Striking down the mask mandate, the "trolley problem," and why law & philosophy are bullshit disciplines

 A federal judge struck down the TSA's mandate to wear masks on planes and public transportation, and as I now read the ruling, the ruling demonstrates not merely an ideological crusade against masks from the right, but something more fundamental.  As I regularly write, law is a bullshit discipline, with a core problem based on its undergraduate feeder-major, philosophy.  Philosophy is also a bullshit discipline.

Judge Mizelle claimed that masks do not count as "sanitation" under the 1944 statute because they do not actively clean anything, but merely prevent the spread of particulate matter and droplets.  Yes, that's right, a federal judge just made health policy on the basis of a strict interpretation of the deep, philosophical meaning of the trolley problem, which is bullshit navel-gazing.

For those who have managed to cleanse their brains of this worthless nonsense, the trolley problem goes as follows.  A train goes down a track, and if a switch is not pulled, it will hit and kill five people.  Hit the switch, and the train runs over one person.  But, you see, then you'd be actively killing one, and yes, fewer would die, but you'd actively be responsible.

Pull the switch, you navel-gazing dipshit.  Choice A kills five, Choice B kills one.  I'm an economist/game theorist.  (Technically, my doctorate is in political science, but methodologically, I'm a game theorist.)

Lemme throw some deep, complicated math at y'all.

1 < 5

Q. E. F. D.*

Choice A versus Choice B.  It does not matter one iota which you classify as "action" and which you classify as "inaction."  It is not as though you cease to be in either choice anyway.  Hit the switch, asshole.

The trolley problem is stupid, a waste of time, not at all deep, and a demonstration of why philosophers, lawyers, judges, and all associated fields can be reduced to an attempt to dress up simple questions as though they are complicated to justify bullshit.

Philosophy is a bullshit discipline, law is a bullshit discipline because they're basically just philosophers with paychecks, and judges are lawyers in stupid costumes.

Turtles all the way down, except that instead of turtles, it's bullshit.

And Mizelle just issued a ruling that masks don't count as sanitation because they prevent the spread of germs rather than killing germs.  This is a judge is just wrote a ruling based on the claim that pulling the lever is different from not pulling it, because one is action, and the other is not action, and that matters.  She bought into the premise of the trolley problem.  The premise which is a bullshit premise.

From my perspective, the value of the trolley problem is that it allows me to distinguish between those who can see how useless the problem is, and those who waste their time on such idiocy.

*The "F" stands for "fuckin'."  Didn't you take Latin?  Oh, wait.  That's Germanic.  That's why silly people pretend they're offended by it.