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Ice Cream Car Crash

Two people in a car. A&B.

Arguing over who gets ice cream when they get to their destination.

To all kind souls and impartial observers, it’s extremely obvi that B deserves ice cream, a fact that has been made explicit since before the car even started. A’s claim to hog all the ice cream is unreasonable, petty, childish, out-of-the-blue, unfounded, meritless, selfish, destructive, illogical, rude, and wack.

Unfortunately, there aren’t any kind souls and impartial observers in the vehicle. The only people in the car with the power to settle it is A and B.

The car is heading towards a cliff. A or B could easily pull the handbrakes and stop the catastrophe.

Unfortunately, they’re all “You pull the brakes and I’ll get the ice cream” to each other. They’re all “I’d rather crash the car than give you a single lick of ice cream” to each other.

And then the car went over and crashed.

Now, I kinda see the car crash issue as somewhat separated from the ice cream’s rightful owner issue. I definitively am onboard with the fact that B should’ve gotten the ice cream, that’s not in question. The question is who crashed the car. You might be able to, maybe, possibly but I’m not sure, convince me that A is more guilty that the car crashed than B was. If it’s a question of degree.

But I’ll have this gnawing feeling that B could’ve kept that car on the road.

I can’t say I know any other way A and B could’ve settled their argument. A was being unreason incarnate. How can B possibly reason with that? There was no-one else in the car with them to settle it for them.

I also can’t say that B should’ve just given up. In this story, it’s “just ice cream” but the next time these dorks get in a car it might be a life-and-death issue. Medicine. Housing.

But if that car crash ends up causing a lot of pain, and they ask me who is to blame for the car going over... can I really say that B’s hands are completely clean? In the ice cream issue, yes, 100%, but in the car crash issue?

I know, I know, I’m so awful in how I can’t keep from picking at my “own side”, that most people realize that team affiliation should override right-and-wrong, that I just can’t grok that, that A is a selfish monster and B is a mensch, that it might seem like desperate measures but sometimes it’s got to be done.

And maybe that’s all well and good. They don’t have to worry, because it doesn’t matter what I think. I’ll sit here in my ivory tower backseat armchair and cook up these li’l analogies and hypotheticals and they’ll amount to nothing and maybe that’s fine.

Means vs Ends