[HN Gopher] Absurd Trolley Problems
___________________________________________________________________
Absurd Trolley Problems
Author : sebg
Score : 1165 points
Date : 2022-07-06 03:04 UTC (19 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (neal.fun)
(TXT) w3m dump (neal.fun)
| farzher wrote:
| the answers are more absurd than the questions
| Others wrote:
| I feel like this is easier if you're a non-lever-puller. If you
| think it's wrong to pull the lever if it causes anyone's death
| who wasn't dying anyway, then most of these are easy.
|
| Except the "you can't see the track" one I suppose :P
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Easier but more people die.
| dx034 wrote:
| I think it's never right to pull the lever, unless there aren't
| any humans on the other track. I'd sacrifice an animal or
| objects, but people should never be sacrificed for other
| people, unless they actively choose to.
| mperdemata wrote:
| For me, pulling and not pulling the lever are the same. Both
| are actions. So I have to choose one of them.
| Hayarotle wrote:
| Extreme situation that could be a counterexample to your
| claim:
|
| Dr. Evil is 90 years old and is going to die in a week. He is
| almost ready to release a bomb that will torture kill half of
| the world population. If you pull the lever Dr. Evil will die
| today and you will save all those people. You are the only
| one who can pull the lever. Do you pull the lever, or do you
| stick to your principle of not sacrificing other people who
| don't want to be sacrificed?
| implements wrote:
| "You can't treat another person as a means to an end in way
| that denies their fundamental human dignity" is how the
| principle was explained to me.
|
| https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/German_Constitutional_Court_pro.
| ..
|
| "The court also found that the act [shooting down hijacked
| plane] is incompatible with the constitutional right to life
| and the human dignity. The act would turn passengers and crew
| of a hijacked plane, victims themselves, into "objects" - not
| only to the terrorists, but also to the state, which does not
| have the authority to kill innocents. If their deaths would
| be used to save others they would be reduced to mere "things"
| at the pleasure of the state. Further, the court believes
| that the arguments of the federal government, saying that
| passengers in such a situation would die anyway, are invalid,
| as human lives deserve protection regardless of the expected
| duration of their existence and that it is impossible to
| fully assess the situation leading to an eventual invocation
| of the act."
| [deleted]
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| From an ethical point of view, the biggest problem for me was
| when there were two bad choices to be weighted against each
| other, e.g. 1 person on a track dies against 5 persons on the
| other track. In most of these cases, I "did nothing" - because I
| don't want to play god and I knew where this leads: There are
| ethical edge cases that I definitly do not want to think about. I
| am not super convinced about this in hindsight: E.g. Triages
| exist in hospitals to help doctors find the least worse outcome
| among many bad options. Most, this involves metrics such as
| number of dead patients, or number of lived years lost (e.g.
| prefer to safe children before elderly).
| shadowgovt wrote:
| My mental framing of situations like this is "One shouldn't
| play god. If expecting to be faced with choices about life and
| death, one should prepare. Get very, very good at the god job."
|
| We humans have outsized impact on the world around us. Often,
| we don't get the luxury of no-choice. Not if we want to survive
| ourselves.
|
| (One variant I've never seen is "You realized that creating a
| system of moving multi-ton vehicles at street level over long
| distances at moderate speeds could result in fatal collisions.
| Do you refrain from inventing trolleys?").
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > I am not super convinced about this in hindsight
|
| Yeah, trolley problems are a philosophical tool to help work
| out the ethical edge cases for situations like the example you
| gave.
|
| Though they can be a distraction by reducing to the wrong bad
| choices. When trolley problems became mainstream because of
| looming spectre of self-driving cars, the example of "should
| the car drive off the bridge and kill the driver rather than
| hitting a child on the bridge" was making the rounds. I was
| always on the side of "I don't care if, in this absurdly rare
| case, the car decides to run over the kid AND then drive off
| the bridge because human car drivers kill more the 30000 people
| a year in North America alone".
|
| And, as aside, ahhhhh, remember those days of our biggest
| problem being that self-driving cars were about to own the
| streets and put thousands of truck drivers out of work.
| beeboop wrote:
| If you were driving a car that was plowing into a crowd of
| people, who you try to steer it towards the less crowded area
| that is still hitting people? Or just merrily let the car plow
| through the thickest part of the crowd? I find it hard to
| believe you wouldn't make the active choice to steer it away.
| hackerlight wrote:
| > I "did nothing" - because I don't want to play god
|
| I can't understand this perspective. Deciding not to pull the
| lever is a decision that you've made. You are "playing god" all
| the same if you decide to sit there and not pull the lever.
| There is no ethically important distinction that comes about by
| the mere fact that physical movement is necessitated by one of
| the decisions versus the other decision. If the framing of the
| question changes from lever-pulling to "you must press either
| button A or B", and that re-framing causes you to make a
| different decision, then I question the ethical assumptions
| going into the decision making. The ethical core of the trolley
| problem is that you're asked to choose whether you prefer one
| outcome versus another -- the precise physical movements you
| must carry out (jumping jacks, lever-pulling, blinking, button-
| pressing, or just sitting still) to lock-in a particular
| decision are irrelevant.
| cainxinth wrote:
| > Deciding not to pull the lever is a decision that you've
| made.
|
| Agreed. This isn't a choice between making a decision or not
| making one. It's a choice between two difficult decisions.
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| I agree, but how do you decide e.g. if there's one disabled
| person on a track, and one not disabled on the other? It's
| that I don't want to make these decision (and luckily, I am
| not forced - I didn't design this game, I did not put the
| people on the track in the first case - I can decide not to
| play the game, and in reality, I can always ask "Is there
| perhaps option C that saves both?").
| pawelmurias wrote:
| The core ethical point of the trolly problem is that you have
| to take an action. In real world scenarios there are most
| often significant distinctions between taking an action and
| refusing to take one.
| hackerlight wrote:
| The physical action is a red herring under a moral system
| that takes consequentialism seriously. The trolley problem
| shines a light on this red herring.
|
| Firstly, whichever decision you make, you have to take a
| real physical action. Suppose you decide not to pull the
| lever. You still have autonomic arousal, neurons are
| firing, your prefrontal cortex is inhibiting you from
| pulling the lever just for laughs, and so on. _Lots_ of
| atoms had to move around to come to that decision, which
| you would label as "inaction". I disagree, it is action.
| Only a minority of caloric expenditure is associated with
| the actual lever being pulled. Not that this really
| matters, anyway, given that the outcome is what's ethically
| important.
|
| Secondly, you should consider the consequences of thinking
| that pulling the lever somehow matters ethically. That
| means that in certain edge cases, you're surrendering the
| choice of who lives and who dies to the arbitrary whims of
| the experimenter. If I was a malicious experimenter, I
| could maximize the number of dead people by just jury
| rigging the allocations. If your ethical framework leads to
| a situation where a maximum number of people die, I would
| argue that there's some faulty ethical reasoning there.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| I do not understand why so many people would let the trolly
| destroy their fortune to save 5 random people. Why would I ever
| care about 5 random people?
| lacerrr wrote:
| Because of empathy I guess? I can go on living perfectly fine
| without my savings ("fortune"), without losing any quality of
| life really. So if I can make the lives of five people's
| families and loved ones better, why wouldn't I?
| RugnirViking wrote:
| Not everyone has much of a fortune. In fact many people have
| net debt
| SpEd3Y wrote:
| Cause most likely they will be thankful and reward you
| financially and in the long term you might get your fortune
| back and then some. You have to play the long game! xD
| NKosmatos wrote:
| Neal makes some great and funny pages with great visualizations,
| but being a data freak I'd like to see more statistics. It would
| be great if we had a summary page where all questions and
| detailed results would be presented, even better with a
| distribution showing time taken, to see how "easy" each decision
| was :-)
| Xcelerate wrote:
| There's only one of them that really gave me a lot of pause. 5
| elderly people or one baby? Not necessarily that specific problem
| itself, but the Sorites paradox that is implied.
|
| What about 5 elderly people with one day of natural life left vs
| one baby with an expected lifespan of 100 years? Are we trying to
| maximize total time of human life? What if it's low quality time
| though? 1,000,000 elderly people that had one hour left to live
| or one baby?
| lelag wrote:
| I think the baby is the logical choice for utility
| maximisation: he still has a chance to develop in anything,
| maybe he could become the next Einstein or save the world. But
| the 5 elderly's contributions to society are probably over,
| however large those had been during their time.
| moffkalast wrote:
| From a societal standpoint it's a no brainer, 5 drains on
| resources vs. 1 future contributor.
| zamadatix wrote:
| 56, that was quite fun. Pre-corporate internet vibes. It'd be
| cool if there were a way to see a one page view of the stats at
| the end (and where you fit with each) instead of having to redo
| to see again.
| hsnewman wrote:
| I chose to do nothing as doing so keeps you from being activly
| involved in the death of a person.
| themapsmith wrote:
| "Pull the lever, Crunk" kept playing in my head whenever I chose
| to pull it
| zuhayeer wrote:
| Naturally decided to check out the author's home page:
| https://neal.fun/
|
| Super cool projects and visualizations, particularly really
| enjoyed https://neal.fun/deep-sea/ and https://neal.fun/printing-
| money/
| antiterra wrote:
| These trolley problems are the stuff of nightmares wherein one
| becomes a world leader.
|
| If all outcomes are horrible, then your lever pulls or inactions
| will always be subject to valid condemnation. If you take a risk,
| you are judged by the outcome, not whether your choice was a good
| calculation.
| McBeige wrote:
| The stuff of nightmares, or an encouragement of bravery to do
| the right thing regardless of the ambiguousnes and uncertainty?
|
| A bit of both, for me.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| There is one person in front of the trolley, and five people on
| the side track. But nobody knows that you saw the five people,
| and there's video of you noticing the one person.
| brewdad wrote:
| My kid, college aged, scored lower than me by simply saying
| "not my problem". Says a lot about bystander syndrome.
| darepublic wrote:
| Can't believe how many people would prefer condemning passengers
| to an eternal trolley ride than explode them. True evil right
| there
| atq2119 wrote:
| Eh, I decided not to blow them up because the notion of perfect
| knowledge is foolish. Those folks have an eternity to figure
| out how to stop the trolley or jump out. They'll manage.
|
| Also: I'm not going to presume that I have the right to take
| such an important choice away from them. If they tell me to
| pull the lever I will, but not before.
| McBeige wrote:
| That's just a description of normal life though. We must
| imagine trolleyphus happy.
|
| Unless "eternal" means immortality, in which case it's even
| _better_ than life!
| templaedhel wrote:
| This feels like a great introduction to the "Lizardman's
| constant" (https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-
| results-and...)
|
| > Lizardman's Constant is an idea proposed by Scott Alexander
| that each poll always has about 4% weird answers. In one poll, 4%
| of Americans said that reptilian people do control our world and,
| in another 4% answered 'Yes' to the question 'Have you ever been
| decapitated?'
| mediumdeviation wrote:
| That's strangely a whole 3 percentage points higher than the
| number of Americans who self identify as 'evil' (on the D&D
| alignment chart) - see 4:47 at
| https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/where-americans-fall-
| on-t..., although at this point we're probably well within
| polling margin of error.
| c3534l wrote:
| I selected kill people over have my Amazon packages being late,
| but then I felt guilty about it and answered seriously in the
| rest of them.
| moffkalast wrote:
| You fool, Amazon will refund you the cost because it's late
| and you'll get your package in a few days regardless. You
| threw away a lifetime of free Amazon stuff!
|
| Well, until they ban you that is I guess.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Kill count of 81 ... too low.
| s0teri0s wrote:
| I think if you choose the option to kill 5 people 100 years from
| now, that 5 should not be part of your total kill count, because
| those people won't be dead for 100 years. In fact, it is possible
| you could commission a brick wall to be built somehow in front of
| the portal opening at the other end to divert the trolley in
| time, sparing those people, since the future (in my opinion) is
| not certain.
| SpEd3Y wrote:
| But what if in 100 years most of humanity dies, all that's left
| is a group of 5 survivors that took shelter in a trolley
| station. Then all of the sudden a trolley appears out of thin
| air and kills all 5 of them? You would be the man/woman that
| ended human race :)
| s0teri0s wrote:
| Ya lays down yer money and ya takes yer chances.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| I think trolley problems are mostly linguistic. Take this
| wording: "Oh no! A trolley is careening into a crowd! Should I
| try to turn it so it goes through the sparsest part of the
| crowd?" I think most people -- by a wide margin -- would say yes,
| because it's worded as still hitting the same thing, just hitting
| it in a way that does less damage, and we feel differently about
| that than hitting a different thing, "this guy" instead of "those
| guys".
| DoughnutHole wrote:
| That's not really just a difference of language, it's a
| different situation from the base trolley problem. You're
| describing a realistic situation where the potential outcomes
| are fuzzy and you're just trying to minimise the probability of
| damage. The base problem is binary - _definitely_ let 5 people
| die or _definitely_ deliberately kill 1 person.
|
| If you believe the probabilistic and discrete versions of the
| problem are the same that just means you fall into the
| utilitarian camp when it comes to this thought experiment, and
| believe that the outcome is the only thing that matters.
| gwd wrote:
| https://www.existentialcomics.com/comic/106
| jeffrallen wrote:
| This is worth playing through just for the win screen! :)
| pwpw wrote:
| I thought it could have expanded more on animal sentience. Maybe
| someone can come up with better examples, but my examples would
| be:
|
| - A trolley is heading towards 20 puppies. Do you pull the lever
| to divert it towards one person?
|
| - A trolley is heading towards 20 pigs. Do you pull the lever to
| divert it towards one person?
|
| - A trolley is heading towards one person. Do you pull the lever
| to divert it towards your healthy pet dog that you consider as a
| family member?
|
| I think the responses would be insightful.
| [deleted]
| langitbiru wrote:
| Well, in China they ask this trolley problem.
|
| If you were a son, would you save your mother or your gf?
|
| The "correct answer" is your mother.
|
| "China's ministry of justice later posted the "correct" answer:
| exam writers are duty-bound to save their mothers. It would be a
| "crime of non-action" to choose romantic love over filial duty. "
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-34377611
| Ekaros wrote:
| From Western perspective that might seem strange.
|
| But I think this trolley test might be extended to pull a lever
| to kill man instead of a woman. Which to I think we have some
| very sad notions of equality...
| tgv wrote:
| They're not equal. E.g., if you value the survival of our
| species, the average woman is worth more than the average
| man. But if you worry about overpopulation, it's the other
| way around. These problems are simply too artificial to make
| any meaningful distinction.
| stewbrew wrote:
| WRT #4: How am I supposed to pull the lever when I'm tied to the
| rails?
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| Your arms aren't tied.
| stewbrew wrote:
| Yes, but if I could stand up to pull the lever that's meters
| away, I wouldn't be in the position to ask myself what to do.
| Cloudef wrote:
| I will not act as a god and divert the fate, thus I always choose
| not to pull the lever
| anthonypasq wrote:
| maybe God put you there to save someone?
| Cloudef wrote:
| Then they put in the wrong person :D
| Tepix wrote:
| It blamed you for 91 deaths in the end regardless.
|
| If you see someone about to step onto the road and get killed,
| will you also not do anything?
| Cloudef wrote:
| In that case I would stop them, but trolley problem is more
| convoluted. If I do something I'll need to take
| responsibility, if I don't do anything the trolley company
| has to take the responsibility. Related:
| https://i.redd.it/9lbq0hx2zkk81.jpg
| implements wrote:
| Does everyone get "Congratulations! You have solved Philosophy."
| at the end?
| s0teri0s wrote:
| I dunno, but I did. It had an empty ring to it though.
|
| I don't feel like one can solve Philosophy. I've never thought
| of philosophy as a solvable thing, like all the philosophical
| conundrums I've encountered were specifically designed not to
| be solved, but only contemplated. And not just koans, either.
| jl6 wrote:
| I think the trolley problem serves to highlight how important it
| is to focus on solving real problems rather than hypothetical
| problems. The real world usually offers addition information that
| helps resolve dilemmas.
| kennywinker wrote:
| But if one real world problem was tied to the tracks, and you
| could flip a switch to a different track where five
| hypothetical problems were tied to the tracks, would you switch
| it?
| markrazini8 wrote:
| scotty79 wrote:
| I almost always choose to do nothing because while saving people
| is optional, not killing them yourself is mandatory.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Ahhhhn nice. It didn't hijack my history stack!
| _nalply wrote:
| This was quite easy for me. The principles:
|
| 1. Only pull the lever if you are sure. With an action you assume
| responsibility for the outcome.
|
| 2. Don't believe everything what you see or are told. If you
| doubt do nothing. Imagine you killed many people because you have
| been lied to and pulled the lever. In this case it is better you
| did nothing.
|
| 3. An action of yours might kill someone. This is a very heavy
| responsibility you assumed. You need to be very sure and the odds
| need to be extreme. None of the problems managed to tip the odds.
| So whenever I was afraid that pulling the lever kills someone, I
| didn't pull the levers.
|
| 4. If my life is at stake, I pull the lever to save myself.
|
| 5. If I am extremely sure that no lives are at stake and I am
| relatively confident that pulling the lever will avoid lots and
| lots of damage, then I pull the lever. If I am unsure, I do
| nothing.
|
| 6. In all other cases responsibility is too high and I won't do
| anything. The idea: don't touch the damn thing.
|
| The website told me that I decided differently than the majority
| of people and finally that I "have solved philosophy"
|
| EDIT: The top comment made a good point. I had to click a button
| to do nothing. This made me realize that I a had a silent
| assumption:
|
| 7. Time to decide is short. The trolley is already coasting. So I
| didn't think long and hard because I didn't have time and when I
| was unsure I would have let the trolley coast past without having
| pulled the lever.
| mcv wrote:
| I noticed I kept switching between several principles. Possibly
| triggered by the details of the problem. Some of the
| principles:
|
| 1. If you're able to act, you are already responsible for the
| outcome. Inaction is a choice too. There's no intrinsic moral
| difference between pulling the lever or not.
|
| 2. Acting from a position of ignorance is irresponsible. Better
| not to act than to take the risk of making the situation worse.
| (This contradicts #1.)
|
| 3. The person who tied these people to the track is the one who
| really carries the responsibility to this tragedy, not me.
|
| All three of these are valid, and yet contradictory to some
| extent.
|
| Apparently I solved philosophy at the cost of 59 lives. Not
| sure it was worth that sacrifice.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| Imagine being at a railyard at the time of a crash and being
| seen throwing a switch in front of a moving train.
|
| There's no real-world case where that person is not
| considered responsible.
|
| Not to mention that trains really cannot go over switches at
| speed. A runaway trolley would probably derail at the switch
| if it was set on the side track.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I think it's reasonable to assume the trolley goes fast
| enough to do the deed, but not fast enough it couldn't
| round the bend.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| That's clearly a reasonable assumption, since a trolley
| will kill people underneath at _any_ speed, no matter how
| low (the slower, the more horrible the death will be
| though...)
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| I posit there is a small positive non-lethal speed. Where
| are the MythBusters... :)
| _nalply wrote:
| If you assume you make an ass out of you and me.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > Not to mention that trains really cannot go over switches
| at speed.
|
| As someone who used to work on the railway (Maintenance of
| Way Workers Unite!!); in real life ... I'd throw the switch
| hoping to derail the train!
| mcv wrote:
| Exactly. In real life, I'd try to derail the train, and
| then call the police so they can figure out who tied
| these people to the track. The problem is a very
| artificial situation, and therefore hard to apply to real
| world ethics.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Inaction is a choice too
|
| Only in the narrow situation where you know all possible
| outcomes and have a sufficient time to consider them. In the
| real world, given a limited amount of time and ignorance of
| many details, inaction is not even remotely the same as
| action.
