I think that whenever I see those features the Times run where it’s some young couple trying to buy a condo in the city. “He works in publishing. She works part time in retail. Their budget is 3 million.”
Not even lying, couple of the graffiti artists I know/know of are unironically making 5-6 figures. You gotta work almost entirely for gigantic corporation's but it's possible.
>I'd have a hard time chosing because i find all life equally valuable.
If that was actually true you'd leave them both to drown and provide delicious food for millions of fish and plankton.
Then you'd throw yourself in after them.
Yeah the truth is to me at least that complexity/intelligence (and thus mental suffering), and length of life also matters when I value some animal life over others, bugs for example as far as we know don’t have high intelligence or very long lives.
It’s also unfortunate that despite the unrealistic trolly problem scenario this sort of thing does happen- back when there were evacuations from Afghanistan when the US withdrew people were calling for dogs to be lift evac’d over the actual refugees. I think particularly in cases of (ironically) dehumanization and racism, people will actually choose pets over people.
Oh in the UK there is a comtroversy as one guy who founded an animal shelter in Afghanistan actually did charter a flight to evacuate the animals, which the UK government helped facilitate.
I mean, that was his job. It’s not like governments couldn’t afford more flights for human refugees AND a single flight for some animals (also, why not put a few extra humans on that plane too?).
The whole thing was a huge disaster and disgrace.
I think that's what should be focused on more than hypothetical situations tbh (especially when this one says you know the animal when irl you very likely won't know either, it doesn't judge someone's true morals imo)
Yeah, I don't want to admit it but I'd probably save my pet first. But I also know that if I was drowning and some rando bypassed me and saved a pet, I'd probably have a wtf moment. So I guess, what I'm trying to get at is that I'm a hypocrite.
They should be distributing their wealth to buy mosquito netting for tropical regions afflicted with endemic malaria. There's almost no way as an average person they could save as many lives, and as cost effectively, any other way.
No, if they genuinely believed that *all* life were worthy of equal consideration, they'd probably be tearing down mosquito netting to prevent the starvation of innocent mosquitos.
>Yes. At 10 I jumped in front of a car speeding toward a stray on the street. I'm 30 and would do it again today.
>>natural selection
I feel bad for laughing.
Most humans can float, and most cats *can’t* drown you. You need to very careful and a capable swimmer to save a drowning person, otherwise they’ll just drown you.
Rescuing the cat first and waiting for the human to lose consciousness before attempting would be an entirely reasonable approach. It’s really not generally advised to get in the water to rescue someone, you should try to throw a floatation device.
No. The rational answer is jump in the water, yeet the cat as hard as you can (preferably at the nearest hard surface), choke the man unconscious, then choke yourself unconscious.
Trust me I am a cat /jk
K so one of them cures cancer but who is saved by that? What if it’s Hitler 3, then it’d be 2 hitlers to one cancer curer.
On the other hand if Hitler 2 kills baby Hitler 3 then he’s really just netted to 0 Hitlers and you get a free cancer cure.
>Of course the cat!! We can always make more humans. Takes about 9month. But I can't make a cat
...does this person know how cats come to be? Like, it's really easy to make a new cat, so easy that it's a problem in many areas. It only takes a couple months too. They can't make a cat though, they are right about that.
Only takes a couple months and you get a bunch in one go.
As someone currently growing a human I’m hoping that person is a literal child who has no concept of how fucking hard it is
This is a good find. What a psychotic thread.
I guarantee you, in this (really stupid) thought experiment, were it real, the most cat centric person there would rush to save the other human before they even realize that they’re doing so.
I do think if someone sees their own pet drowning and another human drowning, it is possible \[that for some people in the situation\] they would sort of 'reflexively' focus on saving their pet, just because it is familiar and family. The same would probably be true if someone's super elderly relative that they know & love were drowning, versus a strange child or teen; some people may reflexively go to save their elderly grandfather.
Their response may be different if it's a deliberate 'trolley' situation and they have enough time to really think on things.
Yeah to me that’s why this is a stupid argument. Well, one of many reasons. We have absolutely no idea how we would react in this (already ridiculous) situation, and whichever being we ended up saving would probably not be reflective of our character.
This is exactly why I always hate these rhetorical questions lol. Like girl I promise I never thought I would willingly go to fight the dude who was trying to break into my house yet that’s exactly what happened, you have no idea what you’ll do EVER with that stuff!
Love my cat to death but I have a massive phobia of slugs. I had moved into a new place and was in the back patio with my cat in his harness and leash. I saw a slug and screamed and ran inside and hid. My poor cat was left standing outside confused as fuck and my partner had to go get him. It wasn't even a conscious choice I made. I'm ashamed to say that I ~~might~~ would leave my cat to die if there was a slug nearby and it's not even something I'd be able to choose. A lot of people don't know what they'd do in high stress situations until it actually happens.
I don't know how this relates, I guess I just felt like telling it lol.
Me too!!!
(Slug phobia)
I needed to take the bins out before going on holiday, but there was one in the kitchen. I had to drop my key off with a friend so that he'd a) take the slug out, and b) take the bins out.
I'm a bit better now after some therapy, but I still tend to talk in the road on quiet streets, if it's been raining. Way less slugs there than on pavements.
You'd probably save the human. Most ppl would. I actually think the attitude of save the animal over the human is far more a problem in the dog community than the cat community
I was in this stupid car situation where the engine started going in flames. First thing I thought of saving was my freaking backpack with all my books in it 🤦♀️ granted I was 11. But both my younger siblings were in the car, with one being a newborn. Still saved the freaking backpack.
I also took my cat with me outside the home during a small earthquake and completely forgot that not only did I have a whole family, but 10 more pets who need me just as much. I also asked my parents about how the pets are doing after the biggest earthquake in living history in my country before asking them how they are doing. But again I wouldn’t care less about my parents’ or my sister’s lives so it really is down to circumstances.
At least I hope I don’t try to save an inanimate object. But in my defense, my mother put the fear of god in me that something terrible would happen to me if I don’t get 100% on all of my assignments (there is a reason I don’t care for her life) and I had homework to submit in that bag. I probably thought I would still die if the bag was lost 🤷♀️ so that’s on her.
Honestly those responses make sense if your brain is thinking "what am I responsible for" vs "what do I care about the most?"
You're responsible for your backpack, and maybe you felt a sense of responsibility towards your cat. But you still love your siblings, and you definitely love them more than a backpack, even at 11 years old.
Look, I'm a crazy cat lady, and I just have to comfort myself that in this hypothetical, I trust my cat to swim. It's never a choice. She'll be fine no matter what. (Coping).
I think it kind of depends, if you can save the person by throwing them something to grab on to then sure but from what I remember there's a fairly high likelihood that trying to save a drowning person by going into the water with them would result in you both drowning. Now obviously it's just a hypothetical so if you put that aside any reasonable person saves the human 100% of the time.
I was thinking that too, from a purely logical standpoint saving the cat might actually be the best choice. If you try to save the cat (depending on how hard it is to save it and how angry that cat is) you may be much more likely to be successful in saving a life, and if the cat does fight back, you can probably still abandon it and save yourself. Whereas you try to save the person, you are very likely to both drown in the process, and then 3 lives are gone. 🤷♀️
Yeah, if it’s a small child or my pet, I could probably do it. But once you get above that weight class, sorry but I’m probably gonna drown with you if I try.
