The logic that nobody would ever die as long as nobody ever pulls falls through when you realize after 33 cycles you're risking the entire human population on the whims of a stranger and that irrational actors will always exist.
Cure for what? That's a fascist argument. I am not accusing you. Just wanted to inform. I was intellectualizing like that once: if all humans die, life on the planet would thrive, species that go extinct wouldn't be an issue we would only be seeing it as a product of the evolution of more biodiversity for sure...
Yet... A friend pointed out, that such disease is just a theorization and reality has shown that this kind of scenarios are lived in, for example, catastrophes. In those cases, the world ending event hits harder to the most vulnerable. Typically, the poorest fraction. Billionaire and other rich people will have resources, bunkers, time, and so on... They may even be saved.
And this is actually their agenda in, for example, climate change denialism and inaction.
That's one reason why elites don't care about the ecocide.
If the only people left alive were the cruelest, would they thrive? I know it seems unjust but we dont get upset that the dinosaurs once ruled the planet.
Personally, I think peoplle are corruptable. People arent inherently anything but circumstance plays a much bigger role. Essentially the most vulnerable people are just unlucky. Given the right luck they could only mirror the elite, not change their structure.
For the elite to see through the eyes of the homeless they would need to be made homeless and there is no other way.
Saying that people are corruptible doesn’t imply they are corrupt. Thankfully we live finite lives and plenty of us can make it to the end before we corrupt ourselves.
Given the right luck they could only mirror the elite, not change their structure.
This is quite literally pretending the Age of Enlightenment never existed. We can change structures and have throughout history.
Just a little more and every single particle in the universe will be on the tracks, and what the fuck would happen if every particle in the universe was split in twain? Let's assume it radiated outward from the center of the universe at the speed of light...
But I don't know if I trust literally infinite people. It might be better to kill one. Because unless you believe all humans are 100% willing to never kill someone then you're risking a number of deaths larger than 1. (Potentially much larger.)
Would they not simply be trapped tied to the tracks until a nonexistent remaining person makes a choice? Also you're trusting that 32nd person not to kill just under 5 billion people.
It's a thought experiment though, in the magical world where we could have all of humanity tied to rail road tracks by an omnipotent being, I don't assume there to be a finite number of people.
if the choice is always the same and it goes forever, then always choosing to pass means no one gets killed? unless you get to a little shit who breaks the trend
Yes. But it keeps going forever, and eventually some chaotic-evil person will kill choose to kill 2^43 people, which is a thousand times the world's population.
So if you the 32, you choice is to kill hall of the humanity, or be killed by the next person
Why does it feel like this is his is the choice we all have ?
I'd get it done and over with. I would resent myself forever, and accept any punishment for it, but it's better than waiting to see if someone wants to decide to kill off half the world later on. Would be even easier if I could take the first persons spot on the tracks so there only has to be one messed up person rather than two.
Schrödingers murder: You are both a murder and not a murder. You are not a murderer as you did not choose to kill a person, but as this can not continue forever you are also a murderer since it is quite certain that eventually someone will choose murder.
Legally speaking, I think the only legally correct (very much not morally) correct thing to do is absolutely nothing whatsoever.
You might be required to call the authorities, but given that either option in theory may eventually lead to the loss of life I think you'd be most safe legally, if you didn't touch a damn thing.
No, it's not. log_2 population is what, 33? 32 more people chicken out and we're either done with this or start killing people who were never born, which is ethically fine.
I think you should pull the lever, even if this ended after the entire human population was on the track and the experiment doesn't go on infinitely. Hear me out:
When a person pulls the lever with a chance of 50% and in one case they kill 2 people and in the other case 0, the kind of average outcome is 0.5 * 2 + (1 - 0.5) * 0 = 1. Now let's consider the last person in the chain of decision-makers. They would have 2^33 people on the tracks, or about the entire human population. To make the expected outcome be exactly one person, they'd have to pull the lever with likelihood x so that x * 2^33 + (1 - x) * 0 = 1 which would lead to x = 1/2^33 or about x≈0.0000000001. So only if the last person directs the train towards the people with less than this tiny chance, the expected outcome is smaller than 1. This chance is incredibly small, and far far smaller than I'd guess the actual percentage is. Think of the percentage of people that are psychopaths, or mass murderers, or maybe even just clumsy. If you evaluate the percentage as someone flipping that switch as anything above 1/2^33, you should therefore flip the switch yourself. You can guarantee that the outcome is 'only' one death, whereas the average outcome of just the last person likely exceeds 1 by a huge amount.
