Diversity fails trolley dilemma: NY

Black man pushes Asian onto subway tracks. Indian man takes photo while Asian man dies and nobody helps. Diversity fails the simplest of trolley problems.


Subway photographer: R. Umar Abbasi interviewed by Today Show
R. Umar Abbasi , the man who captured the New York Post image of Ki-Suck Han, moments before he was killed by a subway train, went on the Today Show Wednesday morning to explain his side of the story.

Abbasi has been criticized after the photo was posted on the front page of the Post.

Many are asking: Why didn't the photographer help? Why did the newspaper publish the photo?

Abbasi said in the interview: "The only thing I could think of was to alert the driver with my camera flash."

He also added that those closer to Han should have helped. "Nobody made an effort," he said.
It's hard to tell whether anyone was close enough to help, but it's easy to imagine he died because of a failure of empathy.

File under: ethics in diversity.

2 comments:

  1. Not only did diversity fail the trolley problem but it CAUSED it in the first place! But you don't hear philosophers talking about THAT do you??

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  2. Yeah, good point. Philosophers are off in fairy land dealing with hypothetical trolley problems, while in reality, diversity is busy creating them. Philosophers need to meet Dr Robert Putnam and start dealing with reality.

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