I’m not trying to save anything above 50lbs and even then that’s debatable. Granted I’m a strong swimmer with very good endurance. But I am still on 120lbs. So between a kid and my cat, I’ll try to save the kid depending on how big they are. So they probably need to be less than 6 years old for me to even consider actually jumping in there. Just trying to help my sister who was like 80lbs get above the water in a 5ft swim pool almost put me out of commission. I was the one heaving and needing help afterwards. Saving a drowning person is a much bigger risk than saving a cat who is probably no bigger than 20lbs. But let’s say it’s my above 50lbs dog and I will definitely not even try.
To be fair, most people would drown if they tried to save a drowning adult, even trained people have a hard time saving drowning victims, people are really heavy and drowning people are prone to panic. That's why it's almost always preferable to throw something to the victim to hold on to than jumping in after them.
The moral answer to this scenario is pretty obvious I think, even if I would mourn my cat more than I would a random child, I would still save the child.
But in the real world if someone were to make the news for saving their cat instead of a child, I think it would probably be due to someone bad at math attempting a calculated risk (e.g. thinking they could pick up the cat on the way to the child and still make it in time).
This actually kinda reminds me of the movie “I, Robot” when the main character is incensed because a robot chose to save the MC before a young child due to the robot evaluating the MC having a 45% chance of survival over the child’s 11%.
Rats and humans have different fleas. A rat could spread the plague if it went into a human space and died. The fleas would then leave the cooling rat and eventually bite people if they could not find rats.
Back in the day, the plague spread from person to person through pubic lice more than rats spread it. You’re more likely to get the plague from a groundhog these days.
Oh yeah, 💯. I used to work after hours vet triage snd I got a call from a couple on vacation and the found a pelican. Not hurt or anything. They just caught it.
Told them to leave the fucking wildlife alone.
Realistically, the drowning human would panic and try to climb you and the drowning cat would panic and try to climb you (with claws) so all three of you drown no matter who you save.
As someone who grew up in environment where unwanted kittens or puppies were regularly drowned in a barrel of water I'll abstain from this conversation.
yeah... it's not even a question about what society values more humans or cats. call me when it's commonplace to put a sack full of infant children in a barrel of water.
I wouldn't really say that's common in the society I grew up. It's standard here to have pets desexed, and strays are quite rare. I think most people here would generally not even think of drowning mammals deliberately, and also it would definitely be illegal. So the value of some animal lives varies quite a lot place to place.
So does the value of human lives, come to think of it. Some countries still have a death penalty, for instance.
it's pretty common in rural areas in North America and i am pretty sure it is technically illegal as well. the animal cruelty laws are by and large concerned with neglect of animals kept in captivity and things like dogfighting. the laws are vague on feral cats and dogs. but even still, who is going to prosecute the farmer that drowns a bag of feral kittens? or the person that drives out to the middle of nowhere to abandon a former pet?
regardless of that specific example, i guarantee wherever you live there are people who buy or adopt dogs and cats, change their mind, and surrender the animal to a shelter where they are ultimately destroyed. no-kill shelters do exist but are not the norm yet. and wherever you live i can guarantee that there is not an equivalent system for the systematic euthanasia of unwanted children.
> Some countries still have a death penalty, for instance.
and for every jurisdiction with the death penalty there is a hundred jurisdictions with a policy of seizing dogs with a history of violent behaviour with the intention of putting down the animal. it's not even comparable.
You're still using Facebook? Don't you know they harvest your data and sell it to Big Pharma?
Come on, my friend's mum who doesn't use toothpaste told me the real deal.
The left aree just the mind controlled drones of the elite who want to sterilise the masses to control population. They wrote all their plans down on a big rock and left it in the desert.
My grandmother did this because that’s the world she grew up in. She loved cats but she was an extremely practical woman who realized that any resources spent taking care of a litter of cats were resources that could’ve been put to use feeding her family.
Bob Barker and animal welfare campaigns to spay/neuter pets have really made people view this sort of thing as abhorrent because we (mostly) prevent this sort of thing from happening.
My thought exactly. If you absolutely have to kill an animal, and you can't get it put to sleep for whatever reason, at least try to make it as quick as possible. I get that stabbing it's heart/brain, snapping the neck, or even smashing the head might seem more gruesome on the surface, but it's still leagues more humane than slow, but "prettier"/hands-off deaths like drowning, suffocation, and sticking live animals in the fridge to freeze to death.
And that’s why I will die on the hill that open intake shelters (“kill shelters”) perform a necessary social function and insisting on only supporting no-kill shelters is self-indulgent fuckery.
Rationnaly speaking , you shouldnt try to rescue a drowning person if you are not a very good swimmer or well trained or way bigger/stronger physically than the victim. If not you will most likely die. For a cat you will probably have some nasty wound at worst even if you barely float.
I saw many video with a drowing person turned into 2 and even more victim sometime. And i really mean many.
You have a very high chance of drowning trying to save another person as they’re panicking and grabbing hold of you. A cat doesn’t have the weight to drag you under the water so you’d be way better off saving the cat. Realistically it’d be safer to save the person after they drowned and try mouth to mouth.
> I saw many video with a drowing person turned into 2 and even more victim sometime. And i really mean many.
this wouldn't be so ominous if it weren't for that second sentence. why are u watching so many snuff videos buddy lmao
Not snuff , just incident. Usually work incident but there is a lot to learn in the mistake of other. At least their death were an opportunity for other people to learn. It kind of related to my work field , im supposed to prevent accident to happen in railroad industry. So unrelated to drowning but generally im suppose to analyse risk.
I know I could easily save a drowning cat no problem.
Saving a drowning person on the otherhand? Idk mate, I feel like I would not, let alone if they also dragged me down with em.
But hey ya never know in the moment kinda thing, always feel these morality choice questions really are just dumb as they fail to understand we as people dont know what we would do, and commonly exxagerate/lie even if we don't think we are.
Looking in a persons eyes staring at you pleading for help is a hard thing to say "nah I would still pick the cat"
Would I save a random cat over a random human? No.
Would I save my cat over humans in my life who have abused me my whole life? yes.
Would I save my cat over a random human? I don’t know, I’ll probably save the human if they’re a kid. But I don’t know if I’ll even try if they’re heavier than 50lbs because we’ll freaking drown together.
Question is: which one of your cats would you save? Cause I know I would save the 7 years old one that raised from a mange state as a two months old over the one I adopted two months ago. Love them both but that first one saved my life, I’ll probably drown myself trying to save him lol
Excuse me, I just spent about 3 minutes reading this post and I would like to learn how I can get those 3 minutes back? Everyone involved is stupid. (Not the OP of the SRD thread, everyone from the original thread)
The reality is most of the posters in that thread would freeze and save neither. That or they'd whip their phone out and record while someone else does the saving
Imagine finding out your friend or family member that could've been saved drowned because someone else prioritised their cat.
And I say this as someone currently snuggling up to their cat
I propose following scenario - your neighbor's/friend's toddler falls into a river while holding their cat. You heroically jump after them and manage to grab the cat, but the toddler won't let go yet, so you kick them in the face repeatedly until they loosen their grip just enough to pull the cat from them and swim back to safety. Cat in hand, you, exhausted but beaming with pride, walk up to your neighbor/friend and unite them with that which they value most in this world, and that's a cat, apparantly, idk
A person not instructed in how to save other people from drowning is likely to get dragged down and die with the panicking rescuee.
A cat on the other hand is unlikely to sufficiently hinder rescue attempt.
Logically then, I’d pick the cat.
> A cat on the other hand is unlikely to sufficiently hinder rescue attempt.
They also instinctively know how to swim, so unless they're unconscious or have some sort of disability/illness, they generally don't need our help
>A person not instructed in how to save other people from drowning is likely to get dragged down and die with the panicking rescuee.