I really wanted to calculate the percentage so that the expected outcome is 1 even if every person in the chain flips the switch with that chance, but wolfram alphas character limit let me down :(
That was my assumption, yes. Because the last person would have the entire population on the tracks, and you can't really continue after that.
I neglected the intermediary likelihoods, because that calculation was too long for wolfram alpha, but I have since managed to get it working, and the conclusion is not significantly different. The expected number of deaths skyrockets, even if the chance of pulling the lever is tiny for every person.
The intermediary probabilities make it even worse, yes! But the overall probability is already ridiculously tiny, so I don't think it changes the conclusion by a lot.
The trolley problem thought experiment does a whole lot of work to define personal responsibility. IRL it's difficult to be the guy who does the evil thing for a good outcome, and easy to kick the can to the next guy, even while making it worse.
I wouldn’t. The likeliness of the next person choosing to kill even more people decreases fast with each iteration. And, I believe we can find 30 people who aren’t willing to become mass murderers pretty easily, even if they are selected randomly
I would, because the second track potentially scales to infinity, and pulling the lever is the only sure way to minimize the death and suffering.
Also, if everyone avoids pulling the lever, you technically have an infinite amount of people who will die and an infinite amount of guilty consciences, also an infinite amount of people blaming the last guy for forcing the decision on them, like the most messed up version of the infinity hotel.
Also, the infinity of people who die is also significantly larger and less quantifiable than the number of leaver guys.
But once you get to round 33 34, everyone on earth is tied to the track, so there's no one to pull the lever. That means that the trolley safely passes by, giving everyone ample time to free themselves. Eventually, the trolley stops due to friction with the track and air, plus brakes if it's using them, and then we all stop getting tied to tracks.
Also, I actually have my doubts that the trolley could get through 8 000 000 000 people before stopping due to the resistance, so at least some people should be fine.
"double it and give it to the next person" was sort of a trend with street interview type content. Like "Do you want a cookie or double it and give it to the next person." Then the second would be "Do you want two cookies or double it and give it to the next person?" Eventually someone takes the cookies. It wasn't cookies necessarily, sometimes money, sometimes other trinkets, whatever.
The optimal solution to the trolley problem is always the one that makes the least sense because the more chaos injected into any system the less predictable the results will be.
So I pull it, kill the other person at the second lever, and drag throw the person from the first set of tracks to the place where the train switches tracks. wrench the lever free from the top part and place it on the tracks where the train would switch too.
How far down the line before you wouldn't be able to pull the trigger? Everyone here assumes we're at the start of the line, rather than just getting picked up midway through. Not sure where I'd be able to call that myself though....
You try to save them all by tackling the guy on the second track. The train is 400m from the wye in the track but 375m from the point the second person can decide to flip the switch. You are 270m from the second person. The train travels at a steady 15m/s. You start running at an acceleration of 0.5m/s/s. Can you tackle the second person to prevent them from flipping the switch? Assume flipping the switch means killing the poor tied up folks.
Yes but that is literally the opposite of the premise I presented. That's how it's normally seen, but this is just fun and dumb high school physics question. K thx bai
The real ethical question here is, is there only one round of trolleys?
Because if this is a one and done question, then obviously I go for the one person.
But if it's possible at any point somebody comes along and has to run the experiment again after me, then if I leave an infinitely expanding number on one side, all it would take is one sadistic person to wipe out a incalculable amount of life.
In which case, I take the track with two people. And again, it is a question of repetition whether or not doing it once means that it won't happen next time or if this will continue with every cycle.
A interesting twist would be that you're held accountable for the death(s) when you pull the lever. Would you risk life in prison to stop the death toll from doubling?
It would sit well with my conscience that I likely prevented a worse fate for exponentially more people, and prevented another person from having to make a worse choice. Which they themselves would likely only make twice as worse, and so on. I could live with that.
What I'm not sure of is how I would handle being a deicision-maker N steps down the line. Being the first guy, sure. The 16th? I dunno.
Easy choice. Everyone could just leave right now and nobody would die. If someone actively decides to kill people, that's not on anyone who chose not to themselves.
