I find it funny, what manga/anime fans consider to be "mature" story telling. Just because certain evil phenomenons are mentioned or present in the backstory does not make the story mature.
Now, this is quite obvious with stories like One Piece, but in reality it permeates stories that seem more "grounded" at a first glance. FMA (B) can pretend to have a more mature approach to humanity, until you realise there are inhuman forces of evil that orchestrate the war crimes.
Soldiers keep being haunted by their sins and the "end justify the means" approach is actively denied. Mustang gets to spare the capital forces without suffering casualties, because of doing so.
The story actually has the balls to make everything work out for them despite giving themselves such ridiculous handicap and Mustang being killable by any stray bullet (as he is a regular human).
However, nowhere is the moral narrative more hilarious than in Tucker sidestory. Sure, I can buy that research of chimera transmutation can get him effective permit to commit unspeakable acts on civilians for his research. That is not the problem in this, as he might make great scientific breakthroughs. You know, like making cat-girls real or some boring medical stuff.
No, the problem is that turd chose to experiment on his wife and daughter that he did actually care about. He could act like a civilised white man he is and hire some help before going to slums. He could pick homeless children there like berries from bushes.
Nuh uh, being evil is supposed to have negative consequences, don't you know?! Truly hilarious nonsense.
Islam is a religious fascism. All liberals on crusade against fascism completely refuse to take any detailed look at an actual bona fide fascism with a divine mandate.
Unfortunately, bias is not the main reason for that. No, there is an actual substance and reasons that make an average normie unable to discern what Islam actually is. To put it shortly, it takes effort, and even those who stand against Islam do despite not understanding much about it. The reason starts the sources of Islamic faith.
Among the sources of faith there is of course Quran, but it is sorted in non-chronological order, and written in a poetic manner that prefers metaphors to simplicity in messaging. As such, you can't really start with Quran and get anything out of it. To discern the message, you need to already know wider context.
Sirah and Hadiths are the other sources of faith that provide that context You can think of those as biography of the prophet Muhammad and short stories from his or his companions lives.
In this post, I will tackle only the most crucial threat and misconception about it within the Islamic religion. It is the least I feel obligated to do.
Islam is fundamentally a religion of conquest and obedience. There are norms that regulated social coexistence, quite a lot of them in fact. However, what is often missed is that those are norms that guide Muslims how to behave towards other Muslims. There are separate norms regarding non-Muslims (Kafirs), as they are fundamentally worse, less valuable people. This inequality is the foundation of Islam.
You might hear very different claims from sources that preach Islam, why is that? That is because, lying and deception is service of Islam is not a sin, but a virtue.
Muhammad himself, when he felt threatened in Mecca, temporarily proclaimed tolerance and religious coexistence, only to later condemn it (the so-called Satanic Verses) when the threat diminished. Muslims and liberals like to use quotes from this brief episode as an argument for Islam's supposed religious tolerance.
Let me get a source for that claim: Hadiths Sahih Muslim 2605:
"A liar is not one who tries to bring reconciliation amongst people and speaks good (in order to avert dispute), or he conveys good. Ibn Shihab said he did not hear that exemption was granted in anything what the people speak as lie but in three cases: in battle, for bringing reconciliation amongst persons and the narration of the words of the husband to his wife [...]"
Liberals believe that lying is a sin for Muslims in the same way as for Christians, since lying is only allowed in war.
The problem is a complete lack of understanding of Islam. The "war" in this quote is الحرب (al-ḥarb), the same term that appears in another well-known hadith: «الحرب خدعة» ("War is deception"). A bit more context:
(A) Word (B) Basic meaning (C) Situational character
1. (A) Al-Harb (الحرب) (B) War as a state of armed conflict (C) General, descriptive character
2. (A) Al-qitāl(القتال) (B) Fighting, combat, conducting battle (C) Pertains to specific action
3. (A) Al-jihād (الجهاد) (B) Effort / striving on the path of Allah (C) Broadest, polysemous character
When conflict with Kafirs (non-Muslims) is described it predominantly includes variations of the word qital (like quital) and that word comes from it base word qatala which means "to kill". This is important because there is no ambiguity what kind of "fight" is expected from Muslims against Kafirs.