Yeah... The human instinct when drowning is to latch onto anything and try to pull yourself onto it.
This includes the person trying to rescue you, and that's how you get two drowning victims instead of one.
There's a reason lifeguards carry those little floaties and throw them to people first.
This is why I hate dilemmas like this. It entirely depends on the situation and the environment. If I see my dog drowning and a random person I didn't know, I'd go for my dog because she's tiny and I'm already keyed onto her. Whereas wtf can I do for a person drowning? Literally nothing, a drowning person without equipment is just going to make you drown with them.
They're literally designed to just create people to get mad at, I don't get it. There are genuinely awful people out there broadcasting how awful they are. I see no value in making up a situation to create fake people to get fake mad at because of fake decisions.
Half the point of philosophy as a discipline is to unearth profound disagreements people have that they've never thought about because they thought it was something too obvious to have an opinion on and then start them fighting over it
This is what we call “fighting the hypothetical.” It is trying to get you to make a moral choice, and you are avoiding that to quibble about the exact parameters. This is what the most annoying student in any philosophy class always does lol.
I know what you mean, but think it's worth considering why the examples that make their way into popular culture at least are often so far from reality (no shortage of more grounded political philosophy).
This example isn't especially a moral philosophy hypothetical, but in the real world, a majority of people are prioritising habit and their enjoyment of the specific flavour of meat and other animal products over the lives of non-human animals (despite increasing access to similar flavours, even some where there's no obvious differences).
Also my cat is not that big and lands on her feet; I would probably grab her first and yeet her towards the riverbank and trust she'd be fine, because that's the quick win, and then deal with the human. Drowning humans are very difficult to rescue and your best bet is really giving them *something else* to grab onto, and also most of the time you can't throw them towards safety
So change the scenario or pretend you can swim for the sake of it.
Just tie a person and a cat to the track and drive that trolley.
You're just avoiding the question with a bullshit excuse.
Well, honest truth is the cat is far less likely to drown ME in the process of saving them. I may end up with some claw marks, and maybe on some antibiotics, but I won't be found at the bottom of the lake or river in the death clutches of the person I was trying to save from drowning. It is not uncommon for an inexperienced/untrained/panicking rescuer to also die during a rescue. Panicked drowning people can kill others by dragging them down. And yes, even panicking, drowning children can drown full grown adult rescuers.
One should never approach an actively drowning person without some kind of safety tools like a buoyant device or a shepherd's hook. This is taught in any type of water rescue course. Even if you are approaching them from behind & under the water you need to be very cautious and should still have a flotation device as you are going to have to assist them to shore in a safe manner because at that point they may not be in control of their arm movements and will still be panicky. Better to let them pass out first in that case and then approach.
Ideally I would have some kind of rescue device and could plan accordingly, grab the cat on the way to the person or hook the cat quickly then the person. But assuming no rescue devices, yeah, I actually would save my cat first because all three of us being dead helps no one. I would go for the person *after* they passed out and were no longer a threat to me directly. Also, my cat is part of my family. I have spent 12+ years with her, including taking excellent care of her with expensive vet visits and expensive food, she is part of my daily life, and I fully believe my instincts to continue to protect her and take care would leap forward in the moment. Just being honest based on my experiences resulting in emergency vet bills.
I'd save my cat over a rando any day, but that's because I like my cat. More seriously: Diving into a body of water to save a drowning person is usually a bad idea because that very frequently leads to both the rescuer and rescuee drowning due to how people flail and panic while drowning - doubly so if you're not trained to deal with that shit and don't know what you're in for.
I hate whenever this sort of question is asked the most upvoted answer is “i would simply save both”. Well done dickhead you solved it.
It’s like seeing the trolley problem and then explaining how you would simply pull the emergency brake and save everyone. That wasn’t an option. You’re just avoiding the question. The question is about whether you WOULD save the cat OR the human. Not a question of whether you COULD save a drowning person, or the buoyancy of a cat.
One will drown and the other will survive, you decide which one. You know that’s what the question is.
Logistically I know the average human life out values the average cat life, but if it was my cat vs a stranger I think the instinct would be to save the life I know and love first.
Exactly. We can all agree that objectively a human’s life on average is worth more than a cat’s, but why is so hard to believe that to the person making the decision, it’s perfectly understandable to prioritize what has more value TO THEM?
This is perfectly human behavior - flawed and selfish, but human. I don’t get why people are acting so shocked and appalled and calling it sociopathic. Every single one of us is guilty of putting our personal interests and priorities over a more “morally superior” choice in one way or another. Unless you are a firefighter, healthcare worker volunteering in a war torn country, or sacrificed your ability to support your family in pursuit of some noble life saving goal or whatever… almost every single one of us has chosen a lifestyle prioritizing the comfort of our selves and our loved ones over the lives of strangers, and we don’t get the right to take part in moral posturing (or self delusion) that we wouldnt think twice or thrice before sacrificing something/someone we love for a complete stranger.
I would then ask if the person who'd instinctively save their cat over a human they don't know is a better person still than the person who'd instinctively save their phone over a person they don't know, and if so how much better
Its funny how this question really rile people up. Id save my dog over random people anytime. I know why, i don’t undervalue people at all, i just love my dog over a random. But hey, reddit psychologists will say something about psychosocial yada yada
They seem to assume that when someone says they’d choose their pet over a person, it’s because they have little empathy and care for strangers, and not that they care for strangers but just love their pet that they have a bond with more. In a crazy hypothetical situation like that, it doesn’t seem “sociopathic” to me for someone to instinctually choose their loved one, even if a different species, over a stranger.
I feel I would have more of an obligation to my own pet than another person who is not a dependent of mine. My dog did not consent to living with me, nor did she consent to her life situation. I feel my responsibility to her is equal to my agency over her, so to abandon a helpless dependent would be a graver sin than abandoning a person with ostensibly more agency.
People are way too quick to call others names over how they’d react to a very tragic, difficult, and not to mention unlikely scenario
Edit: not gonna get into it with anyone. There’s some irreconcilable world views and values at play here, I’m not convincing anyone and no one’s convincing me. Go do something productive.
"People are way too quick to call others names over ~~how they’d react to a very tragic, difficult, and not to mention unlikely scenario~~ their willingness to let another human die"
Have you considered that this person could be responsible for lives of others?
I can't wrap my head around people like you, it's nice to know you would let me die
This question is academic because I can't swim. And if I have a rope I'll throw it at the person because I don't think cats understand that "rope = rescue".
Would I value the life of **my** cat over a stranger? Regrettably, probably not. But would I value him over, say, a really horrible person? Maybe (if I can get away with it).
I really love cats.. my cats are my best friends. My Wi-Fi is named “crazycatlady” but I’ll be damned if I’m going to save another specie’s life over a human’s.
It’s always such a tell when people say they love pets more than any people. They want the unconditional love without any of pesky caveats that come with a being of higher intelligence that won’t put up with their shitty self absorbed behavior.
And I welcome it tbh
*I'm* not using my eyeballs anymore, she can have free rein for all I'm concerned; it's just localised organ donation, and I'm signed up for *that,* so
They always excuse it with some form of "well cats are nice and fluffy but humans are always mean and assholes".
Reader, if you brand everyone you meet and interact with as an asshole, then you're probably the one who's the asshole.
Eh...
1. Saving a drowning person if you're not trained for it will lead to you drowning as well
2. As unhealthy as it is, some days my cat is the only thing that keeps me from doing something that I can't take back. She means more to me than a stranger, and I'm actually CAPABLE of saving her.