106 Comments
Sibshops@lemmy.myserv.one · 67 pts · 303d
Honestly I would. Like I wouldn't hesitate to kill patient zero of a world ending disease.
Zwiebel@feddit.org · 61 pts · 303d
But then it isn't a world ending desease, you just killed somebody
Steve@startrek.website · 21 pts · 303d
The use of a time machine is implied in these situations
bampop@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 303d
Kill the person who invented the trolley problem. It's the only way to be sure
ZoteTheMighty@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 303d
If you killed patient 0, then it wasn't a world ending disease either.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 303d
The logic that nobody would ever die as long as nobody ever pulls falls through when you realize after 33 cycles you're risking the entire human population on the whims of a stranger and that irrational actors will always exist.
It becomes not if but when.
Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 303d
Maybe a world ending disease is the cure... just looking around.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 303d
This guy is the perfect example of why we cannot trust somebody won't pull the lever.
Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 0 pts · 302d
Youre right but for the wrong reason. Id pull it thinking it was going one way and it would go the other.
anzo@programming.dev · 1 pts · 303d
Cure for what? That's a fascist argument. I am not accusing you. Just wanted to inform. I was intellectualizing like that once: if all humans die, life on the planet would thrive, species that go extinct wouldn't be an issue we would only be seeing it as a product of the evolution of more biodiversity for sure...
Yet... A friend pointed out, that such disease is just a theorization and reality has shown that this kind of scenarios are lived in, for example, catastrophes. In those cases, the world ending event hits harder to the most vulnerable. Typically, the poorest fraction. Billionaire and other rich people will have resources, bunkers, time, and so on... They may even be saved.
And this is actually their agenda in, for example, climate change denialism and inaction.
That's one reason why elites don't care about the ecocide.
Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 302d
If the only people left alive were the cruelest, would they thrive? I know it seems unjust but we dont get upset that the dinosaurs once ruled the planet.
Personally, I think peoplle are corruptable. People arent inherently anything but circumstance plays a much bigger role. Essentially the most vulnerable people are just unlucky. Given the right luck they could only mirror the elite, not change their structure.
For the elite to see through the eyes of the homeless they would need to be made homeless and there is no other way.
arendjr@programming.dev · 1 pts · 302d
Saying that people are corruptible doesn’t imply they are corrupt. Thankfully we live finite lives and plenty of us can make it to the end before we corrupt ourselves.
This is quite literally pretending the Age of Enlightenment never existed. We can change structures and have throughout history.
Daft_ish@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 302d
I can be swayed but not until I see real results that can be applied in the current landscape.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world · 39 pts · 303d
2^32^ is roughly four billion. We'll need one or two more doublings to get every last person alive on the tracks.
This introduces a new wrinkle in the experiment: all the switch operators are also tied to the track. Somewhere.
BanMe@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 303d
Just a little more and every single particle in the universe will be on the tracks, and what the fuck would happen if every particle in the universe was split in twain? Let's assume it radiated outward from the center of the universe at the speed of light...
Pudutr0n@feddit.cl · 4 pts · 303d
so umm if it was every particle, what would be hitting it?
Don't say my mom.Tja@programming.dev · 3 pts · 303d
Your mom.
Pudutr0n@feddit.cl · 4 pts · 303d
ಠ__ಠ
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 303d
My god, we've figured it out.
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 300d
Paging Mr. Munroe...
blahblahblah@lemmy.zip · 38 pts · 303d
Do you know any of the people involved?
edinbruh@feddit.it · 95 pts · 303d
at the 33rd round you do
Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca · 17 pts · 303d
NichEherVielleicht@feddit.org · 15 pts · 303d
Finally a life without shame.
kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 13 pts · 303d
Not quite. Round 33 will have 2^32 people, or a bit over half the population of Earth. Remember, round 1 has one person, 2^(0), not 2^(1).
bryndos@fedia.io · 3 pts · 303d
How many rounds until the first switch operator is on the tracks?
Lemmyoutofhere@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 303d
edinbruh@feddit.it · 8 pts · 303d
NichEherVielleicht@feddit.org · 21 pts · 303d
If you are number 32 the chance is 50/50
WalrusDragonOnABike@reddthat.com · 11 pts · 303d
How do you know blahblahblah only knows one person? Are you that one person?
