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Fun read, but it felt like the same message as the original, told a bit less tightly. Not that stories have to have a message — the prose by itself was great —

Fun read, but it felt like the same message as the original, told a bit less tightly. Not that stories have to have a message — the prose by itself was great — but for me this one feels like it was driving at something else but didn’t arrive anywhere. If others took something else away I’d love to hear.

mojoe 3y ago
I think in both this story and Le Guin's original the ambiguity is the point. The scenario is one that has no "solution", and pattern-seeking readers then imprint the story with their own worldview (a prime example is the "accelerationist" reply to your comment).
MSFT_Edging 3y ago
I said it in another comment but I think the point is to question where the third option is. What I mean is, take the trolley problem, do you pull the switch to kill the single man over the group? One might say "of course, the value of 3 lives is more than one", but another may ask "why are they on the track, who set this in motion?". And the latter framing is very important IMO. We'll often question the decisions of politicians of leaders but dutifully ignore the reasons why things ended up this way. For example, something that makes everyone mad is American intervention around the world and the subsequent blowback from those policies. When experiencing the blowback, often times the "what do we do?" conveniently ignores how our own actions set things in motion. We cannot stop, after all the trolley is already on its way, so we never think to stop the next trolley before this becomes a problem again. The terrorists simply hate our freedom, any other reason for their actions is unimportant. This story introduces the accelerationist who forces people to confront the "why" of the scenario and is so hated by everyone they are killed.
- jelkand 3y ago
  It feels that point is undermined when the accelerationists don’t succeed and only make a new equilibrium of killing the kid and replacing him. It feels to me more like a critique that change is impossible.
  - MSFT_Edging 3y ago
    While the effectiveness of the Accelerationist is questionable, it still introduces the third option of "doing something". I don't think the story is trying to say "change is impossible", but rather that your only options aren't "status quo" or "leave".
kibibu 3y ago
Is the original a critique of utilitarianism as an ethical framework?
- defrost 3y ago
  The "original" is Ursula K. Le Guin's spin on a passage from William James: Or if the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messrs. Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris's utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, what except a sceptical and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain? who spun that from a piece by Dostoyevsky who described the dilemma he posed as referring to the doctrine of salvation through the crucifixion of Jesus. Whether the short story by Le Guin, the extract from James, the dilemma as it appears in Brothers Karamazov, the sacrifice of Jesus on a cross, or any other variation told on the happiness of many at the cost of the suffering of one is a critique of anything as anything should be a matter of personal judgement.

mojoe 3y ago

I think in both this story and Le Guin's original the ambiguity is the point. The scenario is one that has no "solution", and pattern-seeking readers then imprint the story with their own worldview (a prime example is the "accelerationist" reply to your comment).

MSFT_Edging 3y ago

I said it in another comment but I think the point is to question where the third option is. What I mean is, take the trolley problem, do you pull the switch to kill the single man over the group? One might say "of course, the value of 3 lives is more than one", but another may ask "why are they on the track, who set this in motion?". And the latter framing is very important IMO. We'll often question the decisions of politicians of leaders but dutifully ignore the reasons why things ended up this way. For example, something that makes everyone mad is American intervention around the world and the subsequent blowback from those policies. When experiencing the blowback, often times the "what do we do?" conveniently ignores how our own actions set things in motion. We cannot stop, after all the trolley is already on its way, so we never think to stop the next trolley before this becomes a problem again. The terrorists simply hate our freedom, any other reason for their actions is unimportant. This story introduces the accelerationist who forces people to confront the "why" of the scenario and is so hated by everyone they are killed.

jelkand 3y ago
It feels that point is undermined when the accelerationists don’t succeed and only make a new equilibrium of killing the kid and replacing him. It feels to me more like a critique that change is impossible.
- MSFT_Edging 3y ago
  While the effectiveness of the Accelerationist is questionable, it still introduces the third option of "doing something". I don't think the story is trying to say "change is impossible", but rather that your only options aren't "status quo" or "leave".

kibibu 3y ago

Is the original a critique of utilitarianism as an ethical framework?

defrost 3y ago
The "original" is Ursula K. Le Guin's spin on a passage from William James: Or if the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messrs. Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris's utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, what except a sceptical and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain? who spun that from a piece by Dostoyevsky who described the dilemma he posed as referring to the doctrine of salvation through the crucifixion of Jesus. Whether the short story by Le Guin, the extract from James, the dilemma as it appears in Brothers Karamazov, the sacrifice of Jesus on a cross, or any other variation told on the happiness of many at the cost of the suffering of one is a critique of anything as anything should be a matter of personal judgement.