Now comes the absolutely retarded part, that comes from mistranslation:
Muslim 20.4696
Muhammad: "One who died but did not fight in the way of Allah nor did he express any desire (or determination) for Jihad died the death of a hypocrite."
Oh, it's just Jihad, Jihad has many meaning that include non-violent activities, there is no need to worry right? WRONG. This translation is worthless, in the original Arabic text there is no fucking Jihad mentioned here.
More proper translation would be: Muhammad: "A man who dies without having taken part in a military expedition (ghazwa), who never desired to fight for the cause of Allah, dies the death of a hypocrite." Ghazwa means a military expedition of which fighting (qital) takes place.
There is no longer any fucking ambiguity is there? If a Muslim does not harbour desire to violently fight against kafirs they are hypocrite. let's go further:
Al-Bukhari 1.3.125: A man came to the Prophet and asked, "O Allah's Apostle! What kind of fighting is in Allah's cause? (I ask this), for some of us fight because of being enraged and angry and some for the sake of his pride and haughtiness." The Prophet raised his head (as the questioner was standing) and said, "He who fights (qital) so that Allah's Word (Islam) should be superior, then he fights in Allah's cause."
There are countless more like:
Hadith al-Muwaṭṭaʾ, Mālik: "When you encounter your enemies, invite them to three things: Islam, migration, or fight (qital). If they accept any, they are safe.
Muslim 1.31 "I have been commanded to fight (qital) against people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and believe in me as His Messenger.
Bukhari 4.52.44 Narrated Abu Huraira: A man said, "Instruct me as to a deed that equals Jihad." The Prophet replied, "I do not find such a deed. Can you enter your mosque and pray without ceasing and fast without breaking your fast while the warrior (mujahedin) is on the battlefield?" The man said, "Who can do that?"
To sum it up, Islam commands Muslims to commit to violent fight against non-Muslims and permits lying for the Islamic cause. There is no negotiation to be had with a religion that holds its supremacy as the goal and highest value achieved by any means.
Vincent the true Kakin patriot. Togashi in merely 2 short chapters have given us the paragon we can all aspire to become. His own life was willingly given up for the prosperity of Kakin. He did not ask about his rights, he instead followed his obligations.
Kurapika to this day did nothing to restore his clan, whose greatest wish was merely peaceful perpetuation. He only follows revenge, violence his clans had no wish for. His hands only bring misery to the world. Even during the succession war, he kills a dutiful Kakin patriot in an effort to make the succession ritual fail and destroy the proud nation of Kakin.
No sense of responsibility for the greater whole, he pursues solely his selfish emotion-driven desires, much like Tserriednich. The prototypical libertarian degenerate. The world needs more Vincents and less Kurapikas.
#HunterxHunter #HxH
Portraying evil is necessary in serious story. Fire Punch is a fever dream, but if you act like sexual abuse done by evil characters is somehow worse, than evil characters committing mass murders, than you are a child.
An adult child that should stick to shounen-slop and keep writing praises how deep and mature Bleach or One Piece are.
Despite pretending otherwise, communists and libertarian are extremely similar in their beliefs.
Both groups hold borderline religious belief that people are intrinsically virtuous and people selfish by nature are a fringe minority.
However, there exist the evil force that corrupts innocent humans and makes them act in evil ways. If we only remove the foreign evil force from the equation, people will no longer prioritise their own interest at the expense of others. Such a thing is not in human nature.
Communists believe the evil force to be "Capitalism" and more generally "Wealth" and its pursuit. Capitalists meanwhile believe the evil force to be the "State".