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| re #4: There are many instances of people sacrificing
| themselves to save others, Chernobyl workers, figher pilots not
| ejecting but steering the plane away flightshow visitors etc.
|
| I expect these people to act this way routinely, give hazard
| pay to their entire profession to compensate for the risk, but
| likewise consider it my obligation to act likewise when the
| situation is clear (like in the Trolley Problem).
| drom55 wrote:
| > and finally that I "have solved philosophy"
|
| I guess it displays that to everyone, I chose to kill someone
| to get my amazon package sooner, I don't think that's solving
| philosophy
| lumenwrites wrote:
| > Only pull the lever if you are sure. With an action you
| assume responsibility for the outcome.
|
| Letting people die just because I don't feel super comfortable
| assuming the responsibility sounds pretty close to the
| definition of evil to me.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > 4. If my life is at stake, I pull the lever to save myself.
|
| I find this answer really interesting, because in the entire
| corpus, this was the most morally unambiguous question of all,
| and the answer is diametrically opposed to yours.
|
| Would have I the courage to do so in real life, I don't know,
| and it's probable that I would not. But from a _moral_
| perspective it 's damn clear: the only people I am
| unambiguously allowed to kill to save someone else is _myself_.
| Killing someone to save someone else is a moral dilemma as it
| makes me take someone 's life, but killing myself isn't.
| darkerside wrote:
| Interestingly, I had almost the opposite reaction. In the
| absence of information, I don't know how these people got
| here or why. Maybe they're being executed as criminals, maybe
| they are suicide attempts, maybe they are truly heinous
| people in the hands of a Just God.
|
| But, I do know, if it's me on the track, I don't want to die.
| It's almost the only truly inarguable choice. With everything
| else, you think you know best for other people. With that
| one, you just know you don't want to die.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| I think you're mixing up two things: willingness to die,
| and the morality of the sacrifice.
|
| Most of us will be scared shitless if we were in that
| situation, and I'm pretty sure the majority (me included)
| will act as a coward. But nobody would blame them, because
| we all know we would likely have done the same.
|
| But on the other hand, we praise the heroes who sacrifice
| themselves because we recognize that they did the right
| thing, no matter how much it costed them.
| beeboop wrote:
| I think we have the right to save ourselves with the
| options we have available. I didn't tie these people to
| the rails, I didn't set the trolley in motion towards
| people tied on rails, I'm not the one that had any sort
| of input on what the safety systems should be for the
| trolley. If I pull the lever to save myself and 5 people
| die, they die as a result of circumstance and
| insufficient safeguards of the trolley system itself.
| [deleted]
| YPPH wrote:
| I also find it interesting. I wonder how extreme the parent
| comment would go? Would they sacrifice themselves to save,
| say, a million people?
|
| A solipsistic view might say that those people are part of
| our own consciousness. If we let them die, we continue to
| exist. If we sacrifice ourselves, all of us cease to exist
| since they are just manifestations of our consciousness. As
| Christopher Hitchens once said, beware of solipsism...
| addandsubtract wrote:
| > I wonder how extreme the parent comment would go? Would
| they sacrifice themselves to save, say, a million people?
|
| On the other hand, how many people would you need to save
| to sacrifice yourself? 5? 2? 1? Does that one person need
| to be younger than you? Not disabled? Not a criminal?
| blabberwocky wrote:
| This doesn't seem morally unambiguous at all, and in fact
| society reached the opposite conclusion for many centuries in
| outlawing suicide but allowing some killing of others (e.g.,
| the executioner tasked with killing the person convicted of
| attempting suicide).
|
| An equally compelling principle might be that the only person
| I know to be worth saving is myself.
| Tepix wrote:
| I did nothing and it says i killed 91 people. My lawyer
| disagrees.
| SilverBirch wrote:
| Yeah one of the issues with the trolley problem is how
| literally you take the problem. If you take it perfectly
| literally and say "5 vs 1" (for the pure example) no other
| context I think you can very easily come to a conclusion that
| is the opposite of what you'd do in real life, where either due
| to lack of certainty, lack of perfect knowledge or some
| iterative game theory interpretation, you would act
| differently.
| _nalply wrote:
| The problem is the responsibility. If you aren't willing to
| take over responsibility, it's better not to do anything. If
| you already have responsibility then it's a different matter.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| The problem I have with the premise, is that as soon as
| you're standing next to the level, you're responsible. You
| had the opportunity to pull the lever, but didn't, which
| makes you responsible.
|
| Similarly, if you're diving a car and someone walks across
| the road in front of you, are you not responsible for their
| death if you choose not to step on the brakes? Does
| inaction relieve you of any responsibility?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > if you're diving a car
|
| ... then you accepted responsibility by getting in the
| driver's seat and taking control of the vehicle. In the
| case of the trolley, you are an onlooker.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Copenhagen interpretation. If you haven't interacted with
| system you can't be blamed.
| cranekam wrote:
| Isn't choosing _not_ to interact when you were able to still
| a form of interaction? I feel like once you're exposed to the
| system and what it does depends on what you do (even if
| "doing" is nothing) you're involved.
| mcv wrote:
| > Isn't choosing not to interact when you were able to
| still a form of interaction?
|
| It is. If you can't act, then it's not your responsibility,
| but if you can and choose not to, then it is.
|
| In many countries, this is codified in the law: if you see
| someone drown or otherwise in lethal trouble, you're
| expected to do what you can to save them. You can't choose
| not to interact in order to avoid responsibility; if you're
| aware of the situation and in a position to act, you carry
| some responsibility.
| _nalply wrote:
| No.
|
| It is only the case if you don't kill someone to save
| someone else.
| sethammons wrote:
| Curious which countries. Fwiw, in the US, you can pull up
| a lawn chair and watch someone drown instead of offering
| them any assistance (not saying that is moral). Legal
| liabilities have been explored including the case where a
| person is pulled from a burning auto accident and the act
| of saving them caused back injuries and paralysis. Cue
| Good Samaritan laws to protect would-be do-gooders but
| also the acknowledgment that there is no legal liability
| to act (aside from designated first responder types).
| mcv wrote:
| I don't have an exhaustive list for you, but I know it's
| the case in Netherland. I suspect we're not an exception
| in this.
| _nalply wrote:
| Think responsibility. Even if you watched the thing roll
| you don't have a lot of responsibility. Only a little.
| Because as you said that I am involved.
|
| Let's say there will be an investigation because of
| criminal liability by inaction (civil law jurisdiction).
| First you aren't in guarantor status (one example is the
| surgeon during a surgery), and second if you explain that
| you tought it through and showed that the what-if case is
| dangerous, you won't be punished for inaction.
|
| So, no, it does not really matter that you are involved by
| being there.
|
| And now I am sure that many people could develop post
| traumatic stress disorder because they feel they have
| failed to save people. I am sure that these people can be
| helped if they are shown the possible outcomes of action
| and inaction, especially that action is often more
| problematic than inaction.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| Since you've observed the system, you've already interacted
| with it. Sorry, nice try.
|
| (if you don't click on the link though, you're fine)
| galfarragem wrote:
| The ultimate trolley problem is one where you pull the lever to
| save a larger amount of people that have chosen a unsafe area
| while punishing a smaller amount of people that have chosen a
| safe area (unless someone pulls the lever)... Ultimately this
| is _politics_.
|
| Morality is not math, but, as always, things might be more
| foggy: lack of free choice and a really skewed ratio (e.g.
| punish one to save 100 million) may test the _limits_ of
| morality.
| _nalply wrote:
| Please be explicit. Do you mean something like insurance: a
| small amount of people has insurance but someone decided to
| insure even the people who haven't paid insurance?
|
| In that case it's clear that I won't pull the lever. It's not
| a question of life and death, and because I am not sure
| whether pulling the lever helps preventing lots of damage, I
| won't do anything, especially because perhaps it's just a
| vague and abstract story you made up.
| galfarragem wrote:
| An extreme example:
|
| Government builds a dam. It clearly recommends people to
| not build in front of the dam, it may crack and a flood
| would be a tragedy. 100K people ignore it and slowly houses
| appear: it's cheaper, better land, views, etc. 1K people
| choose to comply with Government and build in a safe but
| ugly and infertile area. One day, suddenly, a huge crack
| appears. At the last minute engineers discovered "a lever"
| to flood the safe area instead and save 99K lives. They
| don't have time to evacuate anybody. Should they pull the
| lever?
|
| By _limits_ of morality I mean:
|
| - Free choice: if the people living in the unsafe area
| didn't understand the danger or didn't have another choice
| but to live there?
|
| - Skewed ratio: if only 10 people lived in the safe area
| and 1 million had chosen to live in the unsafe area?
| fendy3002 wrote:
| It's easy if you're politician that's up to reelection.
| If it's your base voters, then pull it, it's 100K of
| potential voter. If it's not your base voters then let
| them perish.
|
| If you're enterpreneur, see whether 100K people is more
| beneficial than the other 1K. For example if you have a
| factory that needs many workforce and can utilize the
| 100K, save them.
|
| If somehow you pull the lever, make a press conference
| showing sorrow and guilty face telling it's inevitable.
| If you don't pull the lever, don't expose the info until
| asked.
|
| If you're not a decision maker, leave it to your
| supervisor. If somehow you have the loved one in 100K,
| pull the lever anyway.
|
| Sadly this is the shape of our world right now.
| kortex wrote:
| This is alarming yet accurate. One simply has to look at
| things like automobile recalls, the 737-max debacle, or
| the Camp fire, to see actual examples of the above
| heuristic in action.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Reminds me of the Scenario in Fight Club:
|
| "A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling
| at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car
| crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now,
| should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles
| in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of
| failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court
| settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less
| than the cost of a recall, we don't do one."
| Timpy wrote:
| More realistic example: The contractors in charge of the
| dam cut corners to pocket some extra money, but they'll
| be dead before the dam breaks anyway so they move into
| the valley. Land developers paid off the government to
| open the land for construction despite it being unsafe.
| Bankers gave predatory loans to those who would not
| otherwise be able to afford a house in the valley. The
| public has been misled and everybody is under the
| assumption that their society has reached a new age of
| prosperity where everyone can now live in the valley. At
| the last minute, the politicians, bankers, dam
| contractors, and land developers use their private
| helicopters to leave the valley before the flood crashes
| down.
| wruza wrote:
| Nice to meet a reasonable man who solved philosophy as well. So
| many think that they have a right to project their idea to
| someone else's reality without a doubt.
| once_inc wrote:
| I think I did the exact same thing you did (except for 1
| problem which I misread).
| _nalply wrote:
| This happened to me too, I answered one problem a bit
| differently than I intended.
|
| But exactly that's the case in point!
|
| That damn lever is way too dangerous to touch. Only touch if
| you are extremely confident.
| Areading314 wrote:
| Enjoyable and thought provoking. Thanks Neal!
| baskethead wrote:
| The thing is that when you pull the level, you're interfering so
| you're the cause of the consequence after pulling the lever. If
| you don't pull the lever, you're not responsible for what
| happens, at least in my opinion. That's why in the basic case of
| a trolley heading towards 5 people or 1 person, I wouldn't pull
| the level no matter what because at least the deaths of the 5
| people aren't my fault, but the death of the 1 person would be my
| fault.
| Ekaros wrote:
| I will take action to save myself. I will not take action to
| decide between others.
|
| Apart from stupid cat problem...
|
| This kinda misses the mirror problems, where out comes are
| switched.
| mdorazio wrote:
| Apparently we're in the minority together. Cynically (and
| practically) there's also the legal side to think about. If you
| cause a person to be killed by a trolley, you will at minimum
| be sued into oblivion. If you do nothing no legal case can
| realistically be levied against you.
|
| Edit: a fun part of the trolley problem not really explored
| here is how inconsistent most people's logic gets when the
| outcomes are effectively the same but the actions are slightly
| different. For example, what if instead of pushing a button you
| had to shoot the person on the tracks? What if you could kill
| someone today who is going to shoot up a mall tomorrow? More
| fun, what if you could push a button to kill a millionaire and
| redistribute their wealth to save 100 families in subsaharan
| Africa?
|
| Logically, as soon as you go down the path of actively choosing
| to kill a person to achieve some "greater good", you've really
| thrown an awful lot of morals out the window.
| yibg wrote:
| Isn't a standard alternative, you can push a very fat man on
| the track and derail the trolley. All of a sudden a lot less
| people are willing to sacrifice the fat man.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Despite the fact that a man fat enough to derail a trolley,
| if even possible, likely has an extremely low quality of
| life and an extremely short life expectancy.
| bejelentkezni wrote:
| >If you don't pull the lever, you're not responsible for what
| happens, at least in my opinion.
|
| I disagree. I think there's some point at which minimal effort
| from you for appreciable reward for others puts an obligation
| on you. And that's precisely the reason the trolley problem is
| so popular.
| grayfaced wrote:
| I was really surprised majority would pull the lever to kill
| the litterer versus the inaction killing good citizen. I don't
| consider myself the moral authority to sentence someone to
| death for such a minor crime. There was a substantive barrier
| before I would take action but I would take action when it was
| significantly weighted.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| Also known as the Copenhagen Interpretation of Ethics.
| everfree wrote:
| I'm surprised to see the popular answer to Question 3.
|
| > Oh no! A trolley is heading towards 5 people. You can pull the
| lever to divert it to the other track, but then your life savings
| will be destroyed. What do you do?
|
| Over 70% chose to pull the lever and destroy their life savings.
|
| People die of preventable causes in developing countries today.
| By choosing not to donate your life savings today to help them,
| you are choosing not to pull the Question 3 lever.
|
| According to Givewell, it takes $4500 to save a life in Guinea.
| So for every $4500 of your savings that you choose not to donate
| to Guinea, that's one person you are choosing not to pull the
| lever to save. Have $45,000 in savings? That's 10 people you're
| choosing not to pull the lever to save.
|
| I doubt that over 70% of respondents are regularly donating
| anywhere close to their life savings.
| thematrixturtle wrote:
| It's much easier to click the button that says "I'm a good,
| altruistic person!" than to _actually_ donate away your life
| savings.
| chid wrote:
| well if only I could pull a lever to relieve me of my debts
| (and save lives at the same time!)
| perlgeek wrote:
| By that logic, somebody defrauding a charity out of $4500
| should be punished roughly the same as a homicide.
|
| (Not saying that's necessarily wrong, just to give some
| perspective on the "fun" corners you get into when putting a
| monetary value on human life, and it's so much different from
| the value you get where you live).
| nearbuy wrote:
| Only if they defrauded one of the most effective charities
| (as opposed to $4500 raised to buy some new musical
| instruments for a school) and only if punishments should be
| determined by total harm caused.
|
| Harm caused is usually one of several factors we use to
| determine punishments, which is why attempted murder is
| punishable even if the perpetrator failed to cause any harm.
|
| (Not saying our current system for punishment is necessarily
| right.)
| epgui wrote:
| I answered with the majority because I followed John Rawls'
| condition of the "veil of ignorance", which means that the only
| information I have to start with is:
|
| 1) an average person's life savings is less than 1 million
|
| 2) an average person's life is worth ~10 million
| qayxc wrote:
| I have to take issue with 2) - for ethical and rational
| reasons I refuse to but a monetary value on people.
| epgui wrote:
| Contrary to popular belief, there's nothing unethical about
| attaching a price to a human life: it's a very
| uncomfortable question, and I think there ought to be some
| disagreement on what the number should be...
|
| But money is fundamentally just a unit of value. We use it
| to compare the value of different things. We can use it to
| convert between labour (someone's time, which is a fraction
| of one's life) and goods and services. We can also use it
| to measure lives: 5 statistical lives lost is worse than 1
| statistical life lost, all else being equal. We can also
| use it to weigh years lost to disability, etc.
|
| Note that this doesn't mean things always have a fair
| price, and it says nothing about whether money is fairly
| allocated in society. And it certainly doesn't mean that
| people can be replaced with money. None of this is the
| point.
|
| As a thought experiment, ask yourself the following
| questions:
|
| - Is a human life worth more than nothing, or zero dollars?
| (I hope you will say yes)
|
| - Is a human life worth more than 20$? (I hope you will say
| yes)
|
| - Does a human life have infinite value? I hope you will
| agree that this is not the case: if it was, then we would
| be justified in sacrificing all of the world's resources
| combined, in order to save a single life. The paradox is
| that this would come at the cost of all other lives, which
| is clearly nonsensical. Even a pharaoh's life, or a king's
| life, is not normally considered to be worth the combined
| lives of all of his subjects, from the perspective of
| modern society. Lives have some non-zero, but finite,
| economic/social "value".
|
| - Is there a fair price, in dollars, for an hour of labour
| or work? If there is, then you accept that there is some
| conversion factor between a fraction of a human life, and
| some amount of dollars.
|
| Putting a price tag on a human life is something that is so
| important, that we ought to discuss it more often. Whether
| we put the price too high, or too low, is often what
| explains political disagreements on the provision of public
| goods and services. We do ourselves a great disservice by
| not forcing ourselves to come up with a concrete number, or
| by not being honest about what our numbers are. We should
| challenge each other's assumptions and ensure we put a fair
| price on it, and ensure that this price is based on the
| things that matter to us as a society.
|
| Judges, actuarial scientists, and economists, all do it
| explicitly. Nobody agrees on a specific number, but they
| all pick a number. The rest of us? We do it implicitly,
| whether or not we're aware of it, every day of our lives.
| The problem is that our value judgments and our choices,
| especially if they are not conscious, are often not self-
| consistent.
|
| ---
|
| See also:
|
| - https://fee.org/articles/marginalism-and-the-morality-of-
| pri...
|
| - https://www.npr.org/2020/04/23/843310123/how-government-
| agen...
|
| - https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23230963-100-put-
| a-pr...
|
| - https://asiatimes.com/2020/05/get-honest-about-the-price-
| of-...
|
| - http://justiceharvard.org/lecture-3-putting-a-price-tag-
| on-l...
|
| - https://www.porchlightbooks.com/blog/changethis/2020/all-
| liv...
|
| - https://muse.jhu.edu/article/18688/pdf
| darkerside wrote:
| Thanks for the thoughtful comment. A lot of this thinking
| does line up for me, but it seems like there's something
| missing. Why do we all feel a little bit sick when we
| hear about car executives doing calculations to determine
| whether to perform a recall or not? Isn't it because
| we're putting a financial price on life? Or is it just
| that the price we're hearing is too low?
| e_y_ wrote:
| The most infamous recall was the Ford Pinto, and it was
| particularly bad because they knew about the problem
| before the car ever shipped, and once the problem was
| known didn't fix it for years even though the cost would
| have been $11/car.
|
| Less directly, there's the fact that new safety features
| often come to luxury vehicles first, and might eventually
| trickle down to cheaper cars due to competition and
| regulation (backup cameras, automatic emergency braking).
|
| I think mostly we don't like to think about it. This
| comes up particularly in the health care industry. There
| was the (manufactured) furor over "death panels" but
| there's also the very real challenge of deciding whether
| it's worth paying possibly millions of dollars on a drug
| that might have a marginal-at-best improvement in
| someone's survival odds. And it's not just about some
| corporate executive's pockets; these costs get passed on
| to regular people through increased premiums and may
| cause people to drop their health insurance entirely.
| epgui wrote:
| I think even if we all agree that there is a price, it's
| hard not to feel discomfort about that.
|
| Depending where in the world you are, you may have grown
| up to believe that humans are more worthy than animals
| because we have "souls" or whatever that means. A lot of
| our culture and religion deeply reinforces the "humans
| are special holy magic" feelings. I won't develop this
| thought to great detail unless someone wants me to.
|
| But in addition to that, you're absolutely correct in
| saying that oftentimes the price we put on life is too
| low.
|
| In addition to that, even if the price is correct, it may
| be difficult for us to have a good perspective on that,
| simply because we are talking about large numbers (we're
| really bad at large numbers), and because pricing stuff
| is hard. Even stocks are hard to price, and people argue
| with each other about wildly different price targets.
| JetAlone wrote:
| If five people in my immediate presence experienced such peril
| then watched me sacrifice my life savings to save their lives,
| I would expect their testimonies of admiration and
| relationships backed by a life-debt would end up being an asset
| of equal or greater value than a tremendous lot of liquid cash.
| I won't lie; I want to be whole-heartedly adored by them, even
| more than I want the rich man's $500,000 bribe.
| atoav wrote:
| I think a lot of people would pay money _in the situation_. You
| sending money to someone whose suffering you never even saw in
| Guinea and never hearing whether it helped is indeed a
| different thing than this trolly problem.
| csydas wrote:
| It's a false comparison in my opinion, but I do get your idea.
|
| With your scenario, there are two elements to consider:
|
| 1. Bystander Effect, i.e., someone else can help in this
| situation so I don't have to
|
| 2. People likely reason that Guineans still have some agency to
| try to subsist, so the threat is not as immediate
|
| Compared to the Trolley problem proposed, there is a decision
| to be made _now_ that only you have control over and there will
| be an immediate effect in that people's lives will be saved in
| a situation where they have no option to help themselves or
| even get by at a bare minimum.
|
| Ignoring the "I'm absolutely broke so who cares?" people (which
| while a fair point I think isn't quite the spirit of the
| scenario, which is will you sacrifice items of significance to
| you for the lives of others), I think that your scenario has
| too much distance and layers of abstraction as to how the money
| helps. Fundamentally, if we can't actually understand
| specifically what the charities do to save a life in Guinea, so
| it's harder for people to accept that the decision has any
| significant impact.
|
| So I don't see any real inconsistency between your scenario and
| the trolley one. People aren't as accepting of the premise that
| the charitable donation immediately saves a life and count on
| the help of others whereas pulling the lever immediately has an
| observable effect.
| ranger207 wrote:
| If I very publicly save 5 people from a violent death I can
| easily play that off into much more than my life saving are
| worth with a couple of book deals and maybe a movie
| JonathanFly wrote:
| Silly random thoughts that went through my head at this
| question
|
| 1) Many people's life savings is 0. A bargain!
|
| 2) If _I_ were one of the five people, I'd try and make it up
| to the lever puller. Lever-guy might even come out ahead.
|
| 3) If I pull this lever right away in question 3, if there are
| later questions about giving up my life savings, they'll be
| free. This might be the value lever pull! I might be kicking
| myself later for missing this deal.
| darkerside wrote:
| Other people have worked a long, long time for their life
| savings, and it's very likely that, as appreciative as these
| people might be, it's just as likely that this person gets a
| sincere thank you but no financial compensation. In the right
| situation, I could see it leading to severe depression as the
| puller feels they gave up everything and nobody cares.
|
| I still think you need to pull the lever.
| e_y_ wrote:
| I mean, I hope they'd at least vouch for you in a GoFundMe
| cttet wrote:
| It depends on how much people's life saving is.. It can be even
| negative... not everyone is in your situation.
|
| There are pragmatic reasons as well. For me, people spend a lot
| to be happy like buying luxurious stuff or go to the
| movies/good restaurant. Saving people makes me happy. I am
| willing to pay for my own happiness.
| Sirened wrote:
| I think a lot of people would also be fully willing to pay not
| to have to witness five people get hit by a train
| bjornsing wrote:
| But you don't have perfect information / certainty in this
| case. This is more akin to a mystery box trolly case, or a
| fuzzy one.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| If you are early in life your life savings may be negligible.
| If you interpret it as net-worth it may even be a benefit if
| you have student loans.
| andreyk wrote:
| I think many people would agree in the abstract that donating
| some amount of their savings to developing countries is the
| right thing to do -- many more people than actually do this in
| practice.
|
| Saying something ought to be done is not the same as doing it,
| basically.
|
| And of course, while donating to poor countries is
| fundamentally similar to Question 3, in practice it's obviously
| not the same; people do seem have a 'moral discount' for things
| that occur farther away (geographically, temporally, or
| otherwise).
| kennywinker wrote:
| Like most people, you probably drive a car from time to time.
| Collectively, cars kills 30-40k americans every year. By
| choosing to drive you are a fractional murderer - statistically
| responsible for some slice of a death. Not many people will
| decide not to drive on learning this...
| burnt-croissant wrote:
| Or we can say (for example) that drivers kill 30-40k
| Americans every year. By being a bad driver and choosing to
| drive you are a fractional murderer.
|
| But that's fine because and and I bad drivers are not.
| kennywinker wrote:
| How do you know if you're a bad driver or a good driver? It
| seems like a pretty blatant tautology to say that only bad
| drivers kill. Willing to bet almost every one of those
| fatal car crashes were caused by people who would have said
| they were a good driver...
| gundamdoubleO wrote:
| Maybe I don't want to watch a bunch of people die
| Gigachad wrote:
| I picked that option. Based on the knowledge that it would take
| me around 6 years to regain my life savings at the moment and
| it would take me over 6 years to get over the decision of
| picking the savings.
| paxys wrote:
| You are discounting the simple possibility that 70% of
| respondents do not have any significant "life savings" to speak
| of.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Not to mention a lot of people measure account their wealth
| in more than just money.
|
| Reminds me of Richard Posner, former Chief Justice of the
| Seventh Appelate court. His essay on how poor people have no
| wealth so you need the threat of prison to keep them in line.
| And how middle class people you only need the threat of
| impoverishment to keep them in line. So you can just fine
| them. And wealthy people only need the threat of loss of
| reputation to keep them in line.
|
| Which is to say Posner is an idiot that knows nothing of poor
| people. Because all an honest poor person owns is his
| reputation. Where Musk... when you are that wealthy someones
| always going to overlook your transgressions.
| not2b wrote:
| Evidently he also didn't know anything about rich people.
| If they manage to damage their reputations then they figure
| a good PR firm and some contributions to the right places
| will take care of that for them.
| darkerside wrote:
| I think it used to be true. The Musks and Trumps have, like
| Neo in the Matrix, decided they have total control over
| their actions with no regard for mere perception any
| longer. Some people think the old framework is still valid,
| and others think it no longer applies.
|
| People operating on different sets of facts!