NichEherVielleicht@feddit.org · 8 pts · 303d
50/50
Grostleton@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 10 pts · 303d
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 303d
What's wrong with you, don't you know 4 billion people
Kanda@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 303d
Just keep doubling until max_int and segfault reality
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 303d
As long as everyone doubles there will be no deaths.
ThePyroPython@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 303d
Why do I get the feeling this kind of logic is used by modern day economists to justify inflation?
JackbyDev@programming.dev · 24 pts · 303d
But I don't know if I trust literally infinite people. It might be better to kill one. Because unless you believe all humans are 100% willing to never kill someone then you're risking a number of deaths larger than 1. (Potentially much larger.)
howrar@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 303d
No need to trust infinite people. You just need to get past 33 forks before you run out of people to operate the switch or to be tied to the tracks.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 303d
Would they not simply be trapped tied to the tracks until a nonexistent remaining person makes a choice? Also you're trusting that 32nd person not to kill just under 5 billion people.
WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 303d
The last person does not get to choose, 5 billion people just die
JackbyDev@programming.dev · 4 pts · 302d
It's a thought experiment though, in the magical world where we could have all of humanity tied to rail road tracks by an omnipotent being, I don't assume there to be a finite number of people.
killeronthecorner@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 303d
When we are all strapped to the tracks, who will decide?
BananaOnionJuice@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 21 pts · 303d
Sounds like what we have been doing with the environment.
ragingHungryPanda@piefed.keyboardvagabond.com · 17 pts · 303d
if the choice is always the same and it goes forever, then always choosing to pass means no one gets killed? unless you get to a little shit who breaks the trend
Limonene@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 303d
Yes. But it keeps going forever, and eventually some chaotic-evil person will kill choose to kill 2^43 people, which is a thousand times the world's population.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social · 16 pts · 302d
You didn't kill that person, the person who invented the problem did.
Philosophy is easy.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 303d
How fast is the train going can I make it to the person who's tied down and lay with them
Valmond@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 303d
Maybe there is nobody tied up after the third split, nobody explicitly stated it continues!
Lucky_777@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 303d
You'll eventually have to include alien life. What a great way to see if aliens exist!
This is also Thanos wet dream come true. Keep racking up the "pass"!
Siegfried@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 302d
After person 33 there won't be any more humans to tie to the rails
Edit: which was pointed more subtly by OP in the title
menas@lemmy.wtf · 2 pts · 302d
So if you the 32, you choice is to kill hall of the humanity, or be killed by the next person Why does it feel like this is his is the choice we all have ?
answersplease77@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 302d
no, this means you already saved half. unless someone was untying the people from previous track then re-tie them again to be killed?
InnerScientist@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 302d
Maybe it's a loop?
RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz · 12 pts · 303d
Everyone just doubles it and we're good
Xenny@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 303d
That's kind of how it feels like living in the modern age to be honest. We're just doubling it until somebody decides to pull the lever.
Pudutr0n@feddit.cl · 1 pts · 303d
What could possibly go wrong?
Daddy needs a new pair of multi-billion dollar AI startup Equity!
VinnyDaCat@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 303d
I'd get it done and over with. I would resent myself forever, and accept any punishment for it, but it's better than waiting to see if someone wants to decide to kill off half the world later on. Would be even easier if I could take the first persons spot on the tracks so there only has to be one messed up person rather than two.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 303d
In recognition of your heroic sacrifice, I volunteer to pull the switch to send the train to run over you.
MTK@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 303d
Schrödingers murder: You are both a murder and not a murder. You are not a murderer as you did not choose to kill a person, but as this can not continue forever you are also a murderer since it is quite certain that eventually someone will choose murder.
Inucune@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 303d
Can you murder through innaction? By not pulling the lever, you haven't changed the system.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 303d
Yes. You can. If you are responsible for pulling a lever to stop people from dying, and you don't, that sounds very murdery to me
Tja@programming.dev · 2 pts · 303d
IANAL, but not in the legal definition of murder...
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 303d
Legally speaking, I think the only legally correct (very much not morally) correct thing to do is absolutely nothing whatsoever.
You might be required to call the authorities, but given that either option in theory may eventually lead to the loss of life I think you'd be most safe legally, if you didn't touch a damn thing.
monk@lemmy.unboiled.info · 1 pts · 295d
No, it's not. log_2 population is what, 33? 32 more people chicken out and we're either done with this or start killing people who were never born, which is ethically fine.