Both organised power structures and pursuit of having more wealth/power have existed since time immemorial. It predates all modern systems and even back in the ancient Mesopotamia if people have ever grown soft and content with what they had, they ended up being conquered by outsiders. More ruthless, more cruel that did not forget the brutal truths that govern our world.
This doesn't mean that people are "evil" in the cartoon way. People are shaped by their circumstances to a large extent. Primary pursuits remain the same, but the ways they strive to achieve them are different.
The reason why people can afford to believe that people are good by nature is because the state "in general" punishes criminals, or at least creates the appearance of doing so. This changes the incentives, simple violence will only make your life worse, so people learn the "proper" ways of gathering wealth and power.
If the state becomes too lenient, this crumbles. The people who receive lenient punishments learn that that crime is a viable way to accomplish their selfish desires. People who see that being the case will eventually adapt as well.
Currently, the two-tier punishment system still stands. The reasonable people are punished hard, while savages are cuddled. The incentives for both groups are very different, but that too can't last forever. How long will it take for the violence to escalate? Britain is descending into mayhem the fastest so we shall see.
Look, a dangerous leopard is outside our strong city walls! Oh no, he looks starved! Should we kill it, leave it be and hope it starves?
No! That doesn't "feel" right. It's alive as much as we all are, all life is equal and animals are Gods creation. We should, no, we WILL let it behind our city walls and we will feed it!
...Oh, leopard has eaten someone's face, hm we should impose curfew and ban swords, or else someone might attack poor leopard and harm it! It's not it's fault, leopard is a wild animal we can't expect from it to follow our rules. We can demand so only from our own people.
No, we do not regret letting leopard in. If we didn't, we would have done just as bad of a thing as the leopard did. We might have to lock the leopard down for all that face-eating, but we have spotted more starved leopard refugees outside our city walls.
Now, now, we mustn't assume they would eat anyone's face, just because that one did. To do so, would be beneath us, we would be no different from savage animals ourselves. We will educate those leopards instead, it's just about their upbringing that they are acting like this.
This post, surprisingly, is about the Red and Blue button dilemma. Choices that appear noble, usually lead to tragedies. Being selfish causes less destruction and death than being stupid. That's the sad truth.
Chainsawman is the kind of story I thought I wanted many times, not in the details, but in the broad strokes. The complete disconnection from ever-present unrealistic causality of Tolkien inspired fantasy or superhero stories.
For the many absurd within the setting, the raw misery of CSM world imitates the misery of real world
Part 1.1 Disinformation for dummies:
Fujimoto feels zero obligation to provide readers with sufficient information to understand what is going. Denji start as homeless teenager, that lived in constant poverty so he doesn't jack about wordly affairs. Combined with the world being in the pre 2000 period, there is no internet to provide unlimited information.
Global push for domination of Control/Conquest Devil named Makima is an invisible background noise. It is the cause behind most events, but we only get to infer it in hindsight, near the end of the CSM part1.
It's not exactly a secret when so many characters are partially aware of this "conspiracy", even if they do not understand the true scale of threat. Foreign governments are still trying to wage covert wars against Makima. All of this feels like it should be the main plot of the story, but instead it is akin to lore in metroidvania games. It exists to facilitate the actual story that revolves around the character of our protagonist, Denji.
Part 1.2: Best evil girl is casual evil girl
Makima is great characters because it is clearly evil, but also has a lot of deeply human personality, but it human not "humane".
She has genuine appreciation for human culture and stories, and clearly is opinionated about some movies being "bad" and thinks it would be better if they were erased. I like to imagine in our world, she would watch multi hour videos about media and probably destroy Disney and had its modern movies retconned out of existence.
Her love for stories shows even in her serious moments. She keeps stealing lines she finds cool from her enemies, she used those to aura farm. She even soft-roleplays character archetypes.
What I find most meaningful is that all those traits do not feel like they exist in opposition to her controlling and evil nature. They aren't meant to be "redeeming qualities" and they do not cause Makima to doubt her motives at any point. In fact, they are completely integrated within those evil motives.