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| 100%. I have no savings so it was an easy pull
| wincy wrote:
| Risky play, if I'm lucky and inflation goes up 1000% I'll
| seem downright smart for counting on the breakdown of
| society!
| kretaceous wrote:
| Exactly what I thought!
| Akronymus wrote:
| I have the ability to re-earn my wealth. I can't undo
| death.
| everfree wrote:
| But perhaps your wealth would put you in a better
| situation to save additional lives in the future. It's a
| tough moral question.
| [deleted]
| vkou wrote:
| Watching people get run over the trolley will harm me more,
| than the deaths of unknown people somewhere on the other side
| of the world will.
| darkerside wrote:
| One of these trolleys made it to Guinea???
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| Perhaps there are some other factors involved such as
| immediacy, distance, agency, surety and that the question is
| hypothetical?
| raverbashing wrote:
| You can always *pass the hat" amongst the survivors
| ConstantVigil wrote:
| This. Though I might try to get them to agree first before
| pulling the lever.
| cowtools wrote:
| For me, the difference is that one is an emergency and the
| other is a long-term sytematic issue.
|
| The cost of the lives of 5 first-world people in terms of
| economic productivity is like an order of magnitude greater
| than my savings.
| magnio wrote:
| What did you answer for problem 6, where a rich man offers
| you money to pull the lever and kill someone else?
| Presumably, a rich man is likely to have more economic
| productivity than a random person.
| mcosta wrote:
| I take the money.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| A life is a life, in that situation. But one of them is
| giving me money. So without further information, I'll take
| the money and save theirs.
| ConstantVigil wrote:
| This is all assuming that the money actually goes towards them,
| and not to everyone else inbetween you and that person you are
| trying to help.
|
| And while yes, some good charities do exist apparently; I can't
| name any.
|
| Edit: and no one better try to say 'WE' is a good charity.
| dhzhzjsbevs wrote:
| Thanks. Almost felt guilty for a second there.
| oefnak wrote:
| He just named one: GiveWell.
| ConstantVigil wrote:
| Sorry, but wasn't taking it at face value just cause it was
| used as a data point only at the time.
|
| And not to be that person; but proof please.
|
| I really do want a comprehensive list if possible of which
| charities are actually worthy of even being allowed to keep
| existing on this planet.
| [deleted]
| aoeusnth1 wrote:
| They have extensive research on their website that
| doesn't need to be copy pasted here.
| edanm wrote:
| > I really do want a comprehensive list if possible of
| which charities are actually worthy of even being allowed
| to keep existing on this planet.
|
| You're in luck! That's exactly the problem that the
| Effective Altruism movement aspires to solve (namely, how
| to do altruism _effectively_.) And Givewell, in
| particular, is a great site for that - you can either
| donate to them and have them spread your donation over
| their "top charities", or donate to the charities
| yourself.
|
| They do a _lot_ of research, very transparently, to
| figure out which charities are actually achieving good
| outcomes. You can read their research, their thought
| processes around it, etc.
|
| Note that this doesn't necessarily mean those charities
| have "zero overhead", as you alluded to in another
| comment - that's not a good way to judge a charity, in
| general, the same way it isn't a good way to judge a
| company; we don't really care how much money it takes to
| run a company or how that money is used, we care about
| their profit. Similarly, if a charity uses a lot of money
| on things like staff, but this makes them more effective
| at actually (say) saving lives, then it's a net better
| charity to donate to than other charities.
| everfree wrote:
| GiveWell is a research platform for finding good charities. I
| referenced them in my original comment.
| ConstantVigil wrote:
| Edit: Okay, I might be a bit tired. Sorry... I should have
| read that twice...
|
| Comment redacted to help hide idiocy... sorry.
| [deleted]
| hookey wrote:
| I took the Giving What We Can Pledge[1] and donate 10% of my
| income to effective charities for this reason. It barely makes
| a difference to me and it saves more than 1 life a year. They
| also have a really cool How Rich Am I calculator[2] to put it
| in context.
|
| I still chose to pull the lever though because I don't have
| $18000 in my life savings yet.
|
| [1]: https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge
|
| [2]: https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i
| randyrand wrote:
| A little different when you are out to splat them under your
| feet. That's pretty traumatic.
|
| out of sight out of mind.
| chris_wot wrote:
| If I don't pull the lever, then I ain't donating my entire life
| savings.
| Fricken wrote:
| Well, once the event hits the news and it comes out that you
| sacrificed your saving to save some people, then it should be
| easy to set up a gofundme and recoup the costs, at least if
| you're like me and your life savings are paltry. You may even
| profit!
| ConstantVigil wrote:
| thrown_22 wrote:
| People want to feel like good people.
|
| A rather hilarious example is asking if they are against
| bestiality. Pretty much everyone is.
|
| Asking why in more liberal circles gets you an answer along the
| lines of "it hurts the animals" a lot of the time.
|
| Then asking if it hurts animals more than eating them usually
| results in a ban.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| It hurts the animals more than eating them.
| 1ark wrote:
| It hurts the liberal ego more than anything.
| pluijzer wrote:
| My guess is that it is a question about responsibility. In the
| trolley problem it is my responsibility to pull the lever or
| not. If _I_ don 't lose my money people will die. In real life
| it is the responsibility of everybody. Maybe still very
| egocentric not to donate but at least your conscience can let
| you sleep at night.
|
| An interesting take on it is that if, for example you have
| 90.000 in savings you could choose not to pull the lever and
| use your savings to save 20 people in Guinea, but also this
| would not be a popular choice I guess.
| nostrademons wrote:
| There's also a matter of proximity. In many of the other
| problems, people chose to sacrifice more people that they
| didn't know well over sacrificing someone (best friend,
| cousin, yourself) that you do know well. The charity problem
| isn't quite the same as the trolley problem, because it's
| saving someone outside of your tribe in a faraway land, vs.
| saving someone who is presumably local to you and about to
| die in front of your eyes. Also note that people frequently
| _do_ give up their life savings (in medical bills, or
| GoFundMe) to save people close to them.
| a_wild_dandan wrote:
| The charity problem is also unimaginably complex. What if I
| donate my entire (literal) life savings...then lose my job,
| go homeless, and consequently die? I've thus saved a
| handful of lives, lost one (myself), and doomed maybe
| dozens or hundreds of other lives I could've later saved!
| Uh, whoops. :|
|
| Every moment, every (in)decision you make comes at the
| opportunity cost of _many_ other choices, and their
| exponentially multiplying secondary /tertiary/etc
| consequences.
|
| These thought experiments feels like (#0) solving an
| optimization math problem where you're:
|
| 1. Stumbling through an unimaginably large solution space
| and
|
| 2. Latching onto local minima (heuristics like "choose the
| fewest trolley deaths"), which are probably bad answers,
| only to realize
|
| 3. We don't even precisely know the objective function
| we're optimizing. So the problem has gone "up" one level.
| We first need to solve _that_ optimization problem. GOTO
| #0.
|
| The whole thing feels farcically hopeless and is maybe even
| a recursive or self referential minefield. Yikes. So the
| idea of avoiding it entirely by just winging it through
| life using your gut, or checking out entirely, doesn't seem
| like such a bad idea. Hell, it might be the only way to
| keep your sanity. It's an unsatisfying heuristic, but...oh
| look, we're back at step #2... :))))))
| karolist wrote:
| Did nothing in all the cases. Why? Because I'm not a hero and
| it's not my problem, and who knows if I have all the information
| to interfere anyway.
| csours wrote:
| Oh no! A pandemic virus is spreading throughout the world, do you
| take sensible precautions and get vaccinated when it's your turn,
| or do nothing?
|
| What if you don't know exactly what the lever does? What if
| pulling the lever makes all the infants in the world cry for an
| hour straight? What if pulling the lever only saves a life one
| time in 1000, but it sprains your wrist 1 time in 10. What if the
| sensible precautions are very very annoying? What if you're not
| sure about the side effects of the vaccine?
| DuskStar wrote:
| What if pulling the lever has a 50 percent chance of reducing
| deaths, but always eliminates societal cohesion and trust?
| vkou wrote:
| What if the elimination of the societal cohesion and trust
| was the product of a cynical, self-serving multi-decade
| political movement and propaganda campaign, and had only a
| little to do with pulling the lever, but the people who
| pulled the lever got most of the blame for it?
| csours wrote:
| What if pulling the lever lets you win this election but 5%
| of the voters despise the political process?
| vkou wrote:
| Well, you obviously shouldn't pull it, because if you do,
| your opponents will use it as a precedent to do the same
| thing in the future.
|
| You then lose the election, and they start pulling the
| lever over and over again.
| canucklady wrote:
| Ugh, masks are not that bad. I literally went to a party and
| danced until 4AM with my friends in a N95 and it was fine. We
| only unmasked to do tequila shots.
|
| If you're talking about vaccines, I have an all natural
| colloidal silver supplement to sell you.
| lucd wrote:
| What eliminates social cohesion and trust is * the disease
| itself * the people instrumentalizing the disease and/or the
| sanitary measures to partisan ends..
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| What if you're thinking too much?
| csours wrote:
| Story of my life.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Got a kill count of 84. Had a pretty heavy bias against making an
| active choice so you could get a much lower count.
| smeej wrote:
| I had a total bias against intervening to change the path of
| the trolley toward one or more people (regardless of what was
| on the other track), but also a bias toward action if something
| other than a person could be run over instead, and I only got
| 69.
|
| I'm surprised that "saved" 15 people compared to a bias toward
| inaction in general.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| The bias wasn't absolute. I sacrificed the 5 people to save
| best friend for instance.
| smeej wrote:
| I thought about doing that too, but then I realized my best
| friend would never forgive me for choosing his life over
| theirs. He'd unquestionably wish to sacrifice his own life
| instead, and it felt appropriate to honor that desire.
| luispa wrote:
| i'm a lobster guy.
| jyscao wrote:
| kill count: 98 (I'm biased heavily towards inaction)
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Is the text gently floating around a bit on the page for anyone
| else? I just noticed after a few rounds and it's really
| unsettling.
| is0tope wrote:
| Yes I suddenly noticed it, looked at the title, noticed it was
| floating too (panic). Looked at the URL bar, not floating,
| phew.
|
| For a second I though had been dosed with something hah.
| drewtato wrote:
| To disable the animation:
|
| .wavy-text-word { animation: unset !important; }
| ungawatkt wrote:
| Yup, it's by far the most disconcerting thing about the whole
| site to me, well above any of the trolley problems.
| high_pathetic wrote:
| Yes, it does. I guess the intention is to create a sense of
| rush or panic.
| ccbccccbbcccbb wrote:
| This falsely puts the burden of responsibility on the lever man,
| while it is those who tied the people to the tracks, launched the
| trolley and forced the lever man to incur all the blame are the
| real culprit. Making people believe the contrary is the
| fundamental principle of operation of all politics.
| gfiorav wrote:
| I know there are flaws to my reasoning, but I can't shake the
| thought: How/Why those poor people ended on the track is more
| important to fix than to focus on the responsibility of the guy
| pulling the lever.
| pnt12 wrote:
| I also take this stance. In the real world, that would be the
| top concern, not the bystander who is thrown into the
| situation. Or if the situation is unclear, better run away
| instead of getting involved in a mess which you didn't cause.
|
| If someone says "ignore all the real world concerns", then does
| it even matter? It's the death of fantasy people, who cares?
|
| But I would take an exception if it were family or friends. In
| a real scenario, saving them would be worth more than saving
| strangers or avoiding legal problems.
| layer8 wrote:
| But what if fixing the problem causes double the number of
| people to end up on a different track?
| gfiorav wrote:
| ... then you didn't fix it?
|
| My reasoning is: say that bad city design leads to a lot of
| pedestrians about to be struck by cars in intersections. Does
| it really make sense to focus on the drivers?
| layer8 wrote:
| The premise of trolley problems is that you can't
| _generally_ prevent situations where you have to choose
| between two evils. But we'd like to have morality rules
| that allow us to make the "right choice" in _any_
| situation. It turns out that it is really hard, if not
| impossible, to have such a rule system that (a) allows to
| derive the "correct" choice, that (b) is logically
| consistent, and that (c) people agree with all its results.
| andybak wrote:
| It's that cabal of evil experimental Utilitarians.
| owgevub wrote:
| Don't pull the lever. Ever. The only winning move is to not play.
| pizzaknife wrote:
| lobsters > cats. especially if said lobsters have a magnet
| throwawayarnty wrote:
| I never understood how the trolley problem applies to real life.
|
| When is there ever a situation where you have perfect and
| complete information about a scenario? Only in thought
| experiments.
|
| The situation where the boxes are probabilistic was more
| realistic. You're never sure in real life that you will certainly
| do less harm if you pull vs not pull.
| benlivengood wrote:
| The covid pandemic is a trolly problem. Lock down and cause
| some hardship (including maybe some deaths) or let the pandemic
| spread and kill lots of people?
| jedberg wrote:
| The original trolly problem showed that people find it less
| repressible to kill people when no action is taken. It's
| presented both ways. "Pull the lever and kill five to save one"
| and "pull the lever to kill one and save five". You'd think
| that people would answer to kill one person in both cases, but
| it turns out people are biased against taking action (pulling
| the lever) regardless of how you word it, and so when it's
| worded as kill five if you do nothing, a lot of people will do
| nothing.
| throwawayarnty wrote:
| I would argue the people's choices are appropriate.
|
| In real life you never get perfect information, so doing
| nothing as opposed to pulling represents the humans
| uncertainty of the parameters in the scenario.
|
| "First do no harm".
| jedberg wrote:
| I would argue that they are too. That's kind of the point.
| That morally taking no action is better if you have
| imperfect information.
| ars wrote:
| That's not a bias, that's completely logical. The only thing
| in this world you can control is your own actions, so it's
| completely logical not to take an action that will kill
| someone.
|
| Think about it: The number of inaction's you have is infinite
| - there are an infinite number of different things you could
| have done that would have saved someone's life. So an
| inaction is the default state in this world, but taking an
| action: That's something that has meaning, and people chose
| not to kill by taking an action.
|
| Aside from the above, you are assuming that 5 people is worth
| more than 1, but that's not something you can know, you can't
| know the worth of another person. So who are you to choose to
| kill someone?
| jedberg wrote:
| That's.... kind of the point?
|
| Mathematically the expected outcomes should be the same,
| but morally they are not.
| epgui wrote:
| It really does apply, but maybe not always for obvious reasons.
|
| I really would encourage everyone to watch Michael Sandel's
| political philosophy lectures (titled "Justice") at Harvard
| University. It's available on Youtube.
| Rayhem wrote:
| The point of the trolley problem isn't to answer the trolley
| problem (either globally in the framework of moral absolutism
| or locally in the framework of "what do you personally
| value?"). The point of the trolley problem is to scaffold the
| discussion about _how_ you answer the trolley problem and other
| moral dilemmas. If you prefer to switch the trolley to actively
| kill one person over passively allowing five to die, the
| interesting point is not "that's absurd, the real world
| doesn't work that way!" but _why_ the real world doesn 't work
| that way. What else goes into our decision to not harvest one
| person's organs to save five others?
| ncallaway wrote:
| I don't think it's supposed to apply immediately and directly
| to real life. But it's supposed to use moral intuition to
| highlight the balance of various philosophical frameworks
| (mostly consequentialism vs deontologicalism).
|
| One common real-life debate where these moral trade-offs often
| comes up in real life is voting choices in our first past the
| post system.
|
| A consequentialist might say that you _should_ vote for the
| lesser of two evils that has a serious prospect of winning.
| That, while they might not be someone you support in the
| abstract, in the interest of harm mitigation you might give
| them your vote to deny victory to the greater of two evils.
|
| Whereas a deontologicalist might say that voting for a
| candidate that you actively _dislike_ and consider evil is a
| harm in and of itself, and that you _should not_ cast a vote
| for someone you wouldn 't want to see in office. Even if that
| means the greater of the evils ends up winning.
|
| When I was younger and struggling with this question, the
| trolly problem was informative to me, and has generally lead me
| to a harm reduction strategy when it comes to voting (while
| also advocating for a reform of the voting system).
| imtringued wrote:
| That question is actually really easy. No party represents
| the population. There aren't any meaningful choices to be
| made. Thq as weere is no such thing as a wasted vote if there
| is no party worth voting for.
|
| They all suffer from the same flaw. Especially the ones near
| the left are particularly hypocritical. My hunch is that they
| depend on poor and angry voters so there is no way they would
| ever try to achieve prosperity for them while risking to lose
| their voters.
| dx034 wrote:
| It's not that unrealistic. Imagine driving a car and a kid runs
| onto the street. You can swerve onto the sidewalk but there are
| people walking there you'd hit. The question if you'd take
| action to save someone to (potentially) kill someone else is
| interesting. And it has been discussed in the context of self
| driving vehicles.
|
| But from all I remember, the outcome always was that an AI
| should never actively make a decision to sacrifice someone. And
| that's also how I view the trolley problem. Actively making a
| decision feels worse for me, even if fewer people die in the
| end.
| exodust wrote:
| > It's not that unrealistic.
|
| It's unrealistic because the trolley problem is basically a
| torture apparatus that you're instructed to operate for
| unknown reasons. Our decision to pull levers or not, means
| nothing in the context of why the situation exists in the
| first place, and why you have the job of executioner.
|
| We have time to think and weigh things up in regards to
| pulling the lever. But in the driving scenario, a split-
| second decision is needed. Muscle memory and reflexes come
| into play. Everyone will apply the brakes anyway. There is no
| "do nothing" option in the driving scenario.
| codefreeordie wrote:
| In real life, though, you never have either perfect
| information about whether your action (or inaction) will have
| your intended consequences nor do you have the time for
| complete/rational analysis.
| Sirened wrote:
| > You can swerve onto the sidewalk but
|
| I feel like that's not realistic either--when you encounter
| these sorts of situations in real life, you don't really make
| a thought out choice because it happens so fast. People
| swerve and crash into trees trying to avoid rabbits, it's not
| a reasoned thing.
|
| These problems do, however, come up fairly often in so many
| other areas. Cryptography is probably one near and dear to
| many people's hearts here--supporting cryptography directly
| saves many lives (journalists in totalitarian regimes, people
| in abusive relationships, the general wellbeing of people
| being able to communicate securely for a myriad of industrial
| purposes, etc.) but it also, to a lesser degree, directly
| leads to some deaths (terrorists are able to organize and
| hide their plans). Do you spend your life developing more
| powerful cryptographic algorithms knowing that it will have
| some small negative outcome that your work is partially
| responsible for? Or do you do nothing at all and have a
| larger number of people suffer as a result of you not having
| produced a work.
| mrwh wrote:
| Agreed re actively making a decision: my answer was mostly
| not to pull the lever, and if I analyse my feelings it's
| because then the results aren't my fault. Pulling the lever
| makes me party to the situation.
|
| Disagree re realism though. You never get a chance to think
| in real life; and any situation in which you could deliberate
| what the moral course of action is, is a situation you could
| avoid entirely. Really the closest to trolly problems in real
| life are public policy decisions - which are real and affect
| all of us. So yes I guess I've argued myself around to
| agreeing again :).
| lettergram wrote:
| I always found the trolley problem interesting. It usually boils
| down to who believes in karma or a creator or not.
|
| Most religions have the idea that it's different to take a life
| than to stand by and do nothing. For instance, you should always
| try to help others (save a life), pretty much above all else.
| However, to take a life, requires taking action. Ie standing by
| as someone drowns is not the same as sticking someone under
| water. For murder you're damned to hell. For standing by you'll
| need to repent, but it's a lesser sin.
|
| The trolly problem IMO is a framing problem. (1) it assumes you
| know the future and (2) it assumes your will is above others.
|
| The example I typically gave people when discussing this problem
| is actually in this fun exercise. Imagine if the 5 people
| strapped themselves to the tracks. Imagine they knew they would
| murder and wanted to die rather than murder. When you redirect
| the train, you actually cause more deaths, because you didn't
| know the intent of those people.
|
| The exercise helps you decide what you value. For me I never
| apply my outside influence to the system, except when I can save
| a life without costing a life. I believe life is more valuable
| than pretty much anything I saw in the game.
|
| I'm a realist and objectivist. So for me the question is "what
| could I live with?" And "what information do I have to make a
| decision?"
|
| In reality, everyone in this situation made their bed (so to
| speak). So I am unwilling to ever impose my will into the system
| baring saving a life (without costing one).
| throwaway787544 wrote:
| You're assuming free will though. It could be that nobody made
| their bed, and you're just doing what was preordained, but
| chalking it up to free will to feel better. Maybe you could
| live with anything. Maybe the information is a facade, and
| never really makes a difference, because you'll always just do
| what you were going to do anyway.
| codefreeordie wrote:
| If there is no free will, though, then there isn't an
| interesting moral quandary about you pulling the lever. You
| either do, because you were preordained to do so or you
| don't, because you were preordained not to, and in neither
| case does any morality or decision-making enter into the
| picture, since, absent free will, you are not a morality-
| possessing or decision-making entity.
| throwaway787544 wrote:
| There's no free will in a clock but it's still interesting
| to watch the gears. And just because you don't have free
| will doesn't mean you don't have morals; even if you don't
| choose to do right or wrong, you can still distinguish them
| as separate concepts. And even if you can't distinguish
| morality, that doesn't necessarily make you amoral either.
| It's like being born to be an extra in a play and die once
| the play is over.
| codefreeordie wrote:
| In a world with strong determinism, there is no
| consequence. Actions don't cause reactions. The initial
| state of the system causes all outcomes -- both immediate
| and apparently-consequent.
|
| The person doesn't really pull the trolley lever insomuch
| as the universe began in a state which determined that at
| that moment, the person's arm and the lever would move.
|
| In such a world, even time is barely meaningful, since
| events, not being dependent upon each other, don't really
| have a causal ordering.
| mcv wrote:
| One of the problems did have people who tied themselves to the
| track, while the other person stumbled. Most people chose to
| let the group that chose to be on the track die.
|
| Another interesting problem would be 5 people tied themselves
| to the track in front of the trolley, and 1 person tied
| themselves to the other track. Everybody tied themselves to the
| track, so should you let the one die instead of the 5? Or did
| the one tie themselves to the track believing that track was
| safe, while the other 5 tied themselves to the track expecting
| to die?