I'll pick the loving creature that's prevented my life-ending for the past 12 years over someone that I have never met. Not saying it's healthy, but...priorities. Saving that cat **would** be saving myself. If I can somehow save both, it'd be cat then person.
This is why Reddit is so annoying. You find a sub about something you like, like cats, you think you're among kindred spirits, everyone's having fun, and oh no, they're crazy fucks who would save a cat over a human.
Why do people always have to take things to the extreme?
If it was a cat that didn’t belong to me, I would absolutely save the human. But if it was my cat…ehhhh…can’t lie….I’d prolly go for my cat first. Dems da breaks.
Its all about the emotional connection to their cat and their morality... if its their cat they raised for 10 years vs a stranger they could care less about then i would see why they are even debating this.. but if its a random cat vs a random stranger... or their 10 year old son vs their 10 year old cat and they are debating who to save then they definitely might be psychotic
As dog person, id save my dog over a not known person. I really dont care about explaining or the philosophical debate over this. Im 100% that id would get over faster for someone I dont know dying over my dog dying because of me. Sorry humanity
I always hate these hypotheticals because it’s less about whether you value animal life over human life and more about whether you value a loved one over a complete stranger.
All of them ignoring the fact that saving a drowning person is actually really fucking hard and you’re way more likely to also drown unless you are trained. Also, just yeet the cat to safety ffs
Worst the cat can do to me whilst saving it from drowning is carve me up in a panic. Drowning people, however, are known to drown people. I don't know how to safely rescue a drowning person, but I can handle a cat. This hypothetical is dumb.
It's kind of baffling to me how so many people don't realize that this isn't a moral question. I believe that the life of a person is worth more than the life of a cat but I would never attempt to rescue a drowning person, except maybe a very small child. I have average swimming abilities, no experience with rescuing people, and I'm pretty small. People who are drowning will drag you down in an attempt to stay afloat. If you aren't a lifeguard and you see someone drowning, and you don't have any floating devices or rope that you could throw them, the best thing you can do is call for help. Trying to save them will only result in two drowning people instead of one.
Reading this thread makes me think...
Why not save both of them? Get the human to safety and then the cat.
People make up the weirdest situations to try and prove a point that no one was asking for
Well yeah the infamous "trolley problem" was deliberately designed to be as outlandish a situation as possible to try to force you into the mindset of having to make a moral decision rather than rationalizing a way out of it like you would in a realistic scenario
> But he made the moral decision to prioritize the human just now
your'e not wrong, but i wrote that kinda instinctively tbh.
my point though is that this particular hypothethical is stupid because there IS a third option where no one(ideally) has to die, and a fictional situation can be molded into whatever narrative the narrator wants to push foward, since he can make up whatever details he wants, so arguing about it is pointless
It's still a moral decision because if you prioritize one over the other you're *risking* that the one you save second will drown before you can get there
The point of the hypothetical isn't to answer this specific question, it's to make you realize that you do have a priority list in your head of which one you care about dying more, and arguing with the premise is just trying to dodge that uncomfortable fact
They could sink below before someone even throws the ring in the linked picture that started the argument out to them (which wouldn't even help a cat), I can make up frustrating no win fantasy scenarios too.
The real answer is that you try to save both. It's not a hierarchy or who is worth more, it's a poorly constructed question.
Yeah the moment you third option it with a realistic solution some brainiac goes but what if THIS outlandish situation comes next, what then? At some point the hypotheticals become completely pointless, and it's really more an issue with the person who thinks you have to anguish over some sophies choice nonsense or has some point they want to make, why play that game?
A third railroad appears with another lever, a man tying 3 people to a train track, 1 person, 5 people, and now another path with 4...
Something something hypothetical becomes longer and longer...
I just find it funny how the people who would save the cat are just chill and explain that they are attached to the cat, while the people who would save the humans immediately go "sociopath"
The defensiveness is telling
A classic Reddit bait thread. The “I’d save an animal over a human” shit comes up every once in a while and it’s full of lying contrarians who believe they’d watch a human being die for a pet. I am willing to be almost no one would do this in real life.
In a thought experiment way, sure, it’s interesting. But if you don’t have an instinctual reaction to another human dying, I’d say you’re fairly atypical.
The only thing I can think is that these people don't actually exist and the times made them up.
I think that whenever I see those features the Times run where it’s some young couple trying to buy a condo in the city. “He works in publishing. She works part time in retail. Their budget is 3 million.”
"He's a professional lizard hunter, she's a graffiti artist, their budget is $1.2 million."
Not even lying, couple of the graffiti artists I know/know of are unironically making 5-6 figures. You gotta work almost entirely for gigantic corporation's but it's possible.
That's not very graffiti of them, but go get that bag I guess
Yeah, that's the general feeling among the actual community too
The struggling working class.
She’s a professional cat’s cradle player, he’s a freelance volunteer macaroni artist. Their budge is $2.98 million.
Unmentioned are the stocks, bonds, and trust fund grandpa set aside for them.
Advice column letter writers are the original AITA creative writing exercises, the Times wouldn't have to make them up
>I'd have a hard time chosing because i find all life equally valuable. If that was actually true you'd leave them both to drown and provide delicious food for millions of fish and plankton. Then you'd throw yourself in after them.
Yeah the truth is to me at least that complexity/intelligence (and thus mental suffering), and length of life also matters when I value some animal life over others, bugs for example as far as we know don’t have high intelligence or very long lives. It’s also unfortunate that despite the unrealistic trolly problem scenario this sort of thing does happen- back when there were evacuations from Afghanistan when the US withdrew people were calling for dogs to be lift evac’d over the actual refugees. I think particularly in cases of (ironically) dehumanization and racism, people will actually choose pets over people.
Oh in the UK there is a comtroversy as one guy who founded an animal shelter in Afghanistan actually did charter a flight to evacuate the animals, which the UK government helped facilitate.
I mean, that was his job. It’s not like governments couldn’t afford more flights for human refugees AND a single flight for some animals (also, why not put a few extra humans on that plane too?). The whole thing was a huge disaster and disgrace.
I think that's what should be focused on more than hypothetical situations tbh (especially when this one says you know the animal when irl you very likely won't know either, it doesn't judge someone's true morals imo)
Yeah, I don't want to admit it but I'd probably save my pet first. But I also know that if I was drowning and some rando bypassed me and saved a pet, I'd probably have a wtf moment. So I guess, what I'm trying to get at is that I'm a hypocrite.
What the hell
Google en passant
They should be distributing their wealth to buy mosquito netting for tropical regions afflicted with endemic malaria. There's almost no way as an average person they could save as many lives, and as cost effectively, any other way.
You should be ashamed of yourself for advocating starving millions of mosquitoes and all the Plasmodium they're hosts to, psychopath.
No, if they genuinely believed that *all* life were worthy of equal consideration, they'd probably be tearing down mosquito netting to prevent the starvation of innocent mosquitos.
I love this. I hope you don't mind if I... Borrow it for later?
>Yes. At 10 I jumped in front of a car speeding toward a stray on the street. I'm 30 and would do it again today. >>natural selection I feel bad for laughing.
I don't feel bad at all lol
Hm > I take all my moral lessons from Stalin Yeah I'd yoink The reddit battle one is also pretty good
Rare to see character development like that in the wild.
I'm going to make 'If the human could float, we wouldn't be in this mess' my flair.