Even her devotion to Chainsaw Devil is like that. She doesn't love the actual devil, but the archetype of "Hero of Hell", an unstoppable force of chaos that even primordial devils fear. By her nature, she wishes to put a leash on the Chainsaw Devil, but at the same time actually hopes she loses despite trying her best and her idol erases her existence with its reality denying power.
I don't think I have ever seen someone write a villain so immoral, while also being so "normal" in their casual personality. She is almost like a politician, that is both a "normal" person to its acquaintances while killing millions without remorse to reach her goals.
Evil in Tolkien inspired fantasy can't be like that, it needs to be foreign, easily distinguishable, and we must feel the world itself condemns it. It needs to be everything that it is not in the real world.
Part 1.3: Necessary Evil
The serious side of Makima is also a role she chooses to play. The necessary evil. Cold, calculating, treating human lives as disposable, while still being better than any alternative.
We can look at current politics or look at worse atrocities of last century and dread how terrible this reality is. CSM world is actually even worse than ours. Human fears manifest as avatars "Devils" that bring constant mayhem to humanity.
Life doesn't stop despite it, people still discriminate against others, Japan still allows for children to be legally responsible for their parents debts (yes it's real). No one unites in face of ever-present adversity and no one even fights for it, and all lofty ideals are actually used for cynical reasons. It's almost beautiful how human it is.
Of course, part1 of CSM story ends with protagonist killing the main big bad who thought they are hot shit and no matter what she does she is justified because she still makes the world a better place. She wanted to protect humanity from itself, not just by limiting their free will, but even by changing laws of nature with Chainsaw Devil powers. She fills both the role of necessary evil and misunderstood hard-boiled hero that does what is right even if the world doesn't understand.
The second part of CSM story decides to validate Makima in just about every way. The world that regains its free will, becomes a worse to place to live for everyone and strong devils without overpowered Makima around bring an actual end to human civilisation in the most painful way imaginable.
However, I will go over the second part of CSM story at other time
The big problem permeating western society is a myth that good deeds will be rewarded, and evil ones will be punished. Despite having constant reminders that actually the people who hold the most power and wealth tend to have low morals, people persistently cling to childish belief, there is some sort of karmic justice.
When I think where it came from, the answer is obvious, from literary fiction. Since time immemorial, people sought solace from injustices of the real world in fictional stories. Frankly, we have reached the point when having actions in story follow their realistic consequences makes the story "grimdark".
The problem is this breeds a certain perverted morality, of refusing to make the selfish choices, not because of some moral imperative, but because you believe, this is an illusion, and you will receive better reward for being selfless. The first time I have realised it was while playing the Wither 3 game, I realised that the selfish/selfless choices are fake because I already expect the selfless choice to also be the truly "selfish" one as it will be most rewarding.
It goes deeper than that, though. Now, my knowledge of Tolkien's books is limited. I have read the first one from the Lord of Rings (I guess they could be counted as two?). However, from what I have read about the books (rather than from it) is that they follow the same perverted morality.
Choosing the selfish path is not sth you should do because the world will bend itself to punish you for it. For example, If you refuse the call to arms out of selfish desire to preserve your life, don't, or you will be cursed into wraiths until you get a chance at redemption.
Taking refuge from the real world in such stories isn't wrong per se. However, this doesn't actually tell anyone what to do when they are abused by the world. In fact, it shows them characters saving the day through righteous methods. They often win, not even despite being more moral than their enemies, but because of it.
The brilliant case of the Trolley Dilemma:
Part 1: Introduction
Nearly every real-world controversy can be reduced to a conflict of values and can be translated into the trolley dilemma. Unlike debates about current events the most common cause of discord can be eliminated, namely: conflicting beliefs about the facts, what is “true”. With Trolley Dilemma, you can force people to address the underlying conflict of values, the core of the disagreement.