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| I disagree with how you're assessing the magnitude of the sins
| here. I don't think the problem really changes at all when you
| introduce religion to it. There's theistic arguments in each
| direction of this problem, and much like with the non-theistic
| arguments, you won't find any of them to be conclusively
| correct.
| kortex wrote:
| I found myself following a heuristic that is basically Asimov's
| laws:
|
| - whenever possible, do no harm
|
| - do not let harm occur due to inaction
|
| - when given a choice, preserve the most amount of healthy
| lifespan in aggregate
|
| - higher lifeforms are more valuable than lower ones (cat vs
| lobsters)
|
| - deferred consequence is better than immediate (since it opens
| the door to other later interventions)
|
| It kind of really brings to bear how much of a thematic device
| the 3 laws are. There's _no_ way to make them congruent with
| actual, messy, real-world situations. Also why the whole "self-
| driving car trolly problem" is a non-issue - there will never be
| a situation where the "AI" has nice neat consequences and a
| binary choice laid out in front of it. It's always going to be
| some collection of "preserve life as best as possible"
| heuristics.
| SturgeonsLaw wrote:
| > deferred consequence is better than immediate (since it opens
| the door to other later interventions)
|
| Yep, I sent that trolley into the future just in case some time
| in the future they invent a cure for getting run over by
| trolleys
| hyper_reality wrote:
| > - higher lifeforms are more valuable than lower ones (cat vs
| lobsters)
|
| Choosing between preserving the life of one cat vs one lobster
| seems straightforward enough. But the trolley problem was
| asking whether one cat was more valuable than five lobsters.
| According to the stats, many people agreed, but how about one
| cat vs a million lobsters? Or one cat vs all the lobsters on
| earth? Most people would think that making lobsters extinct
| would be very bad (unless they really hate lobsters).
|
| The difficulty is when we can no longer rely on intuition and
| have to come up with a precise exchange rate of when one
| being's life is more valuable than another's, which, like you
| say, is impossible to do in the complicated world we live in
| and our limited understanding of consciousness and
| neuroscience. In absence of that, deferring to the first law
| "whenever possible, do no harm" seems sensible.
| beeboop wrote:
| I wish the featured page did more of this
| m0llusk wrote:
| This is prominent in the elderly or children tests. Older
| people have gifts of experience that can be invaluable to the
| rest of us, especially when broadly shared. Children have
| great potential but through most of human history have been
| relatively cheap, easy to replace, and more of a value sink
| than generator.
| bluesnowmonkey wrote:
| I chose to kill the cat, because there are too many of them
| and they devastate natural ecosystems, killing birds for
| instance. Lobsters on the other hand are badly depopulated.
| In both cases undoing a wrong committed by humanity.
| thejohnconway wrote:
| > _- whenever possible, do no harm_
|
| > _- do not let harm occur due to inaction_
|
| Trolley problems, of course, are designed to bring these into
| direct conflict.
| el_nahual wrote:
| There's a (famous?) quote from a google engineer Andrew Chatham
| who worked on self driving cars. When asked about the trolley
| problem, he said "It takes some of the intellectual intrigue
| out of the problem, but the answer is almost always 'slam on
| the brakes'" [0]
|
| [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/22/self-
| driv...
| synu wrote:
| You could adjust the question to be "the brakes have failed
| and.." to avoid that out.
| salford wrote:
| True, I imagine the next course of action would be
| something like "do nothing" -- continue straight, try to be
| predictable, hope that other people in the situation can
| react accordingly.
| synu wrote:
| If we are still doing the trolley problem it would be
| "the brakes have failed, and ... do you continue straight
| and definitely hit A, or turn the wheel and definitely
| hit B".
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Sure, that still works as a purely abstract problem.
|
| But when it comes to self-driving cars, the answer is
| that it doesn't really matter.
| lynx09 wrote:
| dorgo wrote:
| I know, you try to save the trolley scenario. But if brakes
| fail then it doesn't matter what the AI (or driver)
| decides. To blame is the one who is responsible for the
| brakes not to fail.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| But there are still plenty of either/or scenarios with a
| perfectly functional vehicle because there are other
| people on the road. Some of the interesting ones involve
| whether it is the AI car's responsibility to the
| drivers/passengers in the car first versus everyone else.
|
| For example, a car swerves in front of you (or runs a red
| light, or whatever) and the car hits the brakes but knows
| it will not be enough to stop running in to the car. Do
| they swerve off the road where they might kill a
| pedestrian, but will definitely save the driver or do you
| continue to crash in to the other car which may kill the
| driver of one or both cars.
| synu wrote:
| Is the trolley scenario intended as a blame-finding
| simulation? I thought it was more like "what (ethical)
| choice do you make in a difficult situation" deal.
|
| You surely still have some agency after your brakes
| failed. Or at least if it happened to me I wouldn't let
| go of the wheel to find out if I hit group A or B,
| confident in the knowledge that who or whatever I plow
| into it is not my fault and all choices from that point
| are equal.
| galdosdi wrote:
| What? There are still a lot of tactics a driver (or AI)
| can follow to improve the outcome if the brakes fail,
| such as swerving to avoid dangerous things while the
| vehicle naturally coasts to a stop, intentionally driving
| into a soft thing or up a hill if available (eg runaway
| truck ramp or a pile of haybales) or in the worst case,
| decide which of two bad things to run into is less bad.
| Not making a choice is a choice too, as in the trolley
| problem, it means you'll hit whatever is straight in
| front.
|
| So in that sense it's quite relevant. Great, you can
| usually just apply the brakes. What if you can't or don't
| have enough following distance? (less common for an AI
| driver that will try to leave enough distance, but that's
| not entirely in your own control; another driver can
| merge in front of you at any time they wish and if an
| incident occurs before you can increase the distance, you
| will effectively have to swerve since you won't have
| enough braking capacity.
|
| It is worthwhile to take a look at dashcam videos (eg,
| youtube, reddit) to get an idea of the many, many complex
| scenarios a driver can find themselves in in which a
| crash is imminent, but the driver has many options and
| must decide what strategy to take to get the least bad
| outcome.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Soock was wrong -- this is not how rational people behave.
| Rational people preserve their own life. If they die, the
| consequences of their choices can no longer matter to them. A
| cat isn't going to affect my longevity, but a cat is more
| likely to be a pet than five lobsters, and the emotional
| distress of the owner will have some greater expected impact on
| my longevity than the lesser distress of the lobster fisher who
| lost $60 from their catch.
| agentultra wrote:
| Enough context is lacking. That's kind of what makes it all
| absurd. Take the cat vs. lobsters. Did you know felis catus is
| responsible for the extinction of some 37 species of birds
| world wide mostly due to colonization. They're not indigenous
| predators to the North Americas and enjoy the protections and
| long life afforded by their proximity to humans while killing
| for entertainment.
|
| Lobsters on the other hand? Useful in their natural
| environments, have not become an invasive apex predator, could
| go on and feed many people too if properly managed and allowed
| to live their lives.
|
| Yet the majority of people saved the cat thinking it's a
| "higher life form."
|
| A bit absurd. Also the idea of trolleys without brakes and
| levers and cats that can't move off the track in the face of
| on-coming danger.
| 323 wrote:
| If we are to judge ethically, one particular cat should not
| be punished for the sins of the cat species. As far as we
| know this particular cat didn't do nothing.
|
| Then we need to talk about criminal liability. In the sense
| that a cat can't stop itself from killing birds. We don't
| punish toddlers if they kill a bird, because they don't
| understand that they shouldn't.
|
| Also, the whole idea of "native species" is highly
| subjective. What is "native species" today maybe it was an
| "invasive species" yesterday.
| agentultra wrote:
| You're probably doing the local fauna a favour by
| eliminating the cat. The cat will kill other animals purely
| for amusement (by killing it and not eating it). It enjoys
| a longer lifespan than most local predators due to their
| proximity to humans that care about their well-fare,
| enabling them to kill more and for longer than any local
| predator. Stray cats are estimated to be the largest
| contributor to declining bird and mammal populations [0].
|
| Also, in the city I live in, outdoor cats are illegal
| regardless of registration (which is also required).
|
| The lobsters on the other hand, if you live near a coastal
| city to their native habitat, could be reintroduced and
| improve the local ecosystem.
|
| [0] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
| 323 wrote:
| > _You 're probably doing the local fauna a favour by
| eliminating the cat._
|
| One could have said the same thing when mammals appeared.
| Not to mention humans: "These human species will ruin the
| ecosystem. We better eliminate it now before it spreads".
|
| Said otherwise, you are thinking about the narrow
| interest of the day, without considering if the ideology
| makes sense in itself.
|
| > _Nativism is the political policy of promoting or
| protecting the interests of native or indigenous
| inhabitants over those of immigrants, including the
| support of immigration-restriction measures._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_(politics)
| agentultra wrote:
| We're talking about cats here and ecology not human
| politics.
|
| You're mistaking natural movements of species into new
| ecological systems with humans literally transplanting
| cats across the globe.
|
| It's a fact that on some islands we settled, when we
| brought cats with us, those cats literally drove entire
| species of birds native to that island into extinction.
| The cats didn't walk across water or build ships to get
| there. They were brought there by humans and did what
| cats do.
|
| This conversation is starting to get a bit absurd.
| com2kid wrote:
| If the lobsters are tied to a trolley track, they aren't long
| for this world anyway. Trolley tracks aren't exactly a
| lobster's native habitat.
|
| Untie the cat and it'll, likely, be a-ok.
| agentultra wrote:
| Take out the cat though and you have dinner for 5 families!
| I-M-S wrote:
| Having dinner is precisely why I took out the lobsters
| (well, depending they're not too mangled after being run
| over by a trolley).
| jgerrish wrote:
| This kind of highlights a subtle interactive design or user
| experience component of the Trolley problem.
|
| Part of the Trolley Problem is that the choice is between an
| action or inaction. But these problems, or the first one at
| least, have two buttons.
|
| So you're making a choice. Yeah, some might argue it's a
| technicality. But what if you put the Do Nothing choice on a
| timer?
|
| What if you made it an asynchronous "Problem of the Day". No
| action by the end of the day triggers Do Nothing, etc.
|
| Lots of cool, interesting design choices. There's an unstated
| subtle ultimatum hidde. in these problems, but still cool.
|
| Sorry, geeking out.
| rax0m wrote:
| I did the problems under the assumption that "pulling the
| lever" was an act, while doing nothing was not acting. Implied
| legal (and moral) liabilities made a difference in my choices.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| Legally perhaps, but morally, I've never gotten why so many
| people think that the physical act of pulling or not pulling
| makes so much difference.
|
| It's a binary decision with two outcomes, in my personal view
| it is irrelevant which of the outcomes is caused by physical
| action and which by inaction (at least, supposing that you
| have enough time to think about what to do - obviously, if
| you have to react in a split second, it's understandable to
| be biased towards inaction because you may need more time to
| make the right decision, but that's not the point of these
| problems in the way they are posed).
|
| If you have enough time to think what to do, inaction is a
| conscious choice and if it does more harm than good, you are
| guilty of not choosing action.
| wardedVibe wrote:
| Morality is an evolutionary adaptation to improve group
| cohesion. It is much easier to attribute blame/praise to
| active behaviors rather than passive ones, since it's
| plausible the passive person isn't there's a problem in the
| first place.
|
| That said, if you do actually care about consistency and
| the consequences, and don't care about what others think of
| you, then active/passive makes no difference.
| Ambolia wrote:
| It gets tricky. Should you kill an innocent guy from the
| street if you can save 5 people with his organs?
| joexner wrote:
| Who, Gary? Yeah, go for it. No one will miss him.
| toss1 wrote:
| >> if it does more harm than good, you are guilty of not
| choosing action.
|
| True. Yet some large subset of people seem to highly value
| plausible deniability in their own head - they fear more
| having to think about the one person they kill by pulling
| the lever vs. just feeling like they can ignore the 5 dead
| because they did nothing, expecting that they can say that
| they had nothing to do with it.
|
| Also seems like they can't recognize the inherent
| limitations of the situation -someone's already dead,you're
| just trying to make a least-worst choice,and I've seen many
| who fail to recognize such situations and just think that a
| good option must be available when it isn't, and that
| delusion ends up causing the worst outcome.
| oniony wrote:
| I guess because there's more wiggle-room with a non-action.
| If you don't pull a lever, you could argue there wasn't
| time to pull the lever, or that you were frozen with fear
| or whatever.
|
| I think non-actions are judged less harshly than actions,
| so people are more inhibited in making them..
| sbuttgereit wrote:
| There's more perceived wiggle-room with rationalizations,
| not actual wiggle-room.
|
| The only moment in the scenario that matters is when
| you've made your choice and as others have said: it's
| binary. You pull the lever or you don't. The moral act is
| in making the choice, not what comes after. In that
| moment of choice you've expressed a hierarchy of your
| values.
|
| Now, you might value most highly your own mental well-
| being, and making the most of that by rationalizing to
| yourself that you didn't actually make the choice that
| you just made. You might value your social standing or
| legal disposition the highest and make the choice
| accordingly. etc.
|
| Of course, the scenario itself is a bit silly and not the
| kind of everyday living guidance that one will most
| likely have thought deeply about in anything than
| abstract moralistic terms. It's pretty rare to face that
| sort of scenario with that kind of consequence.
| pteraspidomorph wrote:
| Clearly not. The vast majority of people responding to
| this problem usually want to pull the lever, murdering an
| innocent who would otherwise have lived through the day -
| an utilitarian perspective that holds that by default
| it's best to maximize the amount of lives saved. It's
| difficult for those of us that would argue that every
| life is valuable, and that, not being god, the bystander
| does not have the right to make this call. The bystander
| did not place the runaway trolley there, nor are they
| responsible for the people who are tied to the tracks.
|
| I would ask the person who is (in most of these
| scenarios) on the diverted tracks what they want me to
| do. They have the right to make this decision, since they
| are masters of their own life.
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| I've always presumed you don't have time to ask those
| sorts of questions in these problems. You have to decide
| that you'd let 5 people die so your action doesn't kill
| one, or kill the one not knowing how they feel about
| dying to save five.
|
| What I find...not surprising I guess, but sad is that
| while a large percent of people would pull the lever only
| a small percent of people would pull the lever if they
| were the one on the other track. People not being at
| least as likely to pull the lever when they are at stake
| breaks all basic moral principles.
| pteraspidomorph wrote:
| I did notice that. I'd pull the lever if I was the one on
| the tracks, since in that case I am not robbing someone
| else of their life through my decision - my life is my
| own to sacrifice. At that point it's best to save five.
|
| Then again, a sizeable minority wouldn't sacrifice their
| life savings for lives either, which means this portion
| of the respondents does not think the lives of strangers
| have value at all, or at least that they are not in any
| case responsible for lives other than their own. Which is
| interesting!
| FFRefresh wrote:
| Right now, non-hypothetically, would you be willing to
| donate your internal organs to those who will die without
| them, even if it meant you will not survive yourself?
| NineStarPoint wrote:
| A perfectly moral person might? But I also think there's
| a difference of kind in dealing with tragic one-off
| events (Such as someone getting run over by a trolly) and
| dealing with normal course of life problems (illness and
| bodily degradation over time).
| FFRefresh wrote:
| To explore the idea being brought up here, what type of
| death causes are considered 'tragic' or 'one-off'? Is it
| the improbability of the cause which will influence the
| decision-making? If so, wouldn't how the cause is
| categorized/labeled directly impact our perception of the
| improbability of it?
|
| For instance:
|
| - Being run over by a trolley is a highly improbable
| event
|
| - Being run over by a vehicle (higher category in which
| trolleys are a part of) is a less improbable event
|
| - Dying of a very specific form of cancer which destroyed
| an organ is a highly improbable event
|
| - Dying of cancer is less improbable
|
| In the scenario for organ donation, what if the recipient
| had an improbable reason for needing the organ?
|
| As far as my own views, I don't know if the
| tragicness/one-offness/improbability of the cause of
| death factors much in my decision-making. Though, I do
| think there's probably a good argument for reducing
| active suffering (that I haven't fully thought out).
| asib wrote:
| If that's unpalatable, what about have you donated one of
| your kidneys yet? You can live a healthy life with just
| one. If you truly believe you would sacrifice yourself in
| this trolley scenario, I don't think it is possible to
| justify not having done something where (excepting the
| slight risk of more serious consequences) the only
| sacrifice is time.
| pteraspidomorph wrote:
| Not right now, no. That would be terribly inconvenient.
|
| Jokes aside, I'm aware of my own moral weakness in this
| regard. The religion I was raised in - and I'm still a
| spiritual person - holds that suicide is the gravest of
| sins, but I don't have that high an opinion of my own
| life and its potential. The closer I am to the situation,
| and the more urgent it is, the more tempted I am. So I
| try to stay aloof, for the sake of those who love me, and
| out of my own instinct of self-preservation, which is a
| powerful force in most human beings.
|
| If your mind was exactly like mine, and you were close
| enough to the situation to make the decision to sacrifice
| _someone else_ for a group of strangers - and being tied
| to the tracks is pretty damn close - you would likely be
| willing to sacrifice yourself. But remember, someone must
| have tied me to the tracks in the first place for my life
| to be in danger. As I said in previous comments, in most
| cases I am, though inaction or stalling, attempting to
| save the life of the single person in the tracks - the
| person in the same position. I will not kill to save
| others, and attempting to not kill myself to save others
| is consistent with this position.
|
| I would be useless as a soldier!
| concordDance wrote:
| The main difference between action and inaction is that
| with inaction it's much less likely the other monkeys will
| conclude you are dangerous and should be killed (because
| they're not any worse off by your inaction, almost by
| definition).
| pizza234 wrote:
| > I've never gotten why so many people think that the
| physical act of pulling or not pulling makes so much
| difference.
|
| By pulling the level, one is intentionally killing a
| person, to save five. In more general terms, a life is
| taken away for the greater good of society.
|
| A foundation of societies (modern ones, and I guess, some
| more than others) is that taking a life away has highly
| specific restrictions, which are usually justified by the
| person doing harmful acts (representing a danger to other
| people). To put it in another way, any citizen has the
| guarantee that, unless they do something harmful, they're
| safe. It's a contract between the citizen and the society.
|
| By pulling the lever to save one, the contract is broken.
| To be consistent with the societal principle, it should be
| the person on the alternate track to decide whether the
| lever should be pulled, not an observer.
|
| (The above reasoning is based on a very generic vision of
| the law. If anybody has some details, they're very welcome
| :))
| dwringer wrote:
| Interestingly the website poll indicates two thirds of
| people would not pull the lever to have the train run
| over themselves to save five people. So if you ask the
| guy on the other track, he seems unlikely to assent to
| pull the lever in time to save the other people.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Well, right now a surgical team are able to kill you and
| transplant your organs to save five people. Do you
| consent?
|
| (Do you 'pull the lever' and instruct the surgical team
| to kill one stranger to save five strangers?)
| dwringer wrote:
| No, but I almost never pulled the lever anyway and it
| cost 80 souls to "solve philosophy". It was almost more
| but I didn't quite save the sentient robots because I
| didn't believe they were really sentient.
| bobbylarrybobby wrote:
| Wasn't the contract already broken when six people ended
| up tied to train tracks?
| filoleg wrote:
| Yes, it was broken, but by someone else, not me. I am not
| at (moral) fault for someone else breaking the contract.
|
| But if I pull the lever (or pushed a fat man onto the
| track that would halt the train), I am the one who is
| responsible for the resulting death, which makes me the
| one who broke the contract.
|
| That's the major dilemma here, because pulling the lever
| is the utilitarian-correct choice that saved more lives,
| but whoever pulled the lever went from being innocent to
| being a murderer.
| [deleted]
| Sebb767 wrote:
| You go from passively letting someone die to actively
| killing someone. Which is a major difference.
|
| Now, you might think that it isn't given enough time, but
| it's easy to argue that you're currently letting kids die
| in Africa by your inaction (or Ukrainians or homeless
| people etc.). Being slightly at fault for someones death is
| basically a permanent state of affairs, whereas actively
| killing someone is something few people would be willing to
| do. It definitely makes a difference.