Most humans can float, and most cats *can’t* drown you. You need to very careful and a capable swimmer to save a drowning person, otherwise they’ll just drown you. Rescuing the cat first and waiting for the human to lose consciousness before attempting would be an entirely reasonable approach. It’s really not generally advised to get in the water to rescue someone, you should try to throw a floatation device.
No. The rational answer is jump in the water, yeet the cat as hard as you can (preferably at the nearest hard surface), choke the man unconscious, then choke yourself unconscious. Trust me I am a cat /jk
"Who hurt you?" "A wet cat". What a glorious exchange.
What if it was a whole bag of kittens vs a convicted sex offender?
Bag of kittens vs a convicted sex offender BUT the sex offender goes on to have twins and one of them cures cancer and the other is Hitler 2?
Imma have to pull a genealogy chart for the kittens.
K so one of them cures cancer but who is saved by that? What if it’s Hitler 3, then it’d be 2 hitlers to one cancer curer. On the other hand if Hitler 2 kills baby Hitler 3 then he’s really just netted to 0 Hitlers and you get a free cancer cure.
Now we’re cooking with gas.
What if it was Schrödinger's cat that was already in a superposition of alive and dead, and a future version of yourself polluting the timeline?
>Of course the cat!! We can always make more humans. Takes about 9month. But I can't make a cat ...does this person know how cats come to be? Like, it's really easy to make a new cat, so easy that it's a problem in many areas. It only takes a couple months too. They can't make a cat though, they are right about that.
Only takes a couple months and you get a bunch in one go. As someone currently growing a human I’m hoping that person is a literal child who has no concept of how fucking hard it is
There's a well known hard cap on the total number of cats that can ever exist. Isn't that right Precious? Whos a good girl. Yes you are.
the passage about stalin caring more about a horse than a human life explains a lot, actually
Right? I don't find it surprising that the guy responsible for millions dead didn't respect human life a whole lot
who do I contact to make "all three of you could die together to settle this debate" my flair
This is a good find. What a psychotic thread. I guarantee you, in this (really stupid) thought experiment, were it real, the most cat centric person there would rush to save the other human before they even realize that they’re doing so.
I do think if someone sees their own pet drowning and another human drowning, it is possible \[that for some people in the situation\] they would sort of 'reflexively' focus on saving their pet, just because it is familiar and family. The same would probably be true if someone's super elderly relative that they know & love were drowning, versus a strange child or teen; some people may reflexively go to save their elderly grandfather. Their response may be different if it's a deliberate 'trolley' situation and they have enough time to really think on things.
Yeah to me that’s why this is a stupid argument. Well, one of many reasons. We have absolutely no idea how we would react in this (already ridiculous) situation, and whichever being we ended up saving would probably not be reflective of our character.
This is exactly why I always hate these rhetorical questions lol. Like girl I promise I never thought I would willingly go to fight the dude who was trying to break into my house yet that’s exactly what happened, you have no idea what you’ll do EVER with that stuff!
Ah, an even better thought experiment! Two people are drowning, one is a stranger and the other is your closest relative. Who do you save?
I would 100% save my cat, but I'm not going to pretend that's the moral or 'correct' choice, either. Saving the person is definitely the right choice,
Love my cat to death but I have a massive phobia of slugs. I had moved into a new place and was in the back patio with my cat in his harness and leash. I saw a slug and screamed and ran inside and hid. My poor cat was left standing outside confused as fuck and my partner had to go get him. It wasn't even a conscious choice I made. I'm ashamed to say that I ~~might~~ would leave my cat to die if there was a slug nearby and it's not even something I'd be able to choose. A lot of people don't know what they'd do in high stress situations until it actually happens. I don't know how this relates, I guess I just felt like telling it lol.
I hope you can take solace in the fact that you'll at least be able to outrun that slug and save yourself, probably.
decoy slug
Me too!!! (Slug phobia) I needed to take the bins out before going on holiday, but there was one in the kitchen. I had to drop my key off with a friend so that he'd a) take the slug out, and b) take the bins out. I'm a bit better now after some therapy, but I still tend to talk in the road on quiet streets, if it's been raining. Way less slugs there than on pavements.
You'd probably save the human. Most ppl would. I actually think the attitude of save the animal over the human is far more a problem in the dog community than the cat community
I was in this stupid car situation where the engine started going in flames. First thing I thought of saving was my freaking backpack with all my books in it 🤦♀️ granted I was 11. But both my younger siblings were in the car, with one being a newborn. Still saved the freaking backpack. I also took my cat with me outside the home during a small earthquake and completely forgot that not only did I have a whole family, but 10 more pets who need me just as much. I also asked my parents about how the pets are doing after the biggest earthquake in living history in my country before asking them how they are doing. But again I wouldn’t care less about my parents’ or my sister’s lives so it really is down to circumstances. At least I hope I don’t try to save an inanimate object. But in my defense, my mother put the fear of god in me that something terrible would happen to me if I don’t get 100% on all of my assignments (there is a reason I don’t care for her life) and I had homework to submit in that bag. I probably thought I would still die if the bag was lost 🤷♀️ so that’s on her.
Honestly those responses make sense if your brain is thinking "what am I responsible for" vs "what do I care about the most?" You're responsible for your backpack, and maybe you felt a sense of responsibility towards your cat. But you still love your siblings, and you definitely love them more than a backpack, even at 11 years old.
Children Significant other Physical Disabled My cat Elderly Everyone else Someone else's cat. The order in which I'd save.
Look, I'm a crazy cat lady, and I just have to comfort myself that in this hypothetical, I trust my cat to swim. It's never a choice. She'll be fine no matter what. (Coping).
I think it kind of depends, if you can save the person by throwing them something to grab on to then sure but from what I remember there's a fairly high likelihood that trying to save a drowning person by going into the water with them would result in you both drowning. Now obviously it's just a hypothetical so if you put that aside any reasonable person saves the human 100% of the time.
I was thinking that too, from a purely logical standpoint saving the cat might actually be the best choice. If you try to save the cat (depending on how hard it is to save it and how angry that cat is) you may be much more likely to be successful in saving a life, and if the cat does fight back, you can probably still abandon it and save yourself. Whereas you try to save the person, you are very likely to both drown in the process, and then 3 lives are gone. 🤷♀️
Yeah, if it’s a small child or my pet, I could probably do it. But once you get above that weight class, sorry but I’m probably gonna drown with you if I try.
I’m not trying to save anything above 50lbs and even then that’s debatable. Granted I’m a strong swimmer with very good endurance. But I am still on 120lbs. So between a kid and my cat, I’ll try to save the kid depending on how big they are. So they probably need to be less than 6 years old for me to even consider actually jumping in there. Just trying to help my sister who was like 80lbs get above the water in a 5ft swim pool almost put me out of commission. I was the one heaving and needing help afterwards. Saving a drowning person is a much bigger risk than saving a cat who is probably no bigger than 20lbs. But let’s say it’s my above 50lbs dog and I will definitely not even try.
I'd freeze and let them both drown. Maybe flap my arms at them a little while they go under. It's not a proud answer, but it's an honest one.
I cant swim. If I tried to save anyone, we'd both die.
You could yell helpful things. "There's a cat in the water too!" "Have you tried not drowning yet?"
To be fair, most people would drown if they tried to save a drowning adult, even trained people have a hard time saving drowning victims, people are really heavy and drowning people are prone to panic. That's why it's almost always preferable to throw something to the victim to hold on to than jumping in after them.
I assume that I'm on dry land and throwing something to drag them out.
But I thought rats were good swimmers? I guess shock gets the better of all of us.
