Objection

In any literal sense this is true.

It is very much false, in any literal sense. When they count up the votes, they do not add third party votes to the other side. The argument you're actually trying to make (or should be trying to make, at least) is that, despite being false in a literal sense, it is true in a metaphorical or in a practical sense. Otherwise, you are just objectively wrong.

The argument that’s trying to be made but is being done poorly imo, is that if you aren’t helping to stop a party from winning by voting against them (and for the only other party capable of winning) then you are actively hurting the chances of said party being defeated. So in this case, not voting for harris, who is the only candidate opposing trump with a real world chance of winning, means that you are helping trump to win, because it’s one less vote to the party capable of beating him.

No, I'm not "hurting" Harris' chances. I'm just not helping them. I am not taking a vote away from Harris, if you wipe me away from existence, Harris doesn't have "one less vote" than she would have otherwise, she has the exact same number. So this is also wrong.

When they say you voting 3rd party is a vote for trump, it’s not literal.

You just said it was literal.

If you don’t help a cause, you hurt it. And the same goes for 3rd parties. If you don’t help them, you hurt them.

Categorically false. If someone on the other side of the world murders someone, and I did nothing to help the victim, did I hurt them? No, I just didn't help them. The baseline or zero-point is non-involvement.

In our FPTP system without ranked choice voting, when it comes to a federal presidential election, if you aren’t voting for a party that can actually win (even if they aren’t your first choice), then you are increasing the chances for their competition

Again, false. I'm not increasing the chances for their competition, I'm just not decreasing their chances.

Most people view it as if someone isn’t helping, they are hurting.

I have no idea if "most people" view it that way or not, but regardless, it's not how I view it and I don't think it's a reasonable way to view it.

I wouldn't be a Kamala supporter, so it doesn't benefit Trump. Glad we got that resolved.

It’s mathematically impossible for a third party candidate to win

Objectively false. If a third party candidate got the most votes, then they would win, so it is mathematically possible. I understand the video perfectly.

congrats, you have funded a party that can with absolute certainty accomplish nothing, woop de do.

Even if they accomplished nothing, I'd still rather my money go to them than to the government or either major party, all of which I oppose.

Voting always does that

Sorry, you asked "why vote at all if you're not going to vote strategically," so that's the question I was answering.

At the cost of benefitting the party you like the least

I'm not benefitting the party I like the least, I am only benefiting the party I vote for.

Why isn't it an option in this hypothetical? Is there a gun to my head?

I guess I'd either try to spoil my ballot, or just sit there with the pen in my hand until they either shoot me or leave me alone.

I don't believe in the ideology of lesser evilism. The refusal to hold politicians to any sort of standard whatsoever is a part of why we're in this situation in the first place.

I wouldn't. I'd stay home.

Ok, so now it's thrown away as opposed to being a vote for Trump.

There are several good reasons why voting third party is better than not voting. First, it is a self-fulfilling prophesy to say that a third party can't win, and that assumption is based on previous vote totals in previous elections, so the total in this election will affect conventional wisdom in future elections. Second, there are thresholds where even if a party doesn't win, they could be eligible for things like public election funding. Third, voting third party as opposed to not voting promotes political engagement, and can publicize organizations like PSL that are involved in things outside of elections. Fourth, voting third party tells politicians where you're politically aligned, and opens the door for the party to bargain with a major party and potentially being able to offer an endorsement in exchange for concessions.

It's not something "pretty much everyone agrees on." There's an entire branch of moral philosophy, deontology, that completely disagrees with pulling the lever in the original problem, but there's also plenty of other philosophies that could say the same, such as rule utilitarianism. Do not try to tell me I don't know basic ethics when you've never even heard of a major school of thought.

The entire purpose of the trolley problem is to highlight disagreements between different branches of moral philosophy, and to interrogate our moral intuitions. The fact that it seems better to pull the lever doesn't necessarily mean that it is better, especially when, as you mentioned, there are follow up to the thought experiment where the intuitive answer is the opposite.

No offense but an ethics professor who was in the CIA sounds like the setup to a bad joke, and I'd ask you to appreciate my restraint in not clowning on that. But if you were taught about the trolley problem in an ethics class, and the things I just said weren't mentioned, then you were taught poorly. The purpose of such a class is not to give you objective right-or-wrong answers, it's to inform you about a variety of perspectives and encourage you to identify and question your preconceived beliefs.