| uoaei wrote:
| The trolley problem is set up in a specific way for a
| specific reason: _the person standing next to the lever
| has no barriers to action, and comprehends the immediate
| consequences of their choice_. This is not so for the
| kids in Africa example you give.
|
| The trolley problem does not extend readily to systems
| involving incomplete information or some kind of inaccess
| to enacting a solution. That is why moral philosophers
| despise it as an illustrative example -- armchair
| ponderers apply it with gross negligence to the context
| and nuance present, so it ends up illustrating nothing
| much except ignorance for the details of the thought
| experiment.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| >Being slightly at fault for someones death is basically
| a permanent state of affairs, whereas actively killing
| someone is something few people would be willing to do.
| It definitely makes a difference
|
| It only makes a difference in the eyes of the beholder,
| not for those actually dying
|
| Not thinking too hard about reality because reality is
| nasty is something of a huge bug in the human cognition.
| Trying hard to not know anything is even desirable from
| that point of view: it's not neglect if you never
| bothered getting to a state where you are capable of
| being responsible for anything
| Sebb767 wrote:
| > It only makes a difference in the eyes of the beholder,
| not for those actually dying
|
| Unfortunately, that's the one (not) making the decision
| in this case.
|
| > Not thinking too hard about reality because reality is
| nasty is something of a huge bug in the human cognition.
|
| Is, though? I mean, in general we should strive to
| improve the world, but does getting overwhelmed by all
| the bad things that you _should_ be doing something about
| really doesn 't help.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| Maybe if we were overwhelmed by all the bad things that
| we should be doing something about it would eventually
| lead us to a point where we would be doing _something_
| instead of just living our lives doing nothing (for the
| most part)?
|
| If we are already talking about changing the human
| cognition, might as well add an ability to function while
| being aware of the issues
| a_wild_dandan wrote:
| I have choice paralysis while _buying pants._ I 'm 100%
| capable of grabbing a pair and swiping the plastic
| rectangle. But I just don't know a good solution. I'm
| afraid of picking wrong.
|
| And that's just pants. Hell, even in math -- the most
| rigorous subject ever -- there are undecidable problems.
| Asking _me_ to decide squishy issues of who lives and
| dies, who I should spent resources helping (including
| myself), etc...that 's _so_ many orders of magnitude more
| complex, so many immediate and cascading future
| consequences, of unimaginable import. It 's crushing, and
| maybe without a correct (or even _good_ ) answer! It's
| pants ultra out there. If you make me internalize _all_
| the issues, then the only decision I 'll make is which
| corner to lay by in the fetal position.
|
| The only idyllic "human cognition" fix here is basically
| omniscience. And that kinda feels like cheating, y'know?
| crznp wrote:
| Consider this version: there is someone on the track and
| if I don't act, they will almost certainly die. Or I can
| act and almost certainly save them, but it sends the
| trolley somewhere unexpected.
|
| If I were a professional rail operator, I could take
| action. I know how to operate the switch, I know where
| both of the lines go, I can contact the trolley operator
| to let them know what happened. As a bystander, I would
| not take action. Maybe it would save that person, but
| dooms all the passengers on the trolley. Maybe someone
| had it under control and I'm throwing a wrench in their
| plans. In general, we probably don't want random
| bystanders to be messing with the operation of heavy
| machinery.
|
| Sometimes there is a duty to act: if I am babysitting a
| child and they are suffering in the cold, I better bring
| them somewhere warm. I may have some responsibility if I
| see someone suffering in the cold and I have an extra
| blanket that I could give them. But I am not responsible
| for buying blankets to give out every time it is cold,
| nor am I responsible for throwing railroad switches. In
| those cases, I am more culpable for my actions than my
| failure to act.
| vincnetas wrote:
| Inaction is overwhelming if you think about it. by inaction
| you are guilty of every sufering person around you. And you
| can expand that pool by saying that your inaction to find
| out more sufering people is also part of your guilt. of
| course provided you are already not doing your max right
| now to help tham. but hey, youre on HN, so i assume you
| still got free time to spare ;)
| vincnetas wrote:
| just wanted to add that inability to help EVERYONE,
| should not deter you from helping anyone. you should not
| feel guilty that you are helping one person but leaving
| everyone else in trouble. One is better than zero.
| sneak wrote:
| Not my circus, not my monkeys. I don't think I can be held
| morally responsible for inaction in any circumstance. We
| didn't start the fire etc.
|
| I answered "no pull" to every one except the one where the
| express goal was pranking the trolley driver (and no
| implied harm from pulling). This is apparently an unpopular
| opinion, but the only one I can reconcile with my own
| concept of responsibility.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I used to think like you until I learned about how
| ethical frameworks are different when you are being
| extorted. This trolley problem is a class of extortion
| because your choices are very limited and out of your
| control.
|
| For example, it wouldn't be wrong if someone forced you
| to steal a package of bubblegum or else they would kill
| your family and you decided to steal the bubblegum
| instead of inaction. In this case, it's better to think
| of it as the act of saving your family and the
| extortionist caused the gum to be stolen.
|
| Every day people go through this type of extortion-
| limited choice when, for example, a couple experiences an
| ectopic pregnancy where inaction would result in the
| death of the mother. You aren't primarily choosing to
| kill your child, you are choosing to save your wife.
| sneak wrote:
| That seems to assume that the action to save the mother
| is the assumed preferred outcome, and the one that would
| be chosen?
|
| I am saying that it isn't wrong to choose inaction,
| either.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| In the case of ectopic pregnancy, choosing inaction is
| absolutely wrong in every possible way.
|
| Inaction means both mother and fetus die. Action means
| just the fetus dies.
|
| I don't see how you could possibly defend inaction. The
| fetus is going to die either way.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It's true it's context dependent. E.g. the mother may
| only have 1 day of life remaining for other reasons, in
| which case saving the child might be preferred.
| [deleted]
| dlp211 wrote:
| Your point is taken, but I want to point out that an
| ectopic pregnancy will never become a child (fetal death
| is guaranteed) and almost always fatal to the mother if
| not removed.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Cool, now tell this to conservative politicians and
| evangelicals that still consider the removal of an
| ectopic pregnancy to be abortion and morally wrong.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| There have been rare, well-publicized cases where an
| ectopic pregnancy has been brought to term, but the
| 1/1000000 chance or whatever it is means it's often not
| worth trying. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually
| humanity has the tech to save these with artificial
| means.
| [deleted]
| hyper_reality wrote:
| To pick an extreme but well-known thought experiment. You
| are walking past a pond, and see a child drowning in it.
| You glance around and there is nobody else nearby. You
| could easily jump in and save the child. It will
| certainly die if you do not.
|
| If you choose to do nothing and ignore the drowning
| child, are you really not morally responsible in any way
| for the child's death?
| stavros wrote:
| If you are morally responsible for the child's death, you
| are morally responsible for basically every evil in the
| world right now, since you didn't do everything in your
| power to prevent all of them.
|
| You may say that that is the case, but if you're
| responsible for everything, you may as well be
| responsible for nothing.
| ParetoOptimal wrote:
| > If you are morally responsible for the child's death,
| you are morally responsible for basically every evil in
| the world right now
|
| No, you are morally responsible for every evil happening
| right in front of you that you could immediately change
| with little risk to yourself.
|
| For instance if you can't swim and the child is in the
| middle of the pond, I'd argue you aren't responsible
| because the risk is too great to yourself.
|
| In fact due to the danger of drowning people pulling you
| under, I'd argue unless the child is in water shallow
| enough for you to stand in it's not your moral
| responsibility to save them.
|
| Though in the situation, I'd probably feel compelled to
| save them anyway.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Why does your presence/proximity carry moral
| responsibility? Is it not possible to be a passive
| observer of evil?
|
| Heroism (jumping in the pond and saving the child)
| doesn't imply moral responsibility for the situation.
| stavros wrote:
| > No, you are morally responsible for every evil
| happening right in front of you that you could
| immediately change with little risk to yourself.
|
| The problem with this is that you snuck a quantitative
| difference there and made it sound qualitative. How much
| risk is "little risk"? What if you could spend all your
| money and save N people from starvation? There's no risk
| to you, so are you responsible for their deaths if you
| don't do it?
|
| What if the child is a bit less likely to pull you under?
| What if even less than that? Where do you draw the line?
|
| You're never completely free of responsibility, there are
| just varying degrees.
| liminal wrote:
| OK, then go with that: You are morally responsible for
| basically every evil in the world _to the degree that you
| have the ability to change it_.
| mikkergp wrote:
| Is this true? I think most of us would say proximity to a
| situation (and ability to handle it) changes our moral
| Imperetive. That's what makes the Trolley problem so...
| imperfect? It's hard to say what it extrapolates to every
| day life, since it's a situation that would probably
| never happen.
|
| If you say that proximity does not imply morality, where
| are you drawing the line? Would family friends and job
| duties encompass it? Certainly you can't say that helping
| your child implies you are responsible for the whole
| world.
| Flozzin wrote:
| I disagree. There are practical limits to what we are
| responsible for. And there are current obligations and
| responsibilities we have for ourselves. Just because we
| know of something does not make us responsible for it.
| Proximity and risk also play a role.
|
| I am obligated to my family and to myself. To provide for
| them as an example. But I would also be able to fly
| across the world and feed a starving child, in theory.
| But my obligation to my own family, and myself outweighs
| that. There would also be risks to the journey.
| Consequences with those actions as well.
| com2kid wrote:
| > If you are morally responsible for the child's death,
| you are morally responsible for basically every evil in
| the world right now, since you didn't do everything in
| your power to prevent all of them.
|
| That is my personal take on it. We are all living in sin,
| in reality we are all full of shit and have only a veneer
| of ethics.
| LtWorf wrote:
| 1st rule of first aid and rescue: "if you think it isn't
| completely safe, don't do it. Better 1 dies than 2"
| int_19h wrote:
| You're morally responsible, but it's a different degree
| of moral responsibility compared to throwing said child
| into the pond.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Is it conceivable for you to be placed in a situation
| where there is no "privileged default"? In other words, a
| situation where you _must_ choose between two options and
| there is no option that you can somehow point to as the
| "no, I refuse to choose" option?
| galangalalgol wrote:
| Interesting! Do you disagree with the legal traditions
| that penalize doctors for failure to render aid, even
| when not at work? Or perhaps that isvlike saying you are
| actually the (or at least a) trolley switch operator, you
| just aren't in duty, in which case maybe your position
| obligates action when it is warranted?
| sneak wrote:
| Precisely. I am generally against compelled action of any
| kind, as it violates mutual consent, a fundamental
| principle I hold.
|
| A trolley switch operator has explicitly opted in to the
| responsibility, and consents to same. A bystander has
| not.
|
| This is why the famous internet video of the trolley
| problem acted out in the real world was required to offer
| post-experiment psychological counseling to the test
| subjects. They had not consented to being placed in a
| position of responsibility for life safety.
| mikkergp wrote:
| > compelled action of any kind, as it violates mutual
| consent.
|
| So many of these questions are artificial, and it's
| interesting how the legal system gets involved, but to a
| certain extent I think these questions are meant to
| describe a persons moral position outside of societies
| judgement of them. In many of these situations, it's life
| and randomness that is putting these people into those
| situation, not producers of internet videos. I guess if
| you don't feel bad your not morally responsible, but if
| someone was in distress I would feel _compelled_ to act.
|
| I assume by compelled you mean by human forces but I
| can't help but compare it to the notion that chance and
| 'destiny' often violate our consent, and compell us to
| action.
| Hedepig wrote:
| We could also sacrifice a single person and harvest their
| organs to save five others.
| grog454 wrote:
| > I've never gotten why so many people think that the
| physical act of pulling or not pulling makes so much
| difference.
|
| One reason could be because your presence at this railroad
| switch is exceptional or at least unusual in some way.
| Maybe its worth considering what would happen if you
| weren't there at all.
|
| When working in a new codebase, it's generally better to
| assume that something odd is the way it is for a reason,
| rather than changing it to something that seems right
| (easier to understand) to you. This is because in the real
| world, there is so much you don't / can't yet know about a
| situation that you're thrown in to.
|
| I guess this is kind of reflected in the switch example
| where its 5 people that tied themselves to the railroad vs.
| one who didn't, and something like 85% "choose" the 5. How
| do you know how they got there? That implies so much prior
| knowledge and background that isn't really considered in
| the oversimplified "choices" in the website. Maybe they
| were forced to tie themselves to the railroad at gunpoint,
| or maybe it's a weird death-by-train suicide cult.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > When working in a new codebase, it's generally better
| to assume that something odd is the way it is for a
| reason, rather than changing it to something that seems
| right (easier to understand) to you.
|
| But isn't that's just because when you find yourself in a
| new codebase it's generally because you will be in a
| long-term relationship with the other contributors to
| that codebase, and thus it makes sense to be cooperative?
| If you were dropped into a new codebase in a hypothetical
| scenario like the trolley problem where you only need to
| make a single choice without any expectation of ongoing
| interaction with the relevant parties, then you might
| very well just do the quickest and dirtiest change to the
| codebase to accomplish your immediate goal.
| Hasu wrote:
| > How do you know how they got there? That implies so
| much prior knowledge and background that isn't really
| considered in the oversimplified "choices" in the
| website. Maybe they were forced to tie themselves to the
| railroad at gunpoint, or maybe it's a weird death-by-
| train suicide cult.
|
| This kind of reasoning really defeats the point of the
| thought experiment, which is to construct a scenario
| where those considerations aren't a factor so we can
| reason about ethics and moral intuitions without the
| greater complexity of real-world situations.
| grog454 wrote:
| What is the value of ethical and moral intuitions that
| can't be applied to real-world situations?
| Hasu wrote:
| The value is in training your ethical understanding so
| you can make better choices in real world scenarios. If
| you can't answer trolley problems and other thought
| experiments in a way that is ethically consistent, how
| can you hope to make ethical choices in the real world
| with all its complexity?
|
| It's really very similar to the reason physicists use
| simplified models, and the value of physics, even when it
| assumes a perfectly spherical cow, shouldn't need to be
| stated.
| haroldp wrote:
| I always took it that the point of the Trolly Problem was
| to demonstrate that moral problems can be difficult, or
| perhaps even inscrutable, in a way that confounds things
| like ethical clarity and consistency.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| I disagree - I think that "reasoning about moral
| intuitions" is completely useless if you're attempting to
| reason about them in utter isolation and with the
| assumption that the subject is omniscient.
|
| It's like economists assuming perfectly reasonable actors
| in markets, or physicists assuming a perfectly spherical
| object that ignores wind resistance.
|
| They're toy problems that don't match reality at all, and
| the value is dubious at best as anything other than a
| very gentle intro to the subject.
|
| Here's a thought experiment - How many people do you
| think would actually make the choice they state they will
| make if you present them the trolley scenario in real
| life with no warning? People who say they will pull the
| lever are fooling themselves.
|
| 1. They won't know how to read tracks
|
| 2. They won't know how the lever works
|
| 3. They don't know for sure that anyone will die: those
| five people might be able to move off the tracks just
| fine themselves
|
| 4. If they _do_ pull the lever they 're almost certainly
| going to get arrested or troubled by the legal system,
| because they fucked with shit and someone died afterwards
| (the courts won't give a shit that "they thought five
| other people _might_ have died! ").
|
| 5. For all they know the trolley operator can stop just
| fine, why would anyone be about get hurt?
|
| 6.... on and on.
|
| Basically - you're setting up an impossible framework,
| the results (even if you get them) are useless because
| they're only valid in that impossible framework.
|
| If the results of the real world never match the results
| of the framework you've set up, what is the value of that
| framework? It's just a shitty model with bad
| reproducibility. We have lots of those.
| Hasu wrote:
| So what's your alternative, throw your hands up and
| proclaim ethical reasoning to be impossible, nothing is
| true, everything is permitted, and it doesn't matter what
| you do?
|
| All models are wrong but that doesn't make them useless.
| Nick87633 wrote:
| I think the alternate is to not try to be a railroad
| operator in an emergency when you might make the
| emergency worse or take on huge liability.
|
| If you are a professional trolley network controller then
| you have the judgement and the duty to operate/not
| operate the lever. I think that few people would question
| the ethics of a professional operator flipping the switch
| to save the most people.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| I much prefer: "All models are wrong but some models are
| useful". For example - Flat earth is a model that is both
| wrong and useless.
|
| My claim is that the trolley problem is useless. It asks
| people to make a guess about how they would behave, but
| that guess is predicated on a set of initial conditions
| that are impossible to fulfill (omniscience is a bitch to
| get in real life).
|
| How does gathering all that incorrect data help you? What
| ethical reasoning are you trying to tease out here?
|
| Here's one you might love - "if the earth is flat and you
| reach the edge, would you jump?"
|
| Now lets just categorize everyones answer to the that
| question.... and: Hold the phone! The earth isn't flat?
| It doesn't matter? It turns out this question has
| basically no relevance to anything!
|
| Is it fun? Sure. Is it useful? I have doubts.
| fanzhang wrote:
| The Copenhagen interpretation of ethics: you're
| automatically morally neutral if you don't take action.
| https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-
| eth...
| theptip wrote:
| Personally I agree with you and it seems obvious to me to
| pull the lever. Here is my take on why there are people
| that believe it's obviously the other way around:
|
| There is a fundamental branching point of ethical systems
| between consequentialism (eg utilitarianism, which says the
| outcome is what matters) and deontology (which says
| basically that some set of rules exist, and ethical
| behavior equates to following those rules, no matter the
| consequence).
|
| If you are a deontologist, "the ends don't justify the
| means" and it's rarely ok to just kill someone to save
| someone else. If you are a consequentialist then the choice
| to live in the better world is obvious.
|
| Western morality, being heavily influenced by Judeo-
| Christian systems with Ten Commandments and books of God's
| Rules, has a lot of deontological assumptions baked in (as
| does the legal code). So even with time to ponder the
| problem, "thou shalt not kill" will weigh heavy on many.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| It seems overly simple to me to reduce it to "more is
| better". What if the five people are 100 year old
| dementia patients moaning in agony and the one person is
| an infant? Do you still pull the lever because "more
| people alive is better"? What if the five people are
| infants and the one person is an elderly convicted
| murderer, does that change how easy it is to pull the
| lever? In "more is better" neither shouldn't change your
| view, but they feel different.
|
| > " _(eg utilitarianism, which says the outcome is what
| matters)_ "
|
| Speaking of the outcome - before you are involved, the
| person who tied six people to the tracks is attempting
| murder; if society finds the person it will punish them.
| After you pull the lever, should society try you for
| murder? For aiding and abetting a crime? Celebrate your
| rescue? A society where any individual can kill any other
| individual, if they think it is for the greater good,
| feels like it would be unable to hold together. The
| outcome of more people being alive but the destruction of
| society seems like it could be bad enough to outweigh the
| loss of five people.
| theptip wrote:
| It's a thought experiment for studying ethics. You can
| modify all of the variables as you choose, but in general
| you want to pick the simplest form that suffices to
| demonstrate the point.
|
| In this case making the people different would make the
| experiment needlessly complex. The problem as-stated
| (assuming identical individuals) already illustrates the
| consequentialist/deontologist conflict.
|
| I think you are perhaps engaging on a different level
| than intended; "what are the legal consequences of this
| action" is downstream of the problem. In other words, we
| should make our legal system conform to our ethical
| system, not take the legal system as some fact that must
| guide our ethical principles.
|
| This is not intended as some legal case study to test law
| students' understanding of culpability in homicide.
| (Although that might well be an interesting discussion in
| its own context).
|
| > It seems overly simple to me to reduce it to "more is
| better".
|
| No consequentialist would claim this, and to be clear
| that's not what I claimed either.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| You said " _If you are a deontologist, "the ends don't
| justify the means" and it's rarely ok to just kill
| someone to save someone else. If you are a
| consequentialist then the choice to live in the better
| world is obvious._ " and I took that to mean that killing
| someone to save five people was what you consider the
| consequentialist 'obvious choice'. From there you now
| clarify that the people are all the same so all we have
| to go on is quantity of living people, it seems. If "more
| people alive" is not what you mean by "the better world",
| then what do you mean by it?
| theptip wrote:
| You said "reducing it to more is better", which is itself
| an oversimplification. That is not the principle at work
| here.
|
| There are various utility functions that utilitarians
| might choose, for example hedonic (Mills) or eudaimonic.
| And various other assumptions you must make, such as "is
| the average life net-positive in utility or net-
| negative?". Then you put your values into your utility
| function and assess the possible worlds and their
| likelihood of occurring. (For simplicity I'm leaving out
| the utility of having rules as heuristics, but worth
| mentioning as two-level utilitarianism seems appealing to
| me).
|
| All else being equal, as in this thought experiment,
| saving more lives is better than saving fewer in my and
| most utilitarians' opinion. But "more lives is better" is
| not the underlying principle at work in making the
| evaluation/decision. It's merely the result of the
| calculation. One can easily construct thought experiments
| where more lives in existence would reduce utility and
| not increase it, in which case utilitarians would
| advocate for not saving those lives. For example if we
| modify the trolley problem to say pulling the lever will
| also cause the five survivors to be imprisoned and
| tortured for the rest of their lives.
|
| (Look up "the repugnant conclusion" if you want to see a
| thought experiment where common intuitive morality breaks
| down under most systems).
| pawelmurias wrote:
| In real life scenarios there is a built in uncertainty with
| doing an action. Imagine a scenario where you redirect the
| trolley to kill someone but the people you wanted to save
| would have survived anyway.
| redwolf22 wrote:
| You could imply that this uncertainty also exists in the
| trolly problem or you could imply that it does not exist
| there.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| You could, but uncertainty always exists in the real
| world, so if it doesn't exist in the trolley problem then
| your choice in the trolley problem doesn't map to the
| real world and is not useful.