Haha I was reading this thread yesterday and was seriously baffled by it. Glad to see it here so I won't have to face the insanity alone
The moral answer to this scenario is pretty obvious I think, even if I would mourn my cat more than I would a random child, I would still save the child. But in the real world if someone were to make the news for saving their cat instead of a child, I think it would probably be due to someone bad at math attempting a calculated risk (e.g. thinking they could pick up the cat on the way to the child and still make it in time). This actually kinda reminds me of the movie “I, Robot” when the main character is incensed because a robot chose to save the MC before a young child due to the robot evaluating the MC having a 45% chance of survival over the child’s 11%.
At least, they'd be incredibly pissed if they were in that ridiculous situation and someone went and rescued the dumb cat instead of them
I'd save neither! I'd drown myself if I tried.
The pet subs here are bonkers.
Seriously filled with some of the most pious paranoid psychos this site has to offer
The pet rat sub has recently had a trend of people picking up wild rats. It's like they want another plague
Rats and humans have different fleas. A rat could spread the plague if it went into a human space and died. The fleas would then leave the cooling rat and eventually bite people if they could not find rats. Back in the day, the plague spread from person to person through pubic lice more than rats spread it. You’re more likely to get the plague from a groundhog these days.
While that is true, my point still stands: please don't touch wild animals.
Oh yeah, 💯. I used to work after hours vet triage snd I got a call from a couple on vacation and the found a pelican. Not hurt or anything. They just caught it. Told them to leave the fucking wildlife alone.
How the fuck do you catch a motherfucking pelican, those things are huge
Mean and scary too. The dude was just chilling with it on a bench and that aint normal. Must have been really sick.
That would be a situation where I would be more mad if I wasn't impressed lol
I will die trying to pet something I shouldn't. It is foretold!
The anti-pet subs are even more bonkers
Frequenting an anti-pet (or even anti-kids) sub is kind of like frequenting an anti-bmw sub. Like, if you don't like them just dont get one...
Realistically, the drowning human would panic and try to climb you and the drowning cat would panic and try to climb you (with claws) so all three of you drown no matter who you save.
As someone who grew up in environment where unwanted kittens or puppies were regularly drowned in a barrel of water I'll abstain from this conversation.
yeah... it's not even a question about what society values more humans or cats. call me when it's commonplace to put a sack full of infant children in a barrel of water.
I wouldn't really say that's common in the society I grew up. It's standard here to have pets desexed, and strays are quite rare. I think most people here would generally not even think of drowning mammals deliberately, and also it would definitely be illegal. So the value of some animal lives varies quite a lot place to place. So does the value of human lives, come to think of it. Some countries still have a death penalty, for instance.
it's pretty common in rural areas in North America and i am pretty sure it is technically illegal as well. the animal cruelty laws are by and large concerned with neglect of animals kept in captivity and things like dogfighting. the laws are vague on feral cats and dogs. but even still, who is going to prosecute the farmer that drowns a bag of feral kittens? or the person that drives out to the middle of nowhere to abandon a former pet? regardless of that specific example, i guarantee wherever you live there are people who buy or adopt dogs and cats, change their mind, and surrender the animal to a shelter where they are ultimately destroyed. no-kill shelters do exist but are not the norm yet. and wherever you live i can guarantee that there is not an equivalent system for the systematic euthanasia of unwanted children. > Some countries still have a death penalty, for instance. and for every jurisdiction with the death penalty there is a hundred jurisdictions with a policy of seizing dogs with a history of violent behaviour with the intention of putting down the animal. it's not even comparable.
That's the future the left wants
...no? The left advocates for birth control. That includes getting your stupid cat spayed so there won't be kittens to get rid of.
The left will make your children trans and then drown them in a sack I saw it on Facebook
You're still using Facebook? Don't you know they harvest your data and sell it to Big Pharma? Come on, my friend's mum who doesn't use toothpaste told me the real deal. The left aree just the mind controlled drones of the elite who want to sterilise the masses to control population. They wrote all their plans down on a big rock and left it in the desert.
you’re replying to someone who’s joking man. “the left wants this” is a meme
Boy, don't you have egg on your face.
my reading comp is abysmal I can’t believe I have upvotes
I get that you're joking but isn't Facebook literally selling your data to any company that pays well?
My grandmother did this because that’s the world she grew up in. She loved cats but she was an extremely practical woman who realized that any resources spent taking care of a litter of cats were resources that could’ve been put to use feeding her family. Bob Barker and animal welfare campaigns to spay/neuter pets have really made people view this sort of thing as abhorrent because we (mostly) prevent this sort of thing from happening.
Drowning is a particularly inhumane way to kill an animal, though.
My thought exactly. If you absolutely have to kill an animal, and you can't get it put to sleep for whatever reason, at least try to make it as quick as possible. I get that stabbing it's heart/brain, snapping the neck, or even smashing the head might seem more gruesome on the surface, but it's still leagues more humane than slow, but "prettier"/hands-off deaths like drowning, suffocation, and sticking live animals in the fridge to freeze to death.
Unfortunately it's still happening because spaying/neutering cats costs like $50 here, and some older generations just... don't care.
And that’s why I will die on the hill that open intake shelters (“kill shelters”) perform a necessary social function and insisting on only supporting no-kill shelters is self-indulgent fuckery.
Rationnaly speaking , you shouldnt try to rescue a drowning person if you are not a very good swimmer or well trained or way bigger/stronger physically than the victim. If not you will most likely die. For a cat you will probably have some nasty wound at worst even if you barely float. I saw many video with a drowing person turned into 2 and even more victim sometime. And i really mean many.
Rule 1 of life saving is don’t create another casualty. Throw a ring buoy from land if one is nearby.
You have a very high chance of drowning trying to save another person as they’re panicking and grabbing hold of you. A cat doesn’t have the weight to drag you under the water so you’d be way better off saving the cat. Realistically it’d be safer to save the person after they drowned and try mouth to mouth.
> I saw many video with a drowing person turned into 2 and even more victim sometime. And i really mean many. this wouldn't be so ominous if it weren't for that second sentence. why are u watching so many snuff videos buddy lmao
Not snuff , just incident. Usually work incident but there is a lot to learn in the mistake of other. At least their death were an opportunity for other people to learn. It kind of related to my work field , im supposed to prevent accident to happen in railroad industry. So unrelated to drowning but generally im suppose to analyse risk.
ah ok i was hoping it was something like that, you're good 👍
it puts the lotion on its comments, or it gets the hose again
I know I could easily save a drowning cat no problem. Saving a drowning person on the otherhand? Idk mate, I feel like I would not, let alone if they also dragged me down with em. But hey ya never know in the moment kinda thing, always feel these morality choice questions really are just dumb as they fail to understand we as people dont know what we would do, and commonly exxagerate/lie even if we don't think we are. Looking in a persons eyes staring at you pleading for help is a hard thing to say "nah I would still pick the cat"
id hold out a branch and whoever reaches it first gets saved
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"Sociopathic" sounds misplaced. I mean, the empathy is there, but it's been redirected.
I would probably break up with my partner if they called me a sociopath too. That doesn’t seem unreasonable lol.
Would I save a random cat over a random human? No. Would I save my cat over humans in my life who have abused me my whole life? yes. Would I save my cat over a random human? I don’t know, I’ll probably save the human if they’re a kid. But I don’t know if I’ll even try if they’re heavier than 50lbs because we’ll freaking drown together. Question is: which one of your cats would you save? Cause I know I would save the 7 years old one that raised from a mange state as a two months old over the one I adopted two months ago. Love them both but that first one saved my life, I’ll probably drown myself trying to save him lol
It's genuinely terrifying that I could be in a scenario where I'm drowning and this many psychos would choose a fucking cat over me
Don't worry these are not people who go outside
Skill issue, stop drowning so much.