Sibbo@sopuli.xyz · 8 pts · 303d
What happens if you are both to be killed and must flip the switch?
xxd@discuss.tchncs.de · 8 pts · 303d
I think you should pull the lever, even if this ended after the entire human population was on the track and the experiment doesn't go on infinitely. Hear me out:
When a person pulls the lever with a chance of 50% and in one case they kill 2 people and in the other case 0, the kind of average outcome is
0.5 * 2 + (1 - 0.5) * 0 = 1. Now let's consider the last person in the chain of decision-makers. They would have 2^33 people on the tracks, or about the entire human population. To make the expected outcome be exactly one person, they'd have to pull the lever with likelihoodxso thatx * 2^33 + (1 - x) * 0 = 1which would lead tox = 1/2^33or aboutx≈0.0000000001. So only if the last person directs the train towards the people with less than this tiny chance, the expected outcome is smaller than 1. This chance is incredibly small, and far far smaller than I'd guess the actual percentage is. Think of the percentage of people that are psychopaths, or mass murderers, or maybe even just clumsy. If you evaluate the percentage as someone flipping that switch as anything above1/2^33, you should therefore flip the switch yourself. You can guarantee that the outcome is 'only' one death, whereas the average outcome of just the last person likely exceeds 1 by a huge amount.I really wanted to calculate the percentage so that the expected outcome is 1 even if every person in the chain flips the switch with that chance, but wolfram alphas character limit let me down :(
LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 303d
xxd@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 303d
That was my assumption, yes. Because the last person would have the entire population on the tracks, and you can't really continue after that.
I neglected the intermediary likelihoods, because that calculation was too long for wolfram alpha, but I have since managed to get it working, and the conclusion is not significantly different. The expected number of deaths skyrockets, even if the chance of pulling the lever is tiny for every person.
LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 302d
xxd@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 302d
That's exactly right, you got it!
The intermediary probabilities make it even worse, yes! But the overall probability is already ridiculously tiny, so I don't think it changes the conclusion by a lot.
LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 298d
Credibly_Human@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 303d
They choose between half the whole population and the whole population (very roughly as it aligns alongside exponents of 2)
LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 303d
Pudutr0n@feddit.cl · 1 pts · 303d
Wait, we were supposed to figure out how to get less ppl ran over?
elephantium@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 303d
Reading this analysis, I think it's all but guaranteed that the person at the switch on the last step is Davros.
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 303d
The trolley problem thought experiment does a whole lot of work to define personal responsibility. IRL it's difficult to be the guy who does the evil thing for a good outcome, and easy to kick the can to the next guy, even while making it worse.
Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 303d
I wouldn’t. The likeliness of the next person choosing to kill even more people decreases fast with each iteration. And, I believe we can find 30 people who aren’t willing to become mass murderers pretty easily, even if they are selected randomly
OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml · 4 pts · 303d
Except for the fact it goes on infinitely, and somebody will eventually choose to kill
Arcane2077@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 303d
Except for the fact that nuh uh. Persons are finite
this@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 303d
I would, because the second track potentially scales to infinity, and pulling the lever is the only sure way to minimize the death and suffering.
Also, if everyone avoids pulling the lever, you technically have an infinite amount of people who will die and an infinite amount of guilty consciences, also an infinite amount of people blaming the last guy for forcing the decision on them, like the most messed up version of the infinity hotel.
Also, the infinity of people who die is also significantly larger and less quantifiable than the number of leaver guys.
kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 7 pts · 303d
But once you get to round
3334, everyone on earth is tied to the track, so there's no one to pull the lever. That means that the trolley safely passes by, giving everyone ample time to free themselves. Eventually, the trolley stops due to friction with the track and air, plus brakes if it's using them, and then we all stop getting tied to tracks.thebestaquaman@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 303d
Also, I actually have my doubts that the trolley could get through 8 000 000 000 people before stopping due to the resistance, so at least some people should be fine.
ShouldIHaveFun@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 303d
The trolley will probably stop before you reach infinity luckily
thatradomguy@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 303d
Is this some kind of IPv6 joke that's gone over my head?
