reject science fiction for being too unrealistic in its imperfect space travel engineering, meanwhile NASA blew up two crewed Space Shuttles by launching shuttles that they knew had failed components.

msla 6y ago
The point is less that I find it unimaginable that space organizations have flaws, and more that those flaws spoil the supposed lesson by diffusing the responsibility: The story only works if the young woman is entirely responsible for her own death, by placing herself in a position where the laws of physics and morality dictate she has to die to save many others. If she died because the NASA-equivalent was run by buffoons, the moral lesson is lost and she becomes a murder victim as opposed to an inadvertent suicide.
- mac01021 6y ago
  It doesn't change the dilemma ghost for the guy that has to eject her, though.

arkades 6y ago

> They'd kill a whole town in a fit of fascist pique. That's a new one to me. Any sources I can read up on that?

dredmorbius 6y ago
The story of Lidice doesn't precisely fit the scenario, but is close enough in spirit that I'd call it a match: The Lidice massacre was the complete destruction of the village of Lidice, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, now the Czech Republic, in June 1942 on orders from Adolf Hitler and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. In reprisal for the assassination of Reich Protector Reinhard Heydrich in the late spring of 1942, all 173 males from the village who were over 15 years of age were executed on 10 June 1942. A further 11 men from the village but who were not present at the time, were later arrested and executed soon afterwards, along with several others who were already under arrest.[2] The 184 women and 88 children were deported to concentration camps; a few children who were considered racially suitable and thus eligible for Germanisation were handed over to SS families and the rest were sent to the Chełmno extermination camp where they were gassed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidice_massacre Memorialised in Bohuslav Martinu's "Memorial to Lidice". https://youtube.com/watch?v=DHWU27TD6UU https://youtube.com/watch?v=DHWU27TD6UU
msla 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Anthropoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Anthropoid Anthropoid was the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. > More than 13,000 people were arrested, including Jan Kubiš' girlfriend Anna Malinová, who died in the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. First Lieutenant Adolf Opálka's aunt Marie Opálková was executed in the Mauthausen camp on 24 October 1942; his father Viktor Jarolím was also killed.[52][53] According to one estimate, 5,000 people were murdered in the reprisals.[54] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre > In February 1944, the SS Division Das Reich was stationed in the Southern French town of Valence-d'Agen,[1] north of Toulouse, waiting to be resupplied with new equipment and fresh troops. Following the Allied Normandy landings in June 1944, the division was ordered north to help stop the Allied advance. One of its units was the 4th SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment ("Der Führer"). Its staff included regimental commander SS-Standartenführer Sylvester Stadler, SS-Sturmbannführer Adolf Diekmann commanding the 1st Battalion and SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Weidinger, Stadler's designated successor who was with the regiment for familiarisation. Command passed to Weidinger on 14 June.[2] > Early on the morning of 10 June 1944, Diekmann informed Weidinger that he had been approached by two members of the Milice, a collaborator paramilitary force of the Vichy Regime. They claimed that a Waffen-SS officer was being held prisoner by the Resistance in Oradour-sur-Vayres, a nearby village. The captured officer was claimed to be SS-Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion (also part of the Das Reich division). He may have been captured by the Maquis du Limousin the day before. > On 10 June, Diekmann's battalion sealed off Oradour-sur-Glane and ordered everyone within to assemble in the village square to have their identity papers examined. This included six non-residents who happened to be bicycling through the village when the SS unit arrived. The women and children were locked in the church, and the village was looted. The men were led to six barns and sheds, where machine guns were already in place. [snip] > Several days later, the survivors were allowed to bury the 642 dead inhabitants of Oradour-sur-Glane who had been killed in just a few hours. Adolf Diekmann said the atrocity was in retaliation for the partisan activity in nearby Tulle and the kidnapping of an SS commander, Helmut Kämpfe.

efitz 6y ago

Here’s a remake of the “Cold Equations” story: https://youtu.be/-BL8GsHWtqc https://youtu.be/-BL8GsHWtqc

perl4ever 6y ago

That's a famous story I've heard of, not sure if I ever read it...but I feel like it could be compared and contrasted with "The Only Neat Thing To Do", kind of a different take on a young woman looking for adventure who ends up paying the ultimate price for the good of humanity. Edit: Haha, I clicked on a link to goodreads and the second comment compares it to "The Cold Equations".

mjevans 6y ago

Also out of the scope of the experiment... The rocket in question is already doomed due to the lack of any safety envelope at all. The mass included in the initial acceleration has already been accelerated, so even if they space someone it's not making it to the destination. Also; How would they eject someone into space without going off course or using more fuel?

wccrawford 6y ago

SpaceX just launched a shuttle into orbit that had a 1 second window for launch. They had zero extra fuel on board. It had 2 passengers and room for 2 more. It's not ridiculous at all to think that they'd fuel a supply ship with exactly the fuel it needed and not more, and that that supply ship might have some empty space in it, especially if it were very, very large.

Majromax 6y ago
> They had zero extra fuel on board. Nitpick: it had excess fuel on board. Even beyond any institutional safety margins, the first stage landed on the drone ship. That portion of the mission required the stage carry fuel in excess of the requirements for its primary mission.