|
| For one thing, in the real world if the trolley is close
| and moving fast then you have little time to think and
| observe and high uncertainty, but if the trolley is
| distant and slow then you have lots of time to try
| calling other bystanders, untie or rescue people from the
| track instead. So the more your choice is constrained
| down to just moving the lever or not, the higher
| uncertainty and less clear the situation is.
|
| And in the real world it's more likely that a group of
| young people would tie some shop mannekins to a track for
| a laugh, or a film studio would tie props to a track,
| than that a moustache-twirling villain would tie some
| real people to a track. There is uncertainty in simply
| believing what you see; seeing five people tied to train
| tracks and about to die and being convinced they are real
| people, would have me thinking I must be dreaming.
| lupire wrote:
| You would enjoy Peter Singer's writing. You are killing
| children by not donating your wealth to help them.
| sneak wrote:
| This seems to me to be the logical conclusion of the "you
| must pull" framework.
| vkou wrote:
| Yes, but the escape valve to it is accepting that you're
| not a moral person all, or even most of the time.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I'm not convinced that's wrong, it's just that we need to
| accept we can't always act 100% in the best way for
| humanity. Rather than try to convince ourselves that our
| actions are somehow moral I think we need to accept we
| act out of selfishness sometimes and deal with that
| internally, otherwise we end up crafting philosophies
| saying that the hoarding of massive wealth is somehow
| moral just to try and stop the cognitive dissonance.
| HeavyStorm wrote:
| Morally is different but it's also the gist of the problem.
| Inaction makes you exempt because you didn't took part.
|
| People choose inaction all the time. When we see a bully
| abusing a colleague... A homeless person on the street... A
| car aciddent. This is the metaphor.
| LtWorf wrote:
| But it's different. Facing a bully is more like jumping
| in front of the train to stop it.
| vintermann wrote:
| > Legally perhaps, but morally, I've never gotten why so
| many people think that the physical act of pulling or not
| pulling makes so much difference.
|
| As Henry David Thoreau said:
|
| It is not man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote
| himself to the eradication of any wrong; he may still
| properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his
| duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives
| it no thought longer, not to give it practically his
| support.
|
| It's not your duty to fix the world. It's not even your
| duty to optimize the outcomes of the world as best as you
| could. The world is not in your hands. There was one trolly
| problem on this page where everything was blurred, but in
| the real world you don't remotely get clean problem
| statements at all, let alone clean outcomes. Not only are
| the outcomes profoundly unknowable, but the world is full
| of other people pulling their own levers!
|
| To illustrate it, maybe he should have added one trolley
| problem where you were given the classic #1 description,
| but regardless of what you picked, the opposite happened.
| Or you got a random pick from one of the other people on
| the site. Or one where a third, entirely unexpected thing
| happened.
| whack wrote:
| > _It is not man 's duty, as a matter of course, to
| devote himself to the eradication of any wrong; he may
| still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it
| is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if
| he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically
| his support._
|
| Classic appeal to authority. The above quotation contains
| grand declarations with no supporting logic or evidence.
| Just because Henry David Thoreau said it doesn't make it
| true.
|
| > _in the real world you don 't remotely get clean
| problem statements at all, let alone clean outcomes. Not
| only are the outcomes profoundly unknowable, but the
| world is full of other people pulling their own levers!_
|
| The outcomes of inaction are equally as "profoundly
| unknowable" as the outcomes of taking action. From an
| "unintended consequences" perspective, it's a wash. So we
| might as well focus on the first order known
| consequences, which are pretty clear.
|
| If we're going down the road of appealing to authority,
| I'm partial to _" The only thing necessary for the
| triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"_
| vintermann wrote:
| I explained at length why I agree with the Thoreau quote.
|
| > The outcomes of inaction are equally as "profoundly
| unknowable" as the outcomes of taking action.
|
| Absolutely.
|
| > From an "unintended consequences" perspective, it's a
| wash.
|
| Indeed. That's exactly what I said.
|
| > So we might as well focus on the first order known
| consequences
|
| Sure. Or we might not. Either is permissible because...
|
| > which are pretty clear.
|
| That's where you've been lied to. And the site author
| absolutely should have added an example where the
| description didn't match up with what happened at all.
| amalcon wrote:
| You probably use a consequentialist meta-ethical framework.
| This is great -- I do too -- but in a deontological or
| virtue-based system it may or may not work out this way.
| We've already got an example of such a deontological system
| here: if one takes the (somewhat unusual but not unheard
| of) view that legality implies morality, then there's a
| moral difference _because_ there 's a legal difference.
|
| The trolley problem is meant precisely to highlight these
| differences, and I think it's one of the best arguments for
| consequentialism. In my less charitable moments, I like to
| refer to the concept of privileging inaction as an informal
| fallacy. It's not really, though; it's just that folks have
| different philosophical starting points.
| bashmelek wrote:
| Then again there are also deontological aka categorical
| morality frameworks that see pulling the lever as
| acceptable, that it is not "killing" but the life of the
| man in the other line is lost as a secondary effect,
| which must be gravely considered. There are yet other
| versions of the trolley problem that have you push a man
| in the way of the trolley to stop it and save the five.
| Sometimes people pose that variant as though it must be
| accepted as morally equivalent, but I find the importance
| lies in why we find the situation different.
| amalcon wrote:
| That's correct, in deontological or virtue-based systems
| it varies a lot from system to system.
| vintermann wrote:
| In the deontological view, both pulling the lever and
| inaction may be perfectly permissible.
|
| Consider: Who knows what happens? It's perfectly possible
| the problem description lied, and the opposite thing
| happens. Either way real life doesn't come with problem
| descriptions. Since "what happens" is profoundly
| inaccessible, the more important question is what you
| wanted and why.
|
| So, it's permissible to redirect the train away from one
| and towards many, if directing it away from the one was
| what you wanted. It's equally permissible to redirect the
| train away from the many and towards the one, if
| directing it away from the many was what you wanted. It's
| easy to imagine a world where you got what you wanted,
| but the bad thing that looked like would happen as a side
| effect didn't happen. Maybe that's the one we live in.
|
| However, if you really wanted a specific person on the
| track to die, then you should pull it away from them. Not
| for their sake, but for yours. What happens is still
| uncertain, but the important thing is that you did not
| act on this bad desire.
|
| (By the way, virtue ethics is just a stupid "third way"
| branding exercise. To say goodness isn't derived from
| outcomes is fine. To say it is, is at least a coherent
| position. But thinking you can dodge that problem by
| talking about "virtues" instead is just nonsense.)
| II2II wrote:
| What does having enough time actually mean? I am almost
| certain that I would freeze if I encountered such a
| situation in real life, or panic and be unable to figure
| out how to flip the switch ...
|
| ... which brings up the real problem with these scenarios.
| In real life, the person at the switch would be trained.
| While that training is unlikely to include hypothetical
| scenarios created by philosophers, they would be expected
| to assess the safety of the act. This would put them into a
| position where the physical act of pulling or not pulling
| the switch would not, as you say, make much of a
| difference. They would have to answer for their actions
| down the line, even if their only answer was that it put
| them into an ethical conundum where they had insufficient
| information to assess the value of that one life verses
| five. A court may, or may not, accept that argument. It
| could be based upon the numbers (e.g. five lives are more
| valuable than one). It could be based upon the
| psychological impact of the decision upon the switch
| operator (e.g. a calculated sacrifice of one life may be
| frowned upon relative to an emotionally crippling
| indecision that led to the loss of five lives).
|
| In turn, that brings up another issue with these artificial
| scenarios: they virtually always include follow-ups that
| are intended to raise doubt in decisions made. What if that
| one person was a child with their entire life ahead of
| them, and the five lives elderly people who have less to
| look forward to? What if that five included a "Hitler" plus
| four regular people, and the one was a "Gandhi" (i.e. the
| one slaughtered many orders of magnitude more people, and
| the one was revered for their regard of life)? Those are
| the sorts of things that are usually raised to justify
| indecision, even though they are highly unlikely.
| amohn9 wrote:
| There's a version of the problem that tries to highlight
| this:
|
| A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five
| workers who will all be killed if the trolley proceeds on
| its present course. Next to you is a stranger who happens
| to be very large. The only way to save the lives of the
| five workers is to push this stranger onto the tracks where
| his large body will stop the trolley. The stranger will die
| if you do this, but the five workers will be saved.
|
| Does the act of physically pushing a person onto the tracks
| make it different than pulling a lever?
| tshaddox wrote:
| To me, that version just highlights how far-fetched it is
| to actually find yourself in this situation with all the
| provided knowledge about the situation and confidence
| that you're not mistaken about or missing any important
| details.
| partdavid wrote:
| It's so far-fetched that it's intended to be a thought
| experiment rather than a role play, which I think people
| miss. The <i>entire point</i> is to factor out all those
| innumerable details which complicate every real-life
| situation to see if there are underlying principles that
| can be illuminated. It's not about whether it's a trolley
| switch or a gun or a baby-grinding machine, it's about if
| there's an answer to how many babies you're willing to
| grind up and for what.
| tshaddox wrote:
| But it's reasonable to question the usefulness of any
| supposed insights gained from thinking through one's
| answers to the trolley problem. It's quite conceivable
| that _no_ insights can be extended _at all_ to any
| scenario in the real world.
| throw123123123 wrote:
| Because the real world is more complex than a lever, and
| there are many unknowns in how either physical or human
| manifestations respond to actions, and doing nothing
| removes your intent from the mix.
|
| A very clear example of this is medicine with the "do no
| harm" principle - that the actions of the physician should
| be chosen to minimize the scenarios of harming the patient
| under any circumstance - under chance, under lack of
| patient compliance, etc.
|
| Furthermore, the actions in the real world have also
| different experiences and meanings. Its easy to think about
| pulling a lever to kill 1 instead of 5, but not easy to
| think of killing one to harvest their organs and save other
| 5, though they are, with a lot of abstraction, "equivalent
| moral actions".
| makeitdouble wrote:
| The trolley problem is specifically about a situation that
| is ongoing regardless of your presence.
|
| You're not running the train, nor own the railway, you
| didn't bind the people on the rails. You just happen to be
| there, and can perhaps improve the outcome.
|
| In case the worst outcome happens because of your inaction,
| the biggest moral fault lies on those who created the
| situation in the first place. (If you're looking at a bank
| robbery and don't push the alarm button, you have some
| moral responsibility, but the robbers are the villains.)
|
| When you take action, you become part of the situation and
| take full responsibility of the outcome.
|
| So, no, I don't think the choice are morally symetrical.
| Taking action is morally a high risk high return strategy,
| while inaction is low risk mild returns (best case is you
| did nothing and that was the right choice, so you could
| have been absent, it wouldn't have made a difference)
| HALtheWise wrote:
| The trolley problem is usually phrased with a "bystander"
| making the decision, but is simplified to the point of
| ignoring most of what is important about being a bystander,
| in ways that makes people's moral intuitions look
| unnecessarily silly precisely because it's an artificially
| simplified scenario. In particular, typically bystanders in
| the real world are both _numerous_ and _uninformed_. As a
| result, assuming that each bystander has a randomly biased
| estimate of the truth, if everyone followed the simple
| logic of pulling the lever iff they believe doing so will
| net save lives, the lever is likely to be pulled far more
| often than it should be, because the person with the most
| extreme belief will conclude that doing so is worth it. In
| the real world, it 's typically the case that "action" is
| much more difficult to reverse than "inaction".
|
| There are other thought experiments that elucidate this
| more clearly, like a soldier deciding whether now is the
| right time to fire the first shot to start a battle.
|
| People's moral intuitions have heuristics that attempt to
| deal with this ("bystander effect") although they
| definitely can be poorly-calibrated in the real world, and
| are almost always badly calibrated in artificial thought
| experiments because that's not the environment they were
| designed for.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| There are metasocial reasons for this that are probably
| best illustrated by one of the classic variants on the
| trolley problem. Imagine you're a surgeon in a hospital.
| You have a healthy patient who is under for knee surgery or
| something. At the same time, five people come into the
| trauma ward from a trolley accident down the street, all of
| whom will die without an organ transplant. All of them are
| compatible with your patient.
|
| What should you do? If you're going to take the view that
| failing to save a person you could have saved is morally
| equivalent to killing, then clearly you should kill your
| one patient to save the other five.
|
| But think of the longer-scale effect this would have. Would
| anybody ever go to a hospital and get elective surgery
| knowing they might be killed to harvest their organs? A
| more general form of trolley problem doesn't necessarily
| present that exact dilemma with such clear consequences,
| but at any scale, think of the consequences of being
| concerned with what happens because of your inaction. Do
| you donate blood once a week or whatever the max frequency
| is at which your body can regenerate the red cells? Do you
| still have both kidneys? Do you ever spend money on
| anything except bare minimum shelter, enough grain to stay
| alive, and every other cent going to the AMF or whatever
| the maximum QALYs saved/dollar donated charity is? How many
| people have died in your time on Earth that could have
| lived if you'd done something different? If we all
| seriously made that a primary concern in our daily
| decision-making, virtually all productive action would be
| paralyzed. Everybody would be trying to become a hedge fund
| manager living like a pauper and giving all their money to
| the AMF, but the AMF would no longer be able to do
| anything, because everyone would be a hedge fund manager
| and there would be no one left to manufacture mosquito
| nets.
| tromp wrote:
| Ideally, the problem would require two possible actions, and
| not allow inaction. Two possible avenues for such a
| formulation are
|
| 1) The lever is in an intermediate state, that will cause the
| trolley to set into effect some global catastrophe, and
| therefore must be pulled in one of two directions. This may
| be a rather unconvincing scenario.
|
| 2) Have _two_ trollies, each running down their own track,
| and the operator has a choice which of two levers---only one
| of which can be reached in time---to pull to detour a trolley
| to a harmless side track.
| capableweb wrote:
| That's interesting. I didn't consider any legal liabilities
| at all, and would easily break the law in order to sacrifice
| one person in trade for five people. I also didn't consider
| doing "nothing", not pulling the lever was also an act, and I
| didn't "see" any options doing nothing.
|
| Fun to see how differently people approach these ones :)
| sneak wrote:
| On what basis do you assert that not pulling is also an
| act? It seems to me that you are asserting inaction ==
| action which, to me, is false.
| JoshCole wrote:
| It can help to understand why some people think inaction
| is an action by abstracting the problem such that you can
| model it in a computer using standard decision problem
| algorithms. When you do that you have an initial state
| and you have two edges and they lead to terminal outcome
| nodes. The choice of which edge to take is an action.
| This isn't (usually) controversial. People generally call
| the do nothing action an action in these circumstances:
| game theory extensive form will call it that, as will Q
| learning, and often you'll see the same framing even in
| things like the expecti minimax algorithm though
| sometimes they'll prefer to call it a move.
|
| In my estimation, inaction only seems to not be an
| action, because people are afraid of the idea that they
| are causally connected with outcomes in which things are
| killed - they want to avoid tit for tat game theoretic
| follow on concerns that aren't part of the game
| definition but might be implied by it. I think for
| myself, I discount this concern, because I assume
| policies of mercy are preferred to policies of judgement
| - the world is so complex and hard and some err isn't
| just reasonable, but inevitable. Not allowing for mercy
| in response to harm from decisions seems more likely to
| trap in tit for tat. So intent ends up mattering to me
| much more than the outcome when I consider the follow-on
| games that are implied.
| com2kid wrote:
| > On what basis do you assert that not pulling is also an
| act?
|
| A student not doing their homework is an action, correct?
| That is why their grade is penalized, for _not_ acting.
|
| If someone doesn't turn on the fan in the bathroom during
| a shower and the walls get moldy, that is an inaction
| that the person will be blamed for!
| sneak wrote:
| The student opted in to school and the responsibilities
| associated thereto.
| capableweb wrote:
| I can either pull the lever or I can not pull the lever.
| Choosing to not pulling the lever when I know I can save
| others, would be me making the choice to not saving
| others.
| sneak wrote:
| You could also leave the room, put on a movie, get
| accidentally distracted, et c. Do these all carry the
| same weight to you?
| bregma wrote:
| There is a reason why negligence is not considered a
| defence in law.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| >Do these all carry the same weight to you?
|
| Yes. Alas, we humans ( including myself ) are quite good
| at not feeling responsible if the issue isn't staring us
| in the face
| praptak wrote:
| Actual law strongly discerns between action and inaction.
| For example the Polish penal code says you can only be
| criminally liable for a result of inaction only if you had
| a specific legal obligation to prevent it.
| capableweb wrote:
| That's ok, it wouldn't change my mind anyway. If I can
| prevent more people from getting hurt, I'd be willing to
| break the law and take the punishment.
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| Would you kill your child to save two politicians you
| hate the most, one annoying youtuber, a neighbour who
| goes on your nerves for ages and two complete strangers?
| bobthechef wrote:
| lupire wrote:
| cortic wrote:
| > [I] would easily break the law in order to sacrifice one
| person in trade for five people.
|
| This is a quite disturbing statement. So many psychopathic
| examples; If you were a doctor would you randomly kill
| healthy people with compatible organs to multiple patients?
| Or a researcher inflicting gruesome deaths to thousands of
| innocent healthy people to save millions later...
|
| In fact we could simplify your statement further; _The ends
| always justify the means._ , and so endorsing all terrorism
| and war, even genocide; whenever the ends is enough peace
| to make a net positive.
| com2kid wrote:
| > The ends always justify the means., and so endorsing
| all terrorism and war, even genocide; whenever the ends
| is enough peace to make a net positive.
|
| That has literally been humanities M.O. for thousands of
| years.
|
| History is written by the victors, and somehow the books
| start off with mentions of moral superiority. Strange
| that.
|
| "He unified a warring country, bringing an end to a
| century of strife and violence!"
|
| "His conquest allowed for the formation of a national
| identity, bringing the people together."
|
| etc. etc.
| Dudeman112 wrote:
| >In fact we could simplify your statement further; The
| ends always justify the means., and so endorsing all
| terrorism and war, even genocide; whenever the ends is
| enough peace to make a net positive
|
| On the other hand, you seem to be arguing that the means
| justify the end. So you'd let all the terrorism and war,
| even genocide, go ahead if it took not having to stain
| your hands to stop it
|
| On the killing 1 person to save 5 lives example, it seems
| like your answer is "I wouldn't do it", which for the
| people actually being killed is equivalent to killing 5
| people to save 1 person ( but what really matters is that
| you weren't the one personally killing the 5 people )
| Brendinooo wrote:
| Seems like textbook overthinking. We're talking about a
| specific situation here: a trolley. Doesn't have to
| extrapolate to other scenarios.
| cortic wrote:
| I was responding to someone who was generalizing, its not
| in any way pedantic to put a generalization to the test.
|
| I'm also quite surprised that someone could imply
| _overthinking_ as a negative on HN. Gaining a deeper
| understanding of something, even modern philosophy, is
| intellectually useful. You should not under-think things,
| it does you a disservice to skip over the flaws and
| paradoxes in the world.
| capableweb wrote:
| > This is a quite disturbing statement
|
| So it is to be human :)
|
| > If you were a doctor would you randomly kill healthy
| people
|
| No.
|
| > researcher inflicting gruesome deaths to thousands of
| innocent healthy people to save millions later
|
| If it was guaranteed to save millions later, I'd think
| about it, if we remove the "gruesome" and "healthy
| people" parts. But "inflicting gruesome deaths to
| thousands of innocent healthy people" for the mere
| possibility of saving millions later? No.
|
| It all depends on the context obvious, as life is never
| between two binary choices or black VS white.
|
| I don't think it's so disturbing to wanting to help a
| bigger part. I (and many others) already do this
| constantly by protesting and striking. Strikes generally
| impacts people who don't actually have anything to do
| with what you're striking against (example: when doctors
| strike, it hurts sick people), but in order for you and
| your colleagues to make a wage you can actually survive
| on, it does sometimes justify the means.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| What about the standard but missing question. If there is
| no lever but someone you can push into the tracks to
| divert the trolley, would you? If there is no one to
| push, would you jump in the tracks yourself?
| Etherlord87 wrote:
| > If you were a doctor would you randomly kill healthy
| people with compatible organs to multiple patients?
|
| > > No.
|
| Why not? It's clearly a different approach than your
| original to turn the lever to kill a person in order to
| save 5 other people. So what changed?
|
| > researcher inflicting gruesome deaths to thousands of
| innocent healthy people to save millions later
|
| > > If it was guaranteed to save millions later, I'd
| think about it, if we remove the "gruesome" and "healthy
| people" parts.
|
| So you're willing to turn the lever to save 5 people
| because it's seemingly obvious those 5 people will
| therefore be saved (reasonable to me) and you see no
| problem killing 1 person, to reference your previous
| post, not only you would do that, you would easily break
| the law to do that! However, when it comes to killing
| thousands, in order to save millions, so the "net gain"
| is now not 4 but millions, and it's no longer the same
| order of magnitude, but it's a difference of 3 orders of
| magnitude, even if we remove the "gruesome" and "healthy
| people" parts, you will only "think about it"???? :D
|
| > It all depends on the context
|
| It seems to me you don't care about the context when it
| comes to killing one person, but once the stakes are
| higher and involve thousands, you hesitate. So I too find
| it disturbing, not just that you don't want to treat
| people individually and just consider the outcome of the
| trolley dilemma as +4 gain, rather than killing to save,
| but also the automatic disregard to individual rights
| creates a portrait of a person very dangerous to the
| society.
| zild3d wrote:
| The opposite can also be seen as quite disturbing.
| Deciding to not save the lives of (net) 4 people, because
| you don't want to break a law
| 1602 wrote:
| This is not the opposite here. The opposite is to not
| save lives of some people at the expense of taking life
| of another, i.e. the ends do not justify the means. It is
| a moral dilemma and whether you break or not break a law
| does not matter nor should it exclusively influence a
| decision here (I mean to do harm, just because you abide
| orders - that's immoral).
| BoxOfRain wrote:
| Yeah, I was unlikely to act unless doing so would obviously
| save life in a way that I think a jury of my peers would
| agree with.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| I had to put the "legal repercussions" concept aside for
| this; because otherwise I'd never take an action that would
| involve someone being killed. No matter what the "if I did
| nothing" option was, you'd be in for a world of hurt in the
| courts if you took action that wound up killing someone; even
| if it was them or 1,000 other people dying. Someone would
| take you to court.
| smitty1e wrote:
| I was consistently in the "do nothing" camp.
|
| Scored nearly 1k kills.
|
| Because #FightThePremise
| HeavyStorm wrote:
| That's the gist of this philosophical problem.
| bell-cot wrote:
| +1, and "Implied legal (and moral) liabilities" is just one
| of the issues if you're viewing the Trolley Problem as a
| real-world, real-consequences situation. (Vs. something from
| the land of make-believe, which is cool / interesting /
| empowering to sit around & talk about.)
|
| For starters, real-world railroad (RR) switches are more
| complex than what you would understand from model RR sets,
| cartoons, old movies, and philosophy books. They are not
| binary, are often less than well-maintained, and may required
| upper-body strength that you don't have to successfully
| throw. The trolley may be going too fast for the track that
| you divert it onto, resulting in a derailment that kills
| everybody you were looking at - plus some more inside the
| trolley. Plus extra bystanders. Your well-intentioned
| passerby's understanding of which way the switch is actually
| pointing may be _wrong_. RR history has some famous ( &
| deadly) accidents where an experienced RR employee
| misunderstood the situation, and threw a switch the wrong
| way.
|
| Real-world, I certainly would not be touching the switch.
| darkerside wrote:
| Same. I also allowed for the possibility of action by others.
| For example, in 100 years, someone else may be able to stop
| the trolley.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I take exception to the idea that the legal choice implies it
| being the moral one. Legality seems to me to be more of the
| bare minimum expectations and actively avoiding doing the
| wrong thing (don't kill people) rather than doing the right
| thing.
| Etherlord87 wrote:
| If legality is supposed to be based on morals (not sure how
| many people agree with this?) then wouldn't basing morals
| on the law be a circular reference?