JackbyDev@programming.dev · 4 pts · 303d
"double it and give it to the next person" was sort of a trend with street interview type content. Like "Do you want a cookie or double it and give it to the next person." Then the second would be "Do you want two cookies or double it and give it to the next person?" Eventually someone takes the cookies. It wasn't cookies necessarily, sometimes money, sometimes other trinkets, whatever.
krooklochurm@lemmy.ca · 6 pts · 303d
The optimal solution to the trolley problem is always the one that makes the least sense because the more chaos injected into any system the less predictable the results will be.
So I pull it, kill the other person at the second lever, and drag throw the person from the first set of tracks to the place where the train switches tracks. wrench the lever free from the top part and place it on the tracks where the train would switch too.
Fucked if I know what the outcome is.
Jumuta@sh.itjust.works · 5 pts · 303d
at some point you run of people to man the switch and prevent the trolley from hitting the people?
ChanchoManco@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 303d
I would set it up in a way that all the people is tied in the main track, so if there's no one to flip the switch we all die.
AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 303d
I woukd kill the poor guy without hesitation. I am not letting that shit get out of hand.
Passerby6497@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 303d
How far down the line before you wouldn't be able to pull the trigger? Everyone here assumes we're at the start of the line, rather than just getting picked up midway through. Not sure where I'd be able to call that myself though....
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 303d
If we get to where everyone is tied up, no one can pull the lever
Taleya@aussie.zone · 5 pts · 303d
Do i get to choose the person i kill?
Frenchgeek@lemmy.ml · 2 pts · 303d
And how I kill them?
MeThisGuy@feddit.nl · 2 pts · 302d
easy there killer
OldChicoAle@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 303d
You try to save them all by tackling the guy on the second track. The train is 400m from the wye in the track but 375m from the point the second person can decide to flip the switch. You are 270m from the second person. The train travels at a steady 15m/s. You start running at an acceleration of 0.5m/s/s. Can you tackle the second person to prevent them from flipping the switch? Assume flipping the switch means killing the poor tied up folks.
I dunno. I just made up numbers though.
Smokeless7048@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 303d
I assume if they DON'T flip it, it gets passed yo the next guy with 4 people tied to the track.
33junctions down the road, and it's the population of the earth tied down.
OldChicoAle@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 302d
Yes but that is literally the opposite of the premise I presented. That's how it's normally seen, but this is just fun and dumb high school physics question. K thx bai
iii@mander.xyz · 1 pts · 302d
Or ask the train driver to stop
marcos@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 303d
With everybody tied up before the 34th track, who exactly is there to push the lever?
NichEherVielleicht@feddit.org · 6 pts · 303d
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 303d
Agrajag would never
NichEherVielleicht@feddit.org · 2 pts · 303d
But he is the reincarnation...
elephantium@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 303d
More to the point, if everyone is tied up at that point, who tied them up?
Aetherion@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 303d
Endless regress here we go
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz · 3 pts · 302d
Easy, kill the first person.
ocassionallyaduck@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 303d
The real ethical question here is, is there only one round of trolleys?
Because if this is a one and done question, then obviously I go for the one person.
But if it's possible at any point somebody comes along and has to run the experiment again after me, then if I leave an infinitely expanding number on one side, all it would take is one sadistic person to wipe out a incalculable amount of life.
In which case, I take the track with two people. And again, it is a question of repetition whether or not doing it once means that it won't happen next time or if this will continue with every cycle.
Sunschein@piefed.social · 2 pts · 303d
A interesting twist would be that you're held accountable for the death(s) when you pull the lever. Would you risk life in prison to stop the death toll from doubling?
dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 303d
It would sit well with my conscience that I likely prevented a worse fate for exponentially more people, and prevented another person from having to make a worse choice. Which they themselves would likely only make twice as worse, and so on. I could live with that.
What I'm not sure of is how I would handle being a deicision-maker N steps down the line. Being the first guy, sure. The 16th? I dunno.
pewpew@feddit.it · 2 pts · 303d
Well... If I could double it forever eventually it will run out of people to run over
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today · 2 pts · 303d
We'll have matrix-style human farms producing people for the tracks.
pewpew@feddit.it · 1 pts · 302d
Then these are clearly not real people. You can escape the matrix now
samus12345@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 303d
Easy choice. Everyone could just leave right now and nobody would die. If someone actively decides to kill people, that's not on anyone who chose not to themselves.