Unfortunately, the dilemma faces a few major problems stemming from the human elements, but for now, let’s get into the base setup:
A trolley is heading towards 5 people and will inevitably kill them all, but you can pull the lever to divert it to the other track so that it kills only 1 person instead. No other options are available to you, doing nothing or trying to do things outside the box will simply mean 5 people are run over and die. Do you pull the lever?
The most common (and usually misguided) framing is that this pits a utilitarian approach against a morally principled (deontological) stance. One emphasizes the raw number of lives lost, while the other refuses to reduce human lives to cold calculus, even in a dire situation. The principled stance is a refusal of the choice between lesser and greater evil since even if 5 people die, it has nothing to do with you (it would happen if you weren’t present anyway), but pulling the lever makes you responsible for taking a life otherwise would not be lost, makes you a murderer.
This framing is mostly nonsense designed to obfuscate the real question: Is it worth committing a morally bad act to prevent four additional deaths? Is keeping your certified good person status card worth more than saving 4 human lives?
Cross-examination exposes the narrative. Ask: between person A who pulled the lever and killed/murdered one person, and person B that did nothing and saw the trolley kill 5 people, who is a morally better person for it? If the person who pulled the lever is worse by doing so, does that mean, that evil action can bring better results and even save more lives? Can such actions even be killed evil?
Against a counterargument that the results of person A are not in fact better because A became a murderer, I can present my own: let’s just raise the stakes! Life of a single person against 500 lives, 1 against 50 000, 1 against 5 000 000! Very soon, the initial line of defence falls apart, how long can an act of becoming murderer be considered a worse result than loss of so many more human lives? This is where another discussion can be opened: at which point “murder” becomes acceptable. How many lost lives is remaining a certified good person worth?
Many will fold at this point, but there are also those who won’t, about them in Part 2.
Part 5: The value of human life
In real life Trolley Dilemma, it’s not one against five, but one group of people against the other. This is where the twist to this discussion comes up. The simple answer to base Trolley dilemma only holds up when we know nothing about the people involved. If instead, we put 5 violent criminals and one 1 innocent person on different tracks? At this point, I would argue not only one shouldn’t pull the lever to get one innocent person killed over 5 violent criminals, but the opposite would be correct. In a scenario where the Trolley heads towards one innocent person, you should redirect it towards 5 violent criminals instead.
This is because even if we agree that from the objective point of view human life in itself always has equal worth, they do not have equal worth for a real living person.
To most people their own life is more important than the life of a stranger, the same with the life of their loved one or close friend over a stranger. I consider this is the correct approach. As such, what about someone who pulls the lever to save their loved one and so redirected trolley kills 5.. no, 500 other people? Going by the objective criteria, it’s a wrong thing to do, but going by the personal point of view it’s a correct one. It is also something I know I would personally do.
Death of tribal mentality on the level of nation/country is what brings ruin to western world. When westerners care about equal rights and fight against discrimination, other ethnic groups within their own countries prioritise their own interests and use the system to further their own people. This is why, what I believe decides what is “correct” and what is “wrong” in the trolley dilemma and in the world as a whole are The Consequences.
You should follow the moral principles/ideology to their long-term results, and face them with different people/circumstances:
Against the “good” ones: innocently misguided, suicidally empathetic, stupidly idealistic (libertarians/communists);
Against the “evil” ones: those who will cheat and lie, steal and kill, actively try to subvert the system either as individuals or as organised groups for their selfish interest even if the world around them burns.
The “correct” choices are those which will lead to the best result in the long term. There is no easily defined set of measures that will stand the test of time against both well-meaning self-sabotage and against countless forms of adversity. Such choices/measures can often be difficult to define and depending on the circumstances, they not only can, but even need to temporarily change when the situation calls for it.
One thing is sure, being a universally "good person" as a criterion only leads to civilisational suicide.