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| That's what I'm arguing against - legality isn't morals,
| but the original quote:
|
| > Implied legal (and moral) liabilities made a difference
| in my choices.
|
| Serves to muddy the two. I'm saying if we want to
| consider the moral option the legal isn't relevant.
| jorvi wrote:
| > Implied legal (and moral) liabilities made a difference in
| my choices.
|
| This is always my problem with the trolley problem. Are we
| supposed to take second order effects into account?
|
| For example, if I destroy the trolley that is killing 5
| people over 30 years with CO2, does another trolley get built
| to replace it?
|
| Or 'kill 5 people now or send the trolley into the future 100
| years and kill 5 people then'. Is it 100% guaranteed the
| trolley kills them then? Or can I assume there is a tiny
| chance they figure out time travel and can make preparations?
|
| Or the 'stuck on an eternal loop'. Does this mean true
| eternity and are the people in the trolley immortal? Or just
| for 70 years?
| Etherlord87 wrote:
| I think the trolley problem is not about simply getting the
| right answer. The problem is about figuring correct answers
| for various circumstances, defining those circumstances,
| discussing them and improving one's and others
| understanding of morality.
| sbf501 wrote:
| Who am I to decide the fate of other humans. In cases where I
| have to choose between people, I do nothing. I'm not god.
| pfraze wrote:
| That's a huge assumption that inaction is equivalent to not
| making a decision
| sbf501 wrote:
| It is a decision not to intervene. It is as if I weren't
| even there. I can't possibly decide what life is more
| valuable, so I decide not to intervene.
| simplify wrote:
| > But what if you put the Do Nothing choice on a timer?
|
| This is actually done in the game Dr. Trolly's Problem[0]. This
| technicality is interesting enough such that a streamer creates
| his own internal rule around it to handle issues of
| morality[1].
|
| [0]
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/773830/Dr_Trolleys_Proble...
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dabWpa-FwUo
| phkahler wrote:
| "If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice." -
| Rush
| layer8 wrote:
| The problem is to pick a timeout long enough to allow the
| player to at least read through the description and understand
| the situation, but not so long that players gets impatient and
| pick the "action" because they don't want to wait (and there
| are no real stakes on the website). A timeout could distort the
| results more than the current version.
| jefftk wrote:
| You could click a button when done reading, and then be
| presented with a 4s timer counting down to "don't pull the
| lever"
| layer8 wrote:
| After the first level you'll know how it works, and then I
| don't see much of a difference to the current version,
| except that you lose those players who are annoyed by the
| four-second wait.
| Silica6149 wrote:
| Another point is that a lot of these scenarios are easy for us
| to think through, but to be in the actual situation and
| _physically_ push someone /something and potentially _see_
| someone die would make a lot more of us indecisive.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| I only find this true when there's someone I know at stake.
| If the choice is between 1 or 5 random people, I'm going to
| save the 5 people 100% of the time. If that 1 person happens
| to be a family member or best friend, that choice is going to
| be a lot harder and potentially different in the actual
| situation.
| Folcon wrote:
| Ok, this is really interesting, is there some UX where inaction
| itself stops being the norm?
|
| For example 2 buttons, with a timer to the side, which when it
| hits 0, rolls a dice and picks a random outcome.
|
| Does the above now make someone want to choose?
|
| If not is there any mechanism that does not forcibly require a
| decision (ie just stating you must make a choice or place the
| chooser in a situation where a choice is a functional
| requirement, such as you're in a locked room and cannot leave
| until you press a button).
| dorgo wrote:
| 2 mutually exclusive buttons/levers + everybody dies if you
| do nothing. This way inaction is still an option but strickly
| worse than each of the actions/buttons.
| andix wrote:
| Yeah, that one bugged me too. The trolley should move right
| from the beginning and go straight if you don't pull quickly
| enough.
| alliao wrote:
| I've played some Japanese games where indecisiveness is
| represented as inaction and is one of the option, first time
| realising it definitely upped the ante
| mmcnl wrote:
| Also a part of the trolley problem is that your action space is
| limited to two actions. In practice that's never the case.
| somedude895 wrote:
| Would be great if you had to actually pull a lever and hold it,
| being able to release it at any time. The cartoon figures'
| faces change depending on whether they're currently in danger
| or not. Then see how many people change their mind mid pull
| like with the best friend or the cat/lobster one.
| makoto12 wrote:
| I think this is a really good point. Definitely makes inaction
| feel like a choice, which is fundamental to the problem
| Tao3300 wrote:
| Yes. E.g.: I didn't choose to kill the lobsters instead of
| the cat. I chose not to act. If they'd been switched, the cat
| would have been greased instead. The statistics are presented
| after the fact like you had a preference for one over the
| other, when in _most versions_ of this problem, I was
| deliberately choosing not to participate. I refuse to be
| complicit in this evil.
|
| I maintain that the real answer to the trolley problem
| involves an overwhelming personal struggle that is so
| traumatizing that it transforms the hypothetical subject into
| a vigilante -- a hero who devotes themselves to carrying out
| personal justice against the nefarious evil-doers who keep
| setting up these trolley problems. The problem is the Joker,
| ergo the solution is Batman. Dismissed!
| wizofaus wrote:
| I've thought that too, and it's hard to believe you really
| could convince yourself that your level of
| responsibility/guilt for the outcome is significantly less in
| the case you choose not to intervene even when you easily
| could. If the lever was some distance away (and certainly if
| other people were just as able to reach it on time) then not
| running to and pulling it seem to be a less culpable choice.
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| And like why is the trolley about to run over five people? And
| why can't you personally jump in the way? Who designed the
| train track? Same person that wants you to scapegoat some
| fatty?
| bobthechef wrote:
| llimos wrote:
| This is exacerbated by the summary at the end, giving you your
| "kill count".
|
| For cases where you did nothing, you did not kill anyone. The
| trolley did.
| smeej wrote:
| This gets at what is, to me, an extremely important
| distinction between "killing" and "allowing to die."
|
| Death happens to everyone eventually. No way around that, at
| least not yet. The most I can do with a trolley switch is
| possibly affect the timing.
|
| It seems to me that any time I pull the lever to direct the
| train toward a person (as opposed to toward other trains or
| lobsters or money), I'm causing the death of whoever is on
| the other track to happen sooner. I'm killing them.
|
| But if I don't pull the lever, if I don't intervene, I'm
| allowing death, which was already coming, to come to
| whoever's on the original track.
|
| As a principle, the distinction between killing and allowing
| to die really starts to make itself felt when we're talking
| about the difference between, say, turning off a respirator
| to allow someone to die, versus actively euthanizing someone
| by administering medication to stop their heart, even though
| in this case, both involve an action.
|
| To me, those aren't the same act. There's no moral obligation
| to try to extend life as long as technologically possible.
| Death comes and that's OK. But there _is_ an obligation not
| to _cause_ death, and an obligation not to pursue it as its
| own end.
| kitkat_new wrote:
| > There's no moral obligation to try to extend life as long
| as technologically possible.
|
| For me there is, if there is something to save (i.e. not
| brain dead).
| smeej wrote:
| Even if someone isn't yet brain dead, if there's no hope
| of recovery and it's just going to be a long slog of
| supporting more and more organs artificially until either
| the brain gives up or we hit an organ we can't save, I
| have no problem with allowing death to come because we
| stop supporting at least one organ, without which the
| person cannot survive.
| ant6n wrote:
| It kind of depends on whether you are some innocent
| bystander, or some employee of the trolley system who is
| actually trained and certified to pull that lever to divert
| that trolley and tasked with minimizing the loss of life.
|
| Given that the way the problems are presented as if the
| decider is an innocent bystander, perhaps inaction is the
| most sensible choice.
| throwaway27727 wrote:
| I'd imagine that turning off someone's life support
| (respirator) is akin to killing them, but something like a
| Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order would be allowing to die.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| I think that's the beauty of the trolley problem: you decided
| who was going to die, because it was in your power to change
| the outcome.
|
| Some people will accept the moral responsibility, while
| others will say their inaction absolves them of legal
| responsibility.
| onionisafruit wrote:
| It just says "kill count: 54" (my result). It doesn't say who
| is responsible for the killing.
| dwd wrote:
| Ultimately the mechanic who was responsible for maintaining
| the brakes, but you as the controller of the switch have an
| illusion of free will that causes you to act accordingly to
| your predetermined nature and upbringing.
| stared wrote:
| This action/inaction is done nicely in Trolley Problem Inc (htt
| ps://store.steampowered.com/app/1582680/Trolley_Problem_I...).
|
| As long as the trolley moves, you can switch back.
|
| While I have mixed opinions on the game (literally mixed, i.e.
| both good and bad, not a euphemism for bad), it provides more
| uneasy emotion than any other trolley problem game I played.
|
| The "bad" part is that it is a paid game, working only on
| Windows, while at the quality of a Flash game from the 2000s
| from Newgrounds. The good part is that it is at the creativity
| level of a Flash game from the 2000s from Newgrounds.
| erk__ wrote:
| In the same genre there is the recently released Trolley Problem
| Inc [0] though it starts out in the same way it have some
| interesting things happening throughout the game.
|
| [0]:
| https://store.steampowered.com/app/1582680/Trolley_Problem_I...
| Aeolun wrote:
| Hmm, the lobsters got to me. Apparently I value them at basically
| zero compared to a cat.
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| No lobster has ever pooped in my flower bed.
| [deleted]
| vemv wrote:
| Counterpart to the robot problem:
|
| You can do nothing and kill one human, or pull the lever and kill
| one alien who can experience consciousness, feelings and pain at
| a higher level than ours.
| kybernetyk wrote:
| The only way to win is not to play. I'd almost never pull the
| lever.
| eurasiantiger wrote:
| The ending is a false dichotomy.
|
| It's likely the universe is deterministic, but that does not mean
| everything is predetermined: it just means the universe is
| mechanistically governed by certain rules.
|
| Those rules create a fractal spectrum of causal events not unlike
| those seen in the Game of Life. From the interplay of those
| causalities emerges an ordered bubble of discrete, relatively-
| localized energy-matter we perceive as our physical universe--and
| possibly countless others like it.
| mrjin wrote:
| The whole thing was nonsense. I never think any individual should
| be in the position of deciding who to live and who to die. The
| common fallacy would be something like let's pull the lever to
| save 5 by killing 1. So the question would then be how can anyone
| be sure it would be worthy to save the 5 by killing 1? To me,
| life is not a number, unless someone involved means something to
| me, I'll let it be.
| dejawu wrote:
| I was really hoping that the trolley I sent into the future in
| the time travel one would suddenly re-appear in a later question.
| ravi-delia wrote:
| Ending with a contextless kill count was the perfect touch. This
| feels almost as profound as it is silly, but I'm not sure how
| meta-level the profundity is. Lovely site for sure
| [deleted]
| duskwuff wrote:
| I just wish they'd included the complete kill count, not just
| the people. "You killed 85 people, one painting, and five
| lobsters." Or whatever.
| McBeige wrote:
| Don't forget robots. Sentient robots are AT LEAST between cat
| and lobster, perhaps above human. Robot rights now!
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Does it have one from the AI point of view? https://www.smbc-
| comics.com/comic/trolley-2
| ddenisen wrote:
| Like somebody else has noted, the trolley problem exemplifies
| that people assign different weight multipliers to proactive
| action vs inaction, instead of strictly comparing the direct
| expectation of both outcomes. Two real life applications of this
| that I find interesting are:
|
| * Tech company employees who choose not to sell their vested RSUs
| (inaction) as opposed to selling them and diversifying into other
| investments such as index funds (action) even though the latter
| is economically more correct.
|
| * Members of the general public who refused to receive the COVID
| vaccine (inaction) as opposed to getting vaccinated (action). In
| their minds, the risk of getting injured due to vaccine side
| effects is incorrectly weighted more than the risk of developing
| complications from COVID, because the former would be a
| consequence of a conscious action (i.e. "pulling the lever") as
| opposed to doing nothing (letting the trolley go down the default
| path of getting sick).
| ipnon wrote:
| My favorite variation is:
|
| A trolley is heading towards a line of people corresponding to
| every natural number. You can pull a lever and divert the trolley
| towards a line of people corresponding to every real number
| between 0 and 1. What do you do?
| gHA5 wrote:
| Matching edit of the original picture: https://i.kym-
| cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/096/562/597
| codefreeordie wrote:
| Mathematics [hey-o]
|
| But actually, if you choose "pull the lever" after having done
| the maths, then you are probably a misanthrope. Either that or
| you believe very strongly in the theory that if you do nothing
| you're not involved. But really, you're just a misanthrope.
| [deleted]
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| hmmm.. i'm not a very mathy person but seems like an
| interesting question.
|
| Aren't they both just infinite? There's no such thing as a
| bigger inifinite?
|
| thinking about it out loud here tho I would say that every
| natural number is a BIGGER number than every real number
| between 0-1 because, well, 2 is bigger than 0-1.
|
| but then again since you said corresponding to every number....
| 0.000000to infiniitiy -1 is a number in itself, so, you have
| infinite numbers, along an infinite number of 'places'.
|
| Final Answer, you save lives by natural numbers, because real
| numbers have an infinite number of 'digits' per 'places' &
| those 'Places' are equal to all natural numbers.
| Akronymus wrote:
| > There's no such thing as a bigger inifinite?
|
| Well, that is where the fun starts.
|
| Take every natural number, assign a unique real between 0 and
| 1 to it. Put all of them under each other. Now take the 1st
| digit of the first number, 2nd of the 2nd and so on, set it
| to a different digit than the one you took.
|
| Now you have a new, unique, real (Because it differs in at
| least one digit with every other real taken so far) but no
| more natural to assign it to.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_diagonal_argument
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elvOZm0d4H0
| bergenty wrote:
| There is such as thing as a bigger infinite and it does make
| sense but it's kind of dumb.
| kruczek wrote:
| Not all infinities are equal, from
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_number:
|
| "A fundamental theorem due to Georg Cantor shows that it is
| possible for infinite sets to have different cardinalities,
| and in particular the cardinality of the set of real numbers
| is greater than the cardinality of the set of natural
| numbers."
| MrPatan wrote:
| Trolley problems suck.
|
| Anybody's response is meaningless unless we take into account the
| context they have in their heads.
|
| A very common piece of context is: "If you touch something and
| people die, it's your fault. If you don't touch anything and
| people die, you can very convincingly claim in front of a judge
| 'It wasn't me, I didn't touch anything!'"
|
| That's a very different setting than "I'm a philosopher who wants
| to show how much I care or don't about total utility to other
| philosophers"
| mikkergp wrote:
| I think the emotional context / trauma is interesting as well
| when considering many of the scenarios. Regardless of some sort
| of external validation, how will you feel after incident? The
| "If you touch something and people die, it's your fault"
| description is very clean and logical. or something like "I
| don't want to play god, when there's so much uncertainty", and
| lots of people leave it at that. But what would your conscious
| hoist upon you in the days and years after you made your
| decision. What could you _actually_ live with, not what do you
| think you could live with.
| adrianmsmith wrote:
| This is exactly how I've come to think about them as well. If
| you get involved with something, someone might blame you.
|
| I think that's why (bad) managers often just don't seem to make
| any decisions. You need to know if the feature should be like X
| or Y, why won't they just make a decision and tell you? It's
| because they instinctively understand if they can get away with
| not making a decision (e.g. you stop waiting and just go for
| one of the option, or you contact someone else to make a
| decision) then there's less chance they'll be blamed for stuff.
| BurningPenguin wrote:
| Somehow i reached a kill count of 69. Nice.
| https://imgur.com/a/A15GC00
| HeavyStorm wrote:
| Well, that was fun. My internal geek, however, is annoyed that it
| seems to miss the point of the trolley problem - that of you do
| nothing, you're not responsible. Answers seem to indicate that
| people don't get that.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Turns out I am extremely selfish.
| rekoil wrote:
| I thought it was interesting that so many people chose to pull
| the lever _and become personally responsible for the outcome_ in
| many of these scenarios. Like the ones not involving people dying
| for instance, I don 't want to be personally responsible for
| destroying 1 trolley just because some idiot had set one on a
| path to destroy 3, I can just see the shitstorm some stupid
| company will kick up in order to make me pay there for example.
| McBeige wrote:
| That only makes sense if you think in terms of law to the
| detriment of morality.
|
| Does responsibility play _any_ role in morality?
| andreyk wrote:
| But if you are by the lever and know the outcome of pulling it
| (as is implicitly the presumption in these thoughts
| experiments), are you not personally responsible for choosing
| the outcome either way?
| fedeb95 wrote:
| Now you all be honest and admit the one that took you longer to
| solve was the one with the life savings
| Hamuko wrote:
| No, I sacrificed some strangers pretty quickly.
| McBeige wrote:
| I have no savings, but that's probably cheating. I know I'd
| sacrifice _your_ life savings in a heartbeat, does that count?
| ;)
| fedeb95 wrote:
| Ahaha well for what it's worth I'd sacrifice yours
| avgcorrection wrote:
| The original/vanilla Trolley Problem is already absurd and not a
| legitimate problem at all. Not pulling some lever is just as much
| of a choice as doing it. The only salient difference is that less
| people are harmed, so the choice is obvious.
| jnsaff2 wrote:
| lucioperca wrote:
| Trolley problem never has my solution as an option, which tries
| to pull the lever in-between the axes to try to derail it.
| joshspankit wrote:
| UI bug report: on my iPad, the pictures are on top of the text.
| This is true whether in landscape or portrait and in a few cases
| caused me to not understand the choice.
| ConstantVigil wrote:
| Kill count: 84
|
| Apparently I solved philosophy? Im gonna assume that title stays
| the same for everyone lol.
|
| So, explanation for why so high.
|
| Simply put; I don't believe 5 people really got tied to those
| rails each time. They are in on it somehow. If so, that is sick
| and twisted they would tie someone else to the rails purposely.
| So they deserve the trolley instead.
|
| Now on the chance that they really are all innocent; I still have
| another problem with it.
|
| How did they not overpower the person tying them up? The single
| person I can understand. Heck 2 people even. 3? 4? 5!?
|
| no.
|
| Something is up. That trolley is going over the 5.
|
| (edit: Like seriously, these people would all have to have been
| knocked out with some drugged food or something at a party
| first... And that's assuming they stay asleep, don't struggle,
| etc...)
| brewdad wrote:
| Not a high total at all. I scored 97.
|
| If there is a hell, I guess I'll be going there.
| going_ham wrote:
| Wow! Like GP I got only 83. I must have messed up few things
| here and there!
|
| My rationale was to result to default situations because
| that's how most of things work. Most of the general events
| are resulting to average behavior. This makes more sense when
| you realize world moves without your presence.
|
| So by defaulting, I am ignoring my presence and seeing the
| result on what happens without me. It was fun decision to
| make.
|
| In one case, I genuinely saved 5 sentient robots over a
| human.
| miffe wrote:
| I got 91 by pressing Do Nothing on every level.
| paganel wrote:
| Glad I wasn't the only one doing that.
| sejje wrote:
| I killed 83 and I mostly sided with the majority.
|
| I sometimes also assigned blame to those tied up, or at least
| agency; they could have prevented this situation, somehow,
| probably.
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| There's also the question of whether you should take
| responsibility for something that is not your responsibility,
| unless it es in fact YOU that tied them to the tracks.
| uudecoded wrote:
| I got an 82, so assume we are thinking similarly.
|
| I am personally interrogating my response to this:
|
| "Oh no! A trolley is heading towards 5 people who tied
| themselves to the track. You can pull the lever to divert it to
| the other track, killing 1 person who accidentally tripped onto
| the track instead. What do you do?"
|
| I save the 5 over the 1. Only 15% agree with me. Why?
|
| This is the first Absurd Trolley Problem (I think) that
| explained WHY a person was tied to the track.
|
| I think the value of this hypothetical is in establishing the
| value of cultural relativism versus Kantian ethics.
|
| In that framing, I'm really surprised that, on Level 27, 70%
| would rather send a trolley into the future to kill 5 people
| 100 years from now, instead of 5 people now. In almost 11K
| votes, this seems significant.
|
| My view is that this provides evidence for the Bentham "hedonic
| calculus". (And I'm sure there are better scholars of Kant and
| Bentham than I that can argue for or against this.)
|
| Here's a "political" example: Do you want to deal with problems
| now, or defer? 70% will defer. (I think this checks out, and is
| truly hedonic.)
|
| So, I think the data, and the utilitarian approach shows: don't
| expect any of our societal problems (politically agnostic) to
| be solved any time soon.
