angular404

When I was in elementary school (I was 10 or 11, maybe), a bright-eyed young teacher, probably working through some lesson plan about "values clarification", posed the following hypothetical to the kids in my class: "I hand you a little box with a button on it that can be pressed to make you obey a command from whoever pressed the button. Who do you give the box to?" I listened to several kids answer "My father," or "My mother", or maybe other answers I don't remember (I think at least one person said they'd give it to the police). When she got to me, I said: "I'd smash the box with a hammer, then burn and scatter the pieces." I was certainly also thinking that I would find and kill whoever manufactured the box; I'm not sure I said that out loud, though I certainly would have if the question had been posed to me after my balls dropped two or three years later. I remember that the kids, and the teacher, were shocked by my response, so I probably did say I'd kill the box-builder. Whether I did or not, the teacher was nonplussed that I didn't answer the question within its implied terms. Which led me to conclude that this authority figure was an idiot - a pretty mind-stretching thought for a pre-teen boy in the 1960s, and probably the first time I judged an adult that way and that definitely. That was my introduction to the wonderful world of evil artificial moral challenges. Later I would encounter others - the trolley problem, the Milgram experiment. From the day that teacher braced me about the first one I have always known that the moral answer to such questions is to break the frame. Milgram experiment? The "scientist" is trying to use the authority of his lab coat and the setting to make you torture someone. The correct response is to notice that this is evil and kill him; with your personal weapon if you have one, with your bare hands and teeth if you don't. Trolley problem? Jump on the trolley and find the fucking brake. In a case like that, breaking the frame may not be within your power, but refusing to accept the premise and directing your actions towards breaking the frame is always the right thing to try first. Recently I gave a similar answer in a reply here on X, only to be told that I was being "petulant" and "refusing to engage the question". Fuck that sideways with a rusty chainsaw. "But you have to follow the rules!" whines the slave, when the correct answer is to kill the master or die trying. This is not refusing to engage the question, it's paying attention to the entire moral context. Including the evil implied by anyone deliberately setting up that kind of experiment in the real world. And if the trolley runs over someone while I was wrestling with the brake? My conscience is clean, because I was fighting for the outcome that didn't require any evil choice. Now I'm going to pose the Kantian completion of this question. You have a choice between two futures... In one of them, most people have a slave-mentality, rule-following mindset and accept the premises of the Milgram experiment or the trolley problem. Or hand their obedience button to someone else. In the other future, most people think like me and believe you should break the frame or die trying. In which universe will less evil be done? In which universe will manipulators be more likely deterred from tricking or coercing others into doing evil? When you've thought that out, what - even given the assumption that breaking the frame may sometimes be impossible - is the proper moral stance to assume? I don't think this question is even difficult.