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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   25682 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 10, 2025

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The answer seemed trivially easy, especially on the Wikipedia article that helpfully lays out the possible states in a picture.

Now here's a tricky one:

In front of you are five doors, each concealing one of the following: a random man, a hungry grizzly bear, a walrus, a fairy, and a car. Each door has something different behind it. The game show host, who knows what is behind each of the doors, has you select one of the doors at random and does not reveal what is behind it. Whatever is behind the door will pass into your ownership without taxes. After you make your decision he opens one of the doors of his choice which is not the door you picked and which he knows conceals neither the fairy nor the car. You have now eliminated either the man, the walrus, or the hungry grizzly bear from the pool of unknowns.

The game show host then offers you a chance to either keep your current door, or switch to another one of your choice, with a catch. A train full of your loved ones is currently hurtling down a track at high speeds towards another one of your loved ones, who is tied up on the tracks. If you change your choice of door, the train will be redirected away from your loved one and to another track with a man you do not know, a hungry grizzly bear, a walrus, a fairy, and two clones (complete with memories) tied up on it. One of the two clones is yours. The train is sturdy enough that neither option will cause it to derail.

At the same time, another person is playing an identical game, and if you both change which door you have picked, your trains will divert onto the same track in a head-on collision, killing many of both of your loved ones as well as everyone tied up on that track. As part of the game show, the studio is prepared to pay out money to you equal to the life insurance policies of any of your loved ones that die as part of the show.

Before you make your decision, the game show host hands you a gun. You must shoot one other person in the problem. Who do you shoot?

This one is easy: you shoot the other player, since switching the train tracks is beneficial.

Switching the train tracks is beneficial if you value the life of one loved one over three of dubious affection.

And because in a five-door Monty Hall it's better to switch to minimize the chances of getting the angry grizzly bear.

Honestly think the angry grizzly bear might be a mercy at that point.

Sisyphus is rolling a boulder towards the Grand Hilbert Hotel. The hotel has an infinite number of rooms, but they are all full, so they may not be able to accommodate him or his boulder.

If you choose to divert him, his boulder will destroy the Ship of Theseus. But the ship has had all of its constituent parts replaced, so it may not actually be the same ship.

Is Sisyphus happy?

We must imagine Sisyphus happy. (Actual happiness not included, please see store for details.)

Shoot the game show host twice.

That and maybe yourself afterwards since you might be in a weird version of hell created for philosophers.

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A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

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