tanteiotaku | Voicemail/Tip Box

Voicemail/Tip Box

Communicator Voicemail box

"You've just missed Shotaro Hidari. I'm probably fighting those that make the city cry. I'll get back to you as soon as I'm done."

Tip Box
The box is cardboard, mostly purple with some black bits. The top has a standup part on it that reads "Hidari Detective Agency". The message on it says: Need help? Know someone that does? See something weird you want someone to look into? Leave me a note here!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Well, that couldn't be a bad thing for him, but what exactly is there that could be studied about ethics?]

No, what's that?

A train has lost control of its breaks. Three men happen to be sitting on the tracks, unaware of their impending doom. A railway operator has the ability to switch the train to another track, where it will collide with a single person.

Which is the ethical course of action: To change the train's course, saving three people but actively killing one, or to let it continue, passively allowing three people to die?

Isn't there a horn on the train?

Apparently not.

Some kind of shitty train.

And If I couldn't use my Branch of Sin to stop it...

Correct: That option is also unavailable.

Obviously I'd change it. Even not switching the tracks is still making a decision.

That does seem to be the more prudent action.

What's the point of these things, anyway?

They're thought experiments intended to make one critically consider one's sense of ethics, it seems.

Haaah. I usually just go with my gut on things like that. But I guess you don't have the experience I do...

[ He shakes his head, forgetting for a second that Shotaro can't see him doing so. ]

It's surprisingly complicated to figure out what the "right" course of action is sometimes. You don't have trouble with that?

[A huff, as if he's considering for a minute.]

I can't dwell too much on the what-ifs. I just have to make the decision that feels right in my gut.

How unscientific.

It's not always about the scientific answer. Not when science has nothing to do with what we can do.

Do you mean our Branches of Sin? Because they are actually fairly simple to quantify in a scientifically rigorous manner, even if we don't know where they came from in the first place. [ That was the whole point of the syndicate's research, after all. ]