I got a bike!

So Anna and I went to the library so that she could pick up the book she put on reserve (Hunger Games, the one that Bridget reviewed here) and so that I could get some more books/movies. Anna and I have been wanting to start our own little family-simultaneous-literary-society-sessions (not a bookclub, mind you), and this one sounded cool to both of us. It is kind of like one of those cross-genre books, like Cormac McCarthy's stuff. His books are great and make me want to go ride a horse into Mexico. Maybe looking for a wolf. Or to get thrown into and escape from a filthy prison where I have to stab a man to save my own life. You should check them out Nathan. They are pretty sweet. He writes apocalyptic cowboy tragedies.
But at the library tonight I got some cool looking spy books and some documentaries. I'll let you know how they are. Probably not though.
Anyways, before we got to the car, the missionaries came back from tracting or whatever they do all day (we live right across the hall from the missionaries) and Elder H. says to me, he says:
"Hey Brother Lewis, do you want a bike?"
"Yes," I say, not believing my sweet luck.
It turns out some missionary left and didn't want to take his bike. It is an old steel frame Schwinn racing bike. It doesn't have a stem in front, so the handlebars are dangling by the brake cables, and there are no cranks or pedals, and no chainring, seat post or a seat, but those are not expensive and not hard to come by. What a sweet deal! I want to turn it into a nice singlespeed (freewheel, so you can coast like normal) with nice fenders and maybe a rear rack. Also, maybe I will get cool handlebars and get it looking so awesome.
I am very excited to get cracking on it. Considering tomorrow is my last day of classes this week, I got it just in time too. Lisa, I am sure you will be underwhelmed by it, but pretend to think it is super awesome when you see it.

I also wanted to bring up Bryan's blog today, found here.
I was thinking about it at school and I decided that it would be best to save the five people at the expense of the two rather than to let fate run its own course. Especially if the train was full. If it didn't have any people in it, maybe you could flip the switch only halfway so that the wheels hit both intersecting rails at the same time and it would derail the traincar over the tracks and not hit anyone. Well, according to the picture, it might hit that one fellow's head and sever the foot of the other. But I feel it is the best choice.
As far as the second scenario, I said that I thought it would be unethical to throw one bystander in front of the train to save either group tied down. I still think so, but I am having a hard time formulating a clear explanation for why. It has to do with involving someone who isn't already a victim. Creating a victim for the benefit of another stranger doesn't seem like it could really be ethical.

It would be like if there was a pipebomb in a theater showing previews of The Unborn that was going to kill 7 people, unless you hid it in someone's popcorn when they walked past and it would kill only them. Actually that is a dumb analogy. I still think the principle applies, but that one is just too weird.
Let's use the original scenario. A train is going to kill either 5 people on a track or 2 on the alternate track and you are at the switch, and you have that same bystander big enough that if you push him onto the tracks, it will kill him but stop the train. The bystander is not a part of the original peril, and so he should not be a part of the solution. It doesn't matter that you could save two people at the expense of one if the one shouldn't be a part of the situation. The people put at risk are already there and those are the only ones that should be dealt with. As the situation stands now, all of the evil is on the head of the mustachioed villain. If you take matters into your own hands and throw someone totally uninvolved onto the tracks, then I think that you have shouldered some of the responsibility for the evil too. Unless you threw yourself on the tracks. That seems ok ethically. I guess you would have to be pretty beefy though. I don't think you would be obligated to though. Maybe that's it! Neither you nor the other bulky bystander have any obligation to do anything, so to demand that Chubbs play a part (by nudging him to his doom) is unethical and evil.
It is like if there was a disease that was killing 50 people and you knew your friend's brain had the right kind of cells to cure them all. It is wrong to kill him and use his brain to cure the 50 other people, even if they were infected by an evil mustachioed villain, because he is not responsible for the lives of the others. If it were otherwise, life would be creepy like Fahrenheit 451 or 1984 or Logan's Run (worst movie ever).

That is why I defy you and your ethics, brother!
Bah!