I came up with an interesting hypothetical at a bar last night. It addresses two general ethical questions: (1) is it morally wrong to cause the deaths of other people, and (2) is it morally wrong to deprive a good person of their liberty or chance at a full and happy life for your own well-being?

Here is the scenario: A man (a normal, not particular evil person) is in his house. Someone attaches the trigger to a nuclear bomb to his door such that he cannot leave the house without setting off the bomb. The bomb is hidden in a town somewhere. If it goes off, the man will be OK, but all the people in the town will die.

The first question is: is it wrong for the man to leave the house? Does he have to live the life of a shut-in for the sake of a bunch of people he doesn’t know? Would it matter if he knew them? Would it matter if the house was very comfortable or very uncomfortable?

The second question is: would it be wrong for someone from the town to bar his door from the outside?

I like the second question a lot. Most people would probably say that the guy shouldn’t leave his house. That destroying a town full of people so that you can go to the corner store is immoral. But can somebody else make that decision for him? It’s kind of like that anti-utilitarian story of the town where everybody is happy but this happiness is only possible if one person is tortured. If the torture were stopped, everybody would be unhappy. And most people would say that it isn’t right to torture one person so that everyone else can be happy. On that subject, I wonder if anyone has every asked whether it would be right for the one person to refuse to be tortured.

The hypothetical above could also be modified in many ways. You could add some uncertainty. The bomb may go off, but it may not. There is a bomb but it could be anywhere; including a remote mountain range or the middle of the ocean. The guy could have some special skill that is needed by society. Maybe he has the cure for cancer. Maybe he thinks he has the cure for cancer, but has to leave to test his theory. Maybe the man doesn’t know about the bomb and the town has to lock him up and can’t tell him why.

Brilliant TED video:

I’m out of shape. I know. But exercising with no goal doesn’t work for me. I need structure. So I found this website and decided to try it out: Two Hundred Situps. The goal is to be able to do 200 consecutive situps at the end of six weeks. I did the initial test and managed forty five. Puts me on the low end of average according to the US Military. I’ll still be out of shape at the end of this, but it’s a start.

I just really liked this picture.

Credit: Dave Muse

I really don’t like the outcome of this (old) case: Freddy Adu v. Frank Fushille. The complainant is some kind of soccer player or something. The respondent is a fan. The respondent registered a domain with the intent of starting a fan site. At some point, he contacted the soccer player’s manager and said he was making a fan site and was wondering if it could be the official site (presumably, the soccer player didn’t have an official site at that time). The manager sent back an offer to buy the domain. The guy didn’t want to just sell the domain though, he wanted to run the site. So they got into a discussion over that. Apparently, the respondent got carried away during negotiations and they fell through. The manager then files to have the domain transferred, using the negotiations as evidence of bad faith registration.

That’s just wrong.

Everybody has a price. If I were running an unofficial fansite for a celebrity and the celebrity offered me a million dollars for the domain I would probably take it. The celebrity should not be able to then turn around and say: ‘Aha! Bad faith!’. Negotiations initiated by the complainant shouldn’t be evidence of registration for the purpose of sale.