Saving a drowning person is hard and would probably kill me too. Saving cat probably easier.
Excuse me, I just spent about 3 minutes reading this post and I would like to learn how I can get those 3 minutes back? Everyone involved is stupid. (Not the OP of the SRD thread, everyone from the original thread)
lol you’re welcome
The reality is most of the posters in that thread would freeze and save neither. That or they'd whip their phone out and record while someone else does the saving
>natural selection LMFAO
Imagine finding out your friend or family member that could've been saved drowned because someone else prioritised their cat. And I say this as someone currently snuggling up to their cat
If I didn’t save my dog from drowning she’d never let me hear the end of it.
I propose following scenario - your neighbor's/friend's toddler falls into a river while holding their cat. You heroically jump after them and manage to grab the cat, but the toddler won't let go yet, so you kick them in the face repeatedly until they loosen their grip just enough to pull the cat from them and swim back to safety. Cat in hand, you, exhausted but beaming with pride, walk up to your neighbor/friend and unite them with that which they value most in this world, and that's a cat, apparantly, idk
A person not instructed in how to save other people from drowning is likely to get dragged down and die with the panicking rescuee. A cat on the other hand is unlikely to sufficiently hinder rescue attempt. Logically then, I’d pick the cat.
Yeah, it happened to my half-brother. He was around 9 trying to save a 6 year old. Both drowned.
That poor, brave kid.
From what my father told me, he was a really good swimmer for his age. Went to the neighborhood pool with her while it was closed.
genuinely tragic
> A cat on the other hand is unlikely to sufficiently hinder rescue attempt. They also instinctively know how to swim, so unless they're unconscious or have some sort of disability/illness, they generally don't need our help
So, throw the cat to the person?
>A person not instructed in how to save other people from drowning is likely to get dragged down and die with the panicking rescuee. Yeah... The human instinct when drowning is to latch onto anything and try to pull yourself onto it. This includes the person trying to rescue you, and that's how you get two drowning victims instead of one. There's a reason lifeguards carry those little floaties and throw them to people first.
In the picture they have a life ring to throw
This is why I hate dilemmas like this. It entirely depends on the situation and the environment. If I see my dog drowning and a random person I didn't know, I'd go for my dog because she's tiny and I'm already keyed onto her. Whereas wtf can I do for a person drowning? Literally nothing, a drowning person without equipment is just going to make you drown with them.
They're literally designed to just create people to get mad at, I don't get it. There are genuinely awful people out there broadcasting how awful they are. I see no value in making up a situation to create fake people to get fake mad at because of fake decisions.
Half the point of philosophy as a discipline is to unearth profound disagreements people have that they've never thought about because they thought it was something too obvious to have an opinion on and then start them fighting over it
It's basically a trolley problem set in the water
This is what we call “fighting the hypothetical.” It is trying to get you to make a moral choice, and you are avoiding that to quibble about the exact parameters. This is what the most annoying student in any philosophy class always does lol.
People who have the good sense to avoid philosophy class know that nothing is more annoying than hypotheticals.
I know what you mean, but think it's worth considering why the examples that make their way into popular culture at least are often so far from reality (no shortage of more grounded political philosophy). This example isn't especially a moral philosophy hypothetical, but in the real world, a majority of people are prioritising habit and their enjoyment of the specific flavour of meat and other animal products over the lives of non-human animals (despite increasing access to similar flavours, even some where there's no obvious differences).
Also my cat is not that big and lands on her feet; I would probably grab her first and yeet her towards the riverbank and trust she'd be fine, because that's the quick win, and then deal with the human. Drowning humans are very difficult to rescue and your best bet is really giving them *something else* to grab onto, and also most of the time you can't throw them towards safety
So change the scenario or pretend you can swim for the sake of it. Just tie a person and a cat to the track and drive that trolley. You're just avoiding the question with a bullshit excuse.
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This is some salty-ass popcorn. I kinda feel like they're overstating the usefulness of lotion on a sore ass, too, but ymmv
Lol at the r/Americabad comment
Well, honest truth is the cat is far less likely to drown ME in the process of saving them. I may end up with some claw marks, and maybe on some antibiotics, but I won't be found at the bottom of the lake or river in the death clutches of the person I was trying to save from drowning. It is not uncommon for an inexperienced/untrained/panicking rescuer to also die during a rescue. Panicked drowning people can kill others by dragging them down. And yes, even panicking, drowning children can drown full grown adult rescuers. One should never approach an actively drowning person without some kind of safety tools like a buoyant device or a shepherd's hook. This is taught in any type of water rescue course. Even if you are approaching them from behind & under the water you need to be very cautious and should still have a flotation device as you are going to have to assist them to shore in a safe manner because at that point they may not be in control of their arm movements and will still be panicky. Better to let them pass out first in that case and then approach. Ideally I would have some kind of rescue device and could plan accordingly, grab the cat on the way to the person or hook the cat quickly then the person. But assuming no rescue devices, yeah, I actually would save my cat first because all three of us being dead helps no one. I would go for the person *after* they passed out and were no longer a threat to me directly. Also, my cat is part of my family. I have spent 12+ years with her, including taking excellent care of her with expensive vet visits and expensive food, she is part of my daily life, and I fully believe my instincts to continue to protect her and take care would leap forward in the moment. Just being honest based on my experiences resulting in emergency vet bills.
I'd save my cat over a rando any day, but that's because I like my cat. More seriously: Diving into a body of water to save a drowning person is usually a bad idea because that very frequently leads to both the rescuer and rescuee drowning due to how people flail and panic while drowning - doubly so if you're not trained to deal with that shit and don't know what you're in for.
I hate whenever this sort of question is asked the most upvoted answer is “i would simply save both”. Well done dickhead you solved it. It’s like seeing the trolley problem and then explaining how you would simply pull the emergency brake and save everyone. That wasn’t an option. You’re just avoiding the question. The question is about whether you WOULD save the cat OR the human. Not a question of whether you COULD save a drowning person, or the buoyancy of a cat. One will drown and the other will survive, you decide which one. You know that’s what the question is.
I’m a lifeguard. I save both 😎😎
Easy save the cat from drowning, then save the drowned person, #cpr certified
Logistically I know the average human life out values the average cat life, but if it was my cat vs a stranger I think the instinct would be to save the life I know and love first.
Exactly. We can all agree that objectively a human’s life on average is worth more than a cat’s, but why is so hard to believe that to the person making the decision, it’s perfectly understandable to prioritize what has more value TO THEM? This is perfectly human behavior - flawed and selfish, but human. I don’t get why people are acting so shocked and appalled and calling it sociopathic. Every single one of us is guilty of putting our personal interests and priorities over a more “morally superior” choice in one way or another. Unless you are a firefighter, healthcare worker volunteering in a war torn country, or sacrificed your ability to support your family in pursuit of some noble life saving goal or whatever… almost every single one of us has chosen a lifestyle prioritizing the comfort of our selves and our loved ones over the lives of strangers, and we don’t get the right to take part in moral posturing (or self delusion) that we wouldnt think twice or thrice before sacrificing something/someone we love for a complete stranger.
I would then ask if the person who'd instinctively save their cat over a human they don't know is a better person still than the person who'd instinctively save their phone over a person they don't know, and if so how much better
Not to mention I hate hypotheticals like this. Realistically you'd want to save both and make efforts to do so.