Part 4: The “good people” who pull the lever can be just as dangerous
The reason why even I bothered to write all of this out is that there are legions of people who not only allow for the world to become a terrible place, but actively contribute to that, all in the name of misguided morality and the need to be a “good person”. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that “good people” following their misguided morality is the second-biggest contributor to the downfall of western civilisation. Importantly, it’s not just the kind of good people who refuse to pull the lever that bring the destruction, but also “good people” who do pull it. The plot twist approaches.
If you only punish a savage murderer to a few years of prison, and they kill again after getting out, that is a very avoidable tragedy. Somehow, people do not have sympathy for those who kill in cold blood due to extraordinary personal reasons. Think of a father who murdered the rapist of his daughter, if it’s the first violent crime he committed it is also likely to be the last one, and potential future crimes are also likely to be against violent criminals that targeted them or their family. There is very little threat to society from such a person. A person that in without such drastic circumstances would have never committed a violent crime. However, this is not who receives sympathy in western criminal systems.
No, instead people who receive sympathy are those from different cultures, from “historically oppressed minorities” or just being too stupid to understand the implications of their actions. This is in fact how some savages are being successfully defended in courts (to get lighter sentences). The most dangerous people who pose the greatest danger to society are treated the most leniently, not due to judicial discretion, but by the systemic design.
Believe it or not, but many who contribute to such reality do so to be morally “good”. Those righteous people actually believe they need to sympathise with those whom they see as oppressed, if not by society than by nature itself (those too stupid to understand crime). This is not limited to criminal law, British left-wing actually believe that impoverishing their own nation to give better life to migrant ethnicities is the morally correct thing to do and the responsibility they hold to humanity. Responsibility to, if nothing else, atone for the crimes of the past British Empire.
It will be finished in Part 5.
Part 3: The stubborn “good” people
At this point, we need to go back to people who refuse to pull the lever due to their moral principles. Faced with increased stakes and cross-examination, they are very likely to ragequit rather than admit their morality is fundamentally wrong. However, they may also wilfully disassociate themselves, which means they will choose to become like “challenged” people and not consider the dilemma as a real choice, but without admitting so. This can allow them to keep their good person card and keep choosing not to pull the lever without even considering the implications.
Of course, you can remove the problem by just abandoning the discussion with such people as they argue in bad faith at that point, but what if the goal behind bringing up the trolley dilemma is, in fact, changing someone’s mind? Unlike challenged people, genuinely disassociated people and bad actors, convincing a stubborn “good person” isn’t necessarily impossible (although it may require more than one discussion, giving someone time for contemplation is important). I will mention this, do not ever try to convince one of the 3 problem groups, not just in trolley dilemma, but in any serious discussion. This how people get burned out from talking about politics and other such ideas.
So, how do you break down a stubborn “good person” defence line? By forcing them into discussions on topics they can’t or don’t want to disassociate from.
Even if someone claims they wouldn’t murder 1 person to save a billion, it’s only because they refuse to consider that 1 billion as real people. A simple pressure can sometimes be enough to break through that: Really? You would, actually, let 1 billion people die over killing a single person? You would be able to look yourself in the mirror and think it was the right thing to do, even as a billion people lie dead?
An alternative approach is to go through real-world implications, this may actually also work on some of those who are “challenged”, but only to a mild degree. Ask the question from real world (in the very beginning I mentioned any real-world issue and be translated into trolley dilemma and I stand by it):
-If you could kill 18-year-old Hitler, would you do it, or would you let millions die, both on a battlefield and in concentration camps? Would you allow for the holocaust to happen just to not engage in “murder”?
This would get you called out for moving the goal posts, as the one being killed is not an innocent life, but the vile individual actually responsible for the other deaths you prevent. That’s fine, this is a start, a foot in the door, an element of probing for weaknesses. Even if someone can only agree to kill a person if said person is bad enough to not consider it a “murder” it already opens countless doors. How bad someone needs to for it to be justified to kill them? How about someone other than Hitler, like: Stalin, Mao, Putin... Trump?