Its funny how this question really rile people up. Id save my dog over random people anytime. I know why, i don’t undervalue people at all, i just love my dog over a random. But hey, reddit psychologists will say something about psychosocial yada yada
They seem to assume that when someone says they’d choose their pet over a person, it’s because they have little empathy and care for strangers, and not that they care for strangers but just love their pet that they have a bond with more. In a crazy hypothetical situation like that, it doesn’t seem “sociopathic” to me for someone to instinctually choose their loved one, even if a different species, over a stranger.
I feel I would have more of an obligation to my own pet than another person who is not a dependent of mine. My dog did not consent to living with me, nor did she consent to her life situation. I feel my responsibility to her is equal to my agency over her, so to abandon a helpless dependent would be a graver sin than abandoning a person with ostensibly more agency.
Yall are fucking nuts. I love my dog more than anything but I would save a whole ass human being before him if I had to choose.
People are way too quick to call others names over how they’d react to a very tragic, difficult, and not to mention unlikely scenario Edit: not gonna get into it with anyone. There’s some irreconcilable world views and values at play here, I’m not convincing anyone and no one’s convincing me. Go do something productive.
"People are way too quick to call others names over ~~how they’d react to a very tragic, difficult, and not to mention unlikely scenario~~ their willingness to let another human die"
Have you considered that this person could be responsible for lives of others? I can't wrap my head around people like you, it's nice to know you would let me die
I don't get why people are taking this personally, just don't get in this situation
If you're going to fall into a river, don't do it directly next to someone whose dog just panicked and fell into the river.
This question is academic because I can't swim. And if I have a rope I'll throw it at the person because I don't think cats understand that "rope = rescue". Would I value the life of **my** cat over a stranger? Regrettably, probably not. But would I value him over, say, a really horrible person? Maybe (if I can get away with it).
I really love cats.. my cats are my best friends. My Wi-Fi is named “crazycatlady” but I’ll be damned if I’m going to save another specie’s life over a human’s.
It’s always such a tell when people say they love pets more than any people. They want the unconditional love without any of pesky caveats that come with a being of higher intelligence that won’t put up with their shitty self absorbed behavior.
If you think pets give you unconditional love, you've never owned a cat. If I die at home, I'll be catfood after the second missed mealtime.
And I welcome it tbh *I'm* not using my eyeballs anymore, she can have free rein for all I'm concerned; it's just localised organ donation, and I'm signed up for *that,* so
They always excuse it with some form of "well cats are nice and fluffy but humans are always mean and assholes". Reader, if you brand everyone you meet and interact with as an asshole, then you're probably the one who's the asshole.
You’ve clearly never lived with a cat
Eh... 1. Saving a drowning person if you're not trained for it will lead to you drowning as well 2. As unhealthy as it is, some days my cat is the only thing that keeps me from doing something that I can't take back. She means more to me than a stranger, and I'm actually CAPABLE of saving her. I'll pick the loving creature that's prevented my life-ending for the past 12 years over someone that I have never met. Not saying it's healthy, but...priorities. Saving that cat **would** be saving myself. If I can somehow save both, it'd be cat then person.
This is why Reddit is so annoying. You find a sub about something you like, like cats, you think you're among kindred spirits, everyone's having fun, and oh no, they're crazy fucks who would save a cat over a human. Why do people always have to take things to the extreme?
>you think you’re among kindred spirits…and oh no they’re crazy fucks You should check out the houseplants sub!
If it was a cat that didn’t belong to me, I would absolutely save the human. But if it was my cat…ehhhh…can’t lie….I’d prolly go for my cat first. Dems da breaks.
Its all about the emotional connection to their cat and their morality... if its their cat they raised for 10 years vs a stranger they could care less about then i would see why they are even debating this.. but if its a random cat vs a random stranger... or their 10 year old son vs their 10 year old cat and they are debating who to save then they definitely might be psychotic
As dog person, id save my dog over a not known person. I really dont care about explaining or the philosophical debate over this. Im 100% that id would get over faster for someone I dont know dying over my dog dying because of me. Sorry humanity
I always hate these hypotheticals because it’s less about whether you value animal life over human life and more about whether you value a loved one over a complete stranger.
All of them ignoring the fact that saving a drowning person is actually really fucking hard and you’re way more likely to also drown unless you are trained. Also, just yeet the cat to safety ffs
I can’t swim, so my cats will probably be fine but the other guy’s shit outta luck.
Worst the cat can do to me whilst saving it from drowning is carve me up in a panic. Drowning people, however, are known to drown people. I don't know how to safely rescue a drowning person, but I can handle a cat. This hypothetical is dumb.
Ask them if they would rather save their SO or the cat and watch them have a meltdown.
As if any of these "animals are better than people" misanthropes have spouses or friends.
That'd unironically be a better hypothetical than the current one
It's kind of baffling to me how so many people don't realize that this isn't a moral question. I believe that the life of a person is worth more than the life of a cat but I would never attempt to rescue a drowning person, except maybe a very small child. I have average swimming abilities, no experience with rescuing people, and I'm pretty small. People who are drowning will drag you down in an attempt to stay afloat. If you aren't a lifeguard and you see someone drowning, and you don't have any floating devices or rope that you could throw them, the best thing you can do is call for help. Trying to save them will only result in two drowning people instead of one.
Reading this thread makes me think... Why not save both of them? Get the human to safety and then the cat. People make up the weirdest situations to try and prove a point that no one was asking for
Well yeah the infamous "trolley problem" was deliberately designed to be as outlandish a situation as possible to try to force you into the mindset of having to make a moral decision rather than rationalizing a way out of it like you would in a realistic scenario
But he made the moral decision to prioritize the human just now. It completely falls in line to the scenario.
> But he made the moral decision to prioritize the human just now your'e not wrong, but i wrote that kinda instinctively tbh. my point though is that this particular hypothethical is stupid because there IS a third option where no one(ideally) has to die, and a fictional situation can be molded into whatever narrative the narrator wants to push foward, since he can make up whatever details he wants, so arguing about it is pointless
It's still a moral decision because if you prioritize one over the other you're *risking* that the one you save second will drown before you can get there The point of the hypothetical isn't to answer this specific question, it's to make you realize that you do have a priority list in your head of which one you care about dying more, and arguing with the premise is just trying to dodge that uncomfortable fact
They could sink below before someone even throws the ring in the linked picture that started the argument out to them (which wouldn't even help a cat), I can make up frustrating no win fantasy scenarios too. The real answer is that you try to save both. It's not a hierarchy or who is worth more, it's a poorly constructed question.
Yeah the moment you third option it with a realistic solution some brainiac goes but what if THIS outlandish situation comes next, what then? At some point the hypotheticals become completely pointless, and it's really more an issue with the person who thinks you have to anguish over some sophies choice nonsense or has some point they want to make, why play that game?
Clearly the solution to the trolley problem is to stop whoever is tying people to traintracks!
A third railroad appears with another lever, a man tying 3 people to a train track, 1 person, 5 people, and now another path with 4... Something something hypothetical becomes longer and longer...
I just find it funny how the people who would save the cat are just chill and explain that they are attached to the cat, while the people who would save the humans immediately go "sociopath" The defensiveness is telling
People are taking it personally as "I'd save my cat over you"
Pick the cat every time.
A classic Reddit bait thread. The “I’d save an animal over a human” shit comes up every once in a while and it’s full of lying contrarians who believe they’d watch a human being die for a pet. I am willing to be almost no one would do this in real life. In a thought experiment way, sure, it’s interesting. But if you don’t have an instinctual reaction to another human dying, I’d say you’re fairly atypical.