I am putting Trump here for a reason. This is for the people who simultaneously advocate lighter sentences for violent offenders yet express intense hatred and death wishes toward their political opponents. This contradiction can be exploited to make someone question their beliefs. One caveat is that you mustn’t allow the discussion to devolve into arguing over what is and what is not true information instead of values. Concede on some points even if you do not like it, and press only on the points you can easily substantiate.
Different real-world implication: the Ukraine war. Much muddier than an obvious case like Hitler, and is perfect to use against both Democrat and Republican supporters.
From a pro-Ukrainian perspective: is it justified to launch air strikes against Russia, even it causes a lot of harm to Russian civilians? Not just direct deaths (but those happen as well), but those caused from lack of electricity/heat as the critical infrastructure is targeted. Is it something you would be willing to do, knowing with enough airstrikes SOME innocent lives will be lost by your hands?
This is an opener into discussion about why Russian civilians supposedly aren’t innocent (if they stray into that path) or if they dare to argue it’s war, and therefore it’s different, you get to corner them by stating the obvious:
-Less than a million people died in that war, and it is enough for you to accept making sacrifices, but you were willing to let a billion die run over by the trolley, in what world does that makes sense!? Oh, you didn’t actually treat it seriously? Fine, then right now seriously, would pull the lever and murder one real innocent life to save a billion of also real human lives? If so, how about 1 against 5000 (and so on).
For Republicans: Actually never mind, I don’t think any republican supporter who thinks Russia is justified in the war would ever refuse to pull the lever once the number go higher. These people are rarely tied to the identity of a "good person" and while they are also highly problematic, it is for very different reasons.
On the danger of those “good people” who do, in fact, pull the lever in Part 4.
The brilliant case of the Trolley Dilemma:
Part 2: The human-elements
I have mentioned at the beginning, the dilemma suffers from human elements problems. This is when I need to address them.
Why do people choose to stand by and let 5 people die over murdering one? The broadly understood “moral principles” can be the reason, but they are not the only one. Unfortunately, for the trolley dilemma to work, one need to imagine a hypothetical and actually think as if they stand before this choice. There are those who refuse to do so, and those who aren’t able to do so:
1. Those who can’t engage in hypothetical even if they try, I will call them “challenged” to be polite. The folly of the trolley dilemma is not that such people exist, but that they won’t necessarily admit to their inability to engage in hypothetical. Many will just side with the utilitarian choice from the start or flip-flop later, but not all of them. The reasoning behind any of those choices isn’t very important, the reasons are trivial, illogical and emotionally driven. They are this way because there is nothing at stake, and they can’t put themselves in the setting where there is. Raising the stakes and cross-examining them to get their reasoning should quickly reveal the truth... except it will reveal not only them...
2. The disassociated people, those who simply do not care about strangers. We aren’t just talking about socio/psycho paths, this can apply to people with strong tribal mentality where only them and their kin matters. I have to state, the approach to favour one’s own “tribe” isn’t wrong per se (it will be part of the plot twist later), but if it reaches the point of inability to even consider other people it becomes disastrous. Regardless of the reason, such people often hide their apathy for society as a whole, since being open about it can get them socially ostracised.
3. Bad actors, those who argue in bad faith. This is to say, people who do not say things not based on what reflects the truth, or their actual beliefs, but based on what is beneficial either to them, or to someone/something they care about or to the ideology they subscribe to. This is basically all politicians and most media (in broad term) people. Ordinary people can also act this way depending on circumstances, mainly when the trolley discourse has an audience, whether in real life or in internet space. Sometimes, even just a single person (you) is enough of an audience to make someone a bad actor.
The solution to all 3 cases is straightforward, you just need to raise the stakes and cross-examine the person until they reveal they are either incapable or unwilling to properly discuss this hypothetical and its implications. While this resolution is easy, you may not necessarily want to commence it. More on that in Part 3.