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| >A trolley is heading towards 5 people who tied themselves to
| the track.
|
| My reading of this was that they were suicidal. If people
| want to kill themselves, that's not for me to decide if
| that's right, or wrong. But if i can save one person from
| misfortune, atleast i was ablee to do that.
|
| >70% would rather send a trolley into the future to kill 5
| people 100 years from now, instead of 5 people now.
|
| Would you rather have $5 now, or $5 in the future? Humans are
| compounding, i'd rather pay you in the future when there is
| more abundance.
| epgui wrote:
| > Humans are compounding
|
| I had the same thought, but this isn't necessarily true.
|
| With money, it's true by design. Interest rates, inflation
| and money expansion are core components of the economy.
|
| However, with humans it all depends on the fertility rate,
| and it's currently dropping. So in this scenario, there's a
| lot we don't know about the future.
|
| I sent the trolley into the future because, all else being
| equal, at least it gives us 100 years to plan for the
| event.
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| Eh, I don't really buy the whole fertility rate,
| depopulation stuff that Elon and the like have been
| disputing. I truly believe that was him signaling support
| for abortion ban without him signalling support for it.
|
| One thing has been constant through history, population
| growth. I have seen no evidence that this is slowing,
| only that 'Developed nations' are having less kids.
| People seem to forget that develop nations don't really
| represent 'the world' as a whole. Southeast asia, India,
| rural parts of China, South America do not seem to have
| this problem and they represent that majority of the
| world as much as the west would like to hide that fact.
|
| Also, we've already proved that artificial womb
| technology is theoretically possible... it's only a
| matter of a few generations until thats going to be
| abused.
| epgui wrote:
| Regardless of what Elon is saying, it makes no sense to
| assume that exponential growth will continue forever. At
| some point (rather quickly), you run out of resources.
| Population growth at the global scale _has_ begun to slow
| down. I don 't know when it dips below 2.0 or gets to a
| stable state of 2.0, but it will eventually happen.
| easrng wrote:
| >I save the 5 over the 1. Only 15% agree with me. Why?
|
| I saved the one because the 5 presumably want to die anyway.
| fuyu wrote:
| 100 years is a long time for humanity to look into ways to
| counteract time travelling trolleys! Sure it _says_ the
| future trolley will kill 5 people, but if I were in that
| situation I'm fairly sure I wouldn't be so certain. In your
| "political" example: Do you want a guaranteed bad outcome
| now, or what we expect to be the same bad outcome later?
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| Maybe we have medical resurrection in 100 years, so killing
| people might not be so bad. Plus future humans get a
| perfectly preserved example of a 100 year old trolley out
| of the deal, which is presumably a valuable antique.
| ConstantVigil wrote:
| > In that framing, I'm really surprised that, on Level 27,
| 70% would rather send a trolley into the future to kill 5
| people 100 years from now, instead of 5 people now. In almost
| 11K votes, this seems significant.
|
| RIGHT?!?
|
| I mean, who know's the potential reprecussions that portal
| might hold for us if we send that trolley through. Sure, 5
| people might be saved today; but millions could be saved
| instead in 100 years when that portal isn't reopening to
| whoop our ass for killing 5.
| epgui wrote:
| I voted to send the trolley into the future, because
| everything else being equal (5 lives and 5 lives), it gives
| us 100 years to try and plan for the event.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Yeah it says that for everyone.
|
| The trolley situation is just meant to frame the "you have to
| choose" type decision without starting back and forth
| "whatabouts" that avoid looking into the actual question like
| "I simply wouldn't get into such a situation" or similar.
|
| It's impossible to make some scenario 100% of people will find
| bulletproof so people just use the trolley scenario to convey
| the concept the question is about the balance of the decision
| not how the need for the decision came about.
| ConstantVigil wrote:
| zamadatix wrote:
| Can't reply to the sibling directly so in reply to it:
|
| The simplicity in the scenarios and the ambiguity of the
| scenario in this type of question is desired not a fault. The
| goal is to set up a stage for exploration of that nuance and
| "shades of gray" space just as you started exploring it in
| your comment. The goal is not to set up the question in some
| way that makes it so one of the answers or reasonings is
| right or appropriate. As such the stats only talk to which
| lever was pulled, if the question could have all of the
| reasonings laid out beforehand in a single page then it
| wouldn't have been a very good trolley type question.
|
| As for talking about the reasoning freeform that's why it was
| posted here! For your particular example I chose the old
| people because of QALY. 5*<last 10 years of life> is fewer
| QALY than 50 years of life starting at a young age. There are
| probably a half dozen other reasonings I could think of and
| many more I can't and that's exactly what the goal of the
| question is, not about actually finding a most correct answer
| via rigid framing.
| JetAlone wrote:
| I got 46...
| throwaway742 wrote:
| I only got 58. Anyone get lower?
| zestyping wrote:
| I got 55.
| throwaway742 wrote:
| Another fan of sentient robots?
| Hamuko wrote:
| They did nothing wrong.
|
| (I still got 65 confirmed kills.)
| YurgenJurgensen wrote:
| If the sentient robots didn't have a good 3-2-1 backup
| solution, that's their own fault.
| fmoralesc wrote:
| I got 44.
| darkerside wrote:
| One at a time? You have a high level of confidence here that
| I'm not sure is warranted.
| nocturnial wrote:
| If you factor in the legal implications, the trolley problem
| becomes trivial. Do nothing. I'm not qualified nor allowed to
| operate train infrastructure and the legal consequences will
| become worse if someone dies because of something I did.
| rcoveson wrote:
| I don't see how that trivializes the problem. With that
| additional consideration, the options are:
|
| 1. Let 5 people die and 1 live, and you probably don't have any
| legal consequences.
|
| 2. Save 5 people, cause the death of 1, and you probably go to
| jail.
|
| So the thing that made the answer trivial was the introduction
| of legal consequences that affect you personally? Doesn't the
| difference of 4 deaths dwarf that?
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| You're implying that you'd go to jail for the lives of 4
| people (or that people should), but recent experience has
| shown people won't even wear a mask to save other people's
| lives.
| rcoveson wrote:
| Yes, people are shitty utilitarians. I can think of a
| thousand equally egregious examples that we're both guilty
| of. Doesn't mean we wouldn't be good people when presented
| with a social situation that our culture and instincts
| actually prepared us for.
|
| Think about how many people have sacrificed themselves for
| others. Not just jail time, but death. Would each of those
| people have lived completely pure, selfless lives if they
| hadn't done what they did? Probably not. Who knows, some
| might have ended up being anti-maskers. It is said that
| "dying is easy". Making one clearly right choice, damn the
| extreme consequences, is actually very normal for humans.
| Just as normal as spending a whole life making bad
| decisions. Even more bizarre is the two "modes" aren't even
| mutually exclusive.
| mcv wrote:
| They should have made the mask issue one of the tests. Do
| you let 4 people die, or do you choose to save them but
| wear something uncomfortable?
| Markoff wrote:
| Is there any proof wearing a mask save ANY lives? People
| talk about this as if it were some fact, it's usually same
| people believing safe and effective vaccines, who quickly
| forgot vaccines were supposed to stop transmission, stop
| symptoms, they just keep pushing goal posts, while reality
| if you look at stats in highly vaxxed countries is that
| vaccines do really nothing anymore.
| mcv wrote:
| You spread a lot less virus if you wear a mask. Cheap
| masks don't protect you, but they do protect others from
| you. Countries where everybody immediately wore masks had
| far less cases than those where a lot of people didn't.
| The whole mask issue was the ultimate test in altruism:
| do you accept slight inconvenience that might save other
| people's lives? A lot of people failed.
| Markoff wrote:
| Masks work only in the lab when worn PROPERLY at ALL
| ocassions, never meeting strangers without mask, good
| luck with that. In real life people have to eat without
| mask and they won't wear it at home or often in work etc.
| or they don't wear them properly anyway with gaps around.
|
| So yeah, masks work in theory, but reality shown us they
| are completely useless, especially with newer more
| infectious variants. If they were such great invention we
| would not have flu and other respiratory viruses, in the
| end everyone will get infected anyway.
| mcv wrote:
| They are only useless when half the people don't use them
| and ignore all other measures while they're at it.
| Obviously there's no need to wear it at home; that's just
| stupid. But outside, in public space, it catches a lot of
| those particles that can carry the virus. If everybody
| wears one, that means less virus particles in the air,
| and less chance of infection.
|
| And during the pandemic, a lot of countries did indeed
| not have their usual flu season.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| Vaccines decrease the severity of disease.
| Markoff wrote:
| Numbers of vaxxed vs unvaxxed hospitalized (per capita in
| same group) don't confirm this disinformation spread by
| pharma companies and their paid politicians.
| mden wrote:
| Can you share a source? Here's a quick one I found that
| shows the opposite: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-
| tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-s...
| smorrebrod wrote:
| Personnaly, some answers were swayed by thinking about these
| legal consequences for situations like:
|
| - Annoying the driver of the trolley for my enjoyment
|
| - A 50% chance of killing 2 people or a 10% chance of killing
| 10 people
|
| - Killing 5 people now or 5 people in the future
|
| - Killing 1 cat or 5 lobsters
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| I chose to annoy the driver because the prompt already told
| me that I wanted to do it.
| mcv wrote:
| I chose that I had free will and my decision wasn't
| predetermined, and I used that free will to not annoy the
| driver.
| nocturnial wrote:
| No, it doesn't. How I look at it is those (legal) rules
| weren't made randomly. I don't think it's an option for me to
| overrule what millions of people have decided on over the
| course of a couple of centuries. Especially if I only have a
| couple of seconds to think about all the implications of my
| action.
|
| The calculation for me would change if there was a choice
| between killing 5 people and potentially killing nobody. But
| that's not the hypothetical here.
|
| If those rules needs to be changed, then change them through
| debate and well reasoned arguments and not a split second
| decision. The "good samaritan" law is an example of this. If
| perform CPR on someone who's heart has stopped, they can't
| sue you if you save their life but cracked some ribs.
| darkerside wrote:
| There are only a few times when people consider it
| acceptable to break through bureaucracy, and life or death
| situations is one of them.
| rcoveson wrote:
| > I don't think it's an option for me to overrule what
| millions of people have decided on over the course of a
| couple of centuries. Especially if I only have a couple of
| seconds to think about all the implications of my action.
|
| I find it bizarre that you're taking the side of the, say,
| thousands of transit policymakers--who are certainly not
| taking this hypothetical into account--over the majority
| vote of the public on this exact ethical issue. Not wanting
| to reason from scratch in the moment is fine, but you don't
| have to. This is a well-known dilemma, and the consensus is
| that you should kill one to save five.
|
| > If those rules needs to be changed, then change them
| through debate and well reasoned arguments and not a split
| second decision.
|
| Yep, that's why we're here. Now that most of us have agreed
| that "pull the lever" is the right call on the trolley
| problem, do you think the transit authorities are going to
| codify it as a law? Don't be ridiculous. Just take the
| legal hit, if it even comes. Laws are wrong sometimes,
| especially in hypotheticals.
| nocturnial wrote:
| Let's take a step back.
|
| I would never criticise someone for making the decision
| to pull the lever. I understand that decision, I really
| do. I only said I wouldn't do it and explained why.
|
| It's not as clear cut as you think it is. If you think it
| is, then write to a philosophy professor and say you've
| solved the trolley dilemma through an internet vote. I
| hope this sounds absurd to you.
|
| You can play with numbers, but if I were to pull the
| lever, I would feel I would kill someone for the sole
| reason they were in the minority. Which is an extra
| reason for me not to do it.
| rcoveson wrote:
| > I would never criticise someone for making the decision
| to pull the lever. I understand that decision, I really
| do. I only said I wouldn't do it and explained why.
|
| And I wouldn't critcise someone for _not_ pulling the
| lever... unless the primary reason they didn 't pull the
| lever was the legal consequences they would suffer.
| That's a terrible reason.
| MrRiddle wrote:
| Congrats, you saved Hitler, Stalin etc and killed Tesla.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > 2. Save 5 people, cause the death of 1, and you probably go
| to jail.
|
| You'll be prosecuted for sure, but if the death of the 5 was
| certain unless you acted, I'd be pretty surprised if you were
| found guilty, let alone being jailed.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| "Nothing" would be my choice regardless, morally and
| philosophically. In each case you'd likely be sued by the
| person(s) you'd kill and they'd probably win.
|
| If you don't intervene circumstances play out and you are
| blameless. In the other case you are choosing to kill someone,
| taking their life based on an idea in your head which may or
| may not be valid. In reality nothing is so clear cut and the
| people at risk may not have died anyway and you may kill
| someone needlessly.
|
| That is not to say I wouldn't, for instance, defend someone
| being attacked. In that case I'm not causing someone else's
| death by my actions. If the attacker dies during my defense
| that's fine because it's due to his actions, not mine.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| The non-interventionist stance seems to be unfavored on
| average, both by the problem makers ("kill count: 93") and
| the average respondent.
| ahtihn wrote:
| One of the problems allows you to save yourself but kill 5
| other people.
|
| "Blame" doesn't really factor into that decision.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| How so? If you choose to survive, some people can certainly
| blame you.
| Markoff wrote:
| It's not trivial, dunno about US, but in many (developed)
| countries around world not providing help to someone (passing
| around car crash without stopping, if you don't see anyone
| providing help) has legal implications.
| isolli wrote:
| But, unlike the typical trolley problem, stopping on the side
| of the road comes at no cost to you or anyone else.
| nocturnial wrote:
| When you are certain your actions will result in the death of
| someone then I doubt the legal protections of helping someone
| is as clear cut as you think it is.
|
| Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know all laws of all countries.
|
| I'm hoping a lawyer would jump into this thread.
| alistaira wrote:
| The point of the hypothetical situation is to look at a 'pure'
| case without external consideration in order to get to the crux
| of the problem.
|
| Consideration of legal implications is missing the point of the
| exercise.
| nocturnial wrote:
| The crux of the dilemma is that there are two solutions. If
| there aren't two then it's a lemma and the trolley problem is
| solved.
|
| I didn't introduce the convoluted idea of there being train
| tracks and a switch. If it was purely hypothetical, you
| could've asked: "Would you prefer to let 5 people die or let
| 1 die"
|
| Here's another hypothetical:
|
| "A train is on a track and you are standing on bridge above
| it. You spot a couple of kilometers further down the track 5
| people who are going to be run over by the train. Do you push
| someone standing beside you over the edge and onto the tracks
| so the train will register a collision and stops in order to
| save those 5 people?"
|
| This is the exact same scenario. Only instead of pulling a
| lever, you have a human interaction. The percentages of who
| would kill that 1 person change when the trolley dilemma is
| asked in that way.
|
| If we're getting to the crux of the problem, then why does
| the response change when you provide the exact same scenario
| but replace the mechanical with a human-to-human interaction?
| burnt-croissant wrote:
| The measured side of me always wants to err on the side of
| inaction.
|
| The one about life savings is a difficult one and I think at a
| distance without the peer pressure or emotional bias of a high
| pressure situation I would certainly choose to save the life
| savings.
|
| More interesting I think would be a question involving family
| members. How many people do you kill (by pulling the lever) to
| save a parent, or your child?
| andrewclunn wrote:
| Did nothing. I am not responsible for any of this carnage. The
| rest of you are murderers.
| paxys wrote:
| Level 20 was weird. It was a choice between letting a trolley run
| as normal ("emits CO2, kills 3 people in accidents over 30
| years") or running it into a brick wall and decommissioning it.
| For some reason more people picked the latter. So, they just
| dislike public transit? What about the emissions and death rate
| when everyone switches to cars instead?
|
| Goes to show how easily the context and exact wording of a
| question can sway people's opinions.
| HenriTEL wrote:
| Maybe the phrasing changed, for me it says: > A trolley is
| releasing 100kg of C02 per year which will kill 5 people over
| 30 years
| evandijk70 wrote:
| To me it seemed that people would bike/walk instead. I still
| let the trolley continue though.
| jedberg wrote:
| I always assume trolley problems are in a vacuum without
| context. Otherwise for every one of them you have to ask, "what
| is the background of each person on each track" to make a
| proper choice.
|
| I assume the information they have told me is the only thing
| relevant and everything else is equal.
| ptsneves wrote:
| In philosophy Kant would disagree with you with his
| Categorical Imperative[1]. Rawls also went that way, with the
| veil of ignorance[2]. The lack of state or context is not
| only desirable but is the whole foundation on why their
| theories are rational.
|
| Of course many philosophers disagree and arguably terrible
| things were done with such mindset[3]. The point I am trying
| to make is that if you need context then you cannot have a
| universal rational decision, thus you will be imposing your
| own morals possibly over others. You might be fine with it,
| but now you relativized morals.
|
| PS: I highly recommend the Great Lectures on Audible on
| philosophy. Specifically "Why Evil Exists" and "The Modern
| Political Tradition: Hobbes to Habermas".
|
| The first one is more on the religious part, but provides
| great background on moral and ethical thought starting with
| the Gilgamesh all the way to XX century psychology.
|
| The second is a great over view of western thought, with
| philosophical counter arguments on thinkers I never heard of,
| but which i find essential to help form one's thought on how
| Western society must progress. That book changed my life due
| to the sheer exposure of captivating ideas even sometimes
| conflicting. I loved Rawls but consider myself a freedom guy.
| Now my thought is clearer: How can we find a way to measure
| that further distribution would harm the most disadvantaged?
| This is still open but a more practical question, that i can
| use on evaluating certain concrete policies. Example:
|
| In Portugal the minimum wage has been increased to the point
| it matches the average salary. A person who did not train to
| specialize and works in a coffee shop earns similarly to an
| engineer that spent his first 24 years studying. This is
| harmful because without differences in rewards, higher
| difficulty but needed professions will not have enough
| practitioners. Therefore society as a whole will suffer
| because it lacks trained specialists to improve the untrained
| coffee worker's life. "Bam, simple as that". It soothes me in
| the face of the torrent of events and ideologies pushed upon
| me all the time.
|
| [1] "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the
| same time, will that it should become a universal law."
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative [2]
| https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/ [3]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem#Eichmann
| xrisk wrote:
| I think it's certainly a myth that an engineer's profession
| is "inherently harder" than a coffee brewers.
|
| In my opinion, people who would like to study engineering
| would do so not so because of what they are paid (the
| situation today), but because of their genuine interest.
|
| On further reflection, it seems ludicrous to believe that
| that hardest professions are the most paid. The average CS
| job pays obscenely well, but is relatively trivial. Primary
| healthcare providers, essential services workers and so on
| are severely underpaid.
| teawrecks wrote:
| Is an engineer's profession harder than tying your shoes?
|
| I understand the willingness to not discredit someone's
| hard work, but some skills are legitimately more complex
| than others.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It's not a myth for those that have to study 16 hours a
| day to understand all the intricacies of building
| structures with safety factors. The integrated corpus of
| engineering knowledge is just far greater than that of
| coffee brewing.
|
| Of course, that doesn't mean that the hardest professions
| are the most paid.
| ptsneves wrote:
| I specifically mentioned training because I knew this
| answer would come, and like clockwork it did.
|
| Training takes time, and often unpaid. A coffee shop
| worker will immediately get rewarded while the engineer
| will not. If they will be equally compensated then the
| engineer is at a disadvantage.
|
| > In my opinion, people who would like to study
| engineering would do so not so because of what they are
| paid (the situation today), but because of their genuine
| interest.
|
| Marx said the same. If the people would be free they
| would produce out of their heart's desire. As it did not
| turn out that way the party needed to force the worker's
| desire into them. Literally to free them by force
| (freedom by force is another concept in itself :)).
| xrisk wrote:
| Fair argument but I don't see why training should
| inherently be unpaid.
|
| In fact, I don't see why the ability to have a good
| standard of living should be predicated on your
| profession in the first place.
|
| The fact that engineering training is... unpaid as you
| say seems to put people who cannot afford to not make
| money for rent, food, etc. at a clear disadvantage. Those
| already rich (and able to afford unpaid training) would
| just get richer if they are paid more than an "untrained"
| worker.
| lazide wrote:
| How can the minimum be increased to match the average
| without making it mathematically impossible for there to be
| no salaries above the average?
| ptsneves wrote:
| Of course not exactly but if most of the people earn the
| same minimum, then the average will be close to minimum.
| There is no cap on max, but with few they do not make a
| difference.
| frenet wrote:
| I don't see how minimum wage is the problem. Engineers
| aren't better compensated in other markets because of low
| minimum wages but because they are expected to deliver more
| value. The Internet tells me that the minimum wages in
| Portugal is 823EUR a month. That isn't a lot compared to
| many other markets. Sounds more like a productivity
| problem. Or that someone else is capturing much of the
| value.
|
| High minimum and median salaries are usually good for
| engineers as it requires more productive companies which
| requires more engineers. When workers are cheap few wants
| to pay for expensive systems.
| darkerside wrote:
| Isn't the most likely outcome that engineering salaries
| will go up even higher causing massive inflation?
| ptsneves wrote:
| No, the economy will just become uncompetitive for
| engineering companies and produce more coffee-shop
| workers. Given Portugal's economic dependence on tourism
| is perhaps by design.
| xelxebar wrote:
| This is a natural response, but I think it also misses a good
| opportunity. Philosophy setups like this are always massively
| unrealistic, but the same is true for almost all physics
| problems, especially so for first year undergrads. We usually
| accept the latter as, nonetheless, important pedagogical tools.
|
| If you play along with the isolated premise (without adding in
| "nuance") of these Trolley Problems, I find they can act like
| little experiments on our moral intuitions that can illuminate
| one small, isolated facet of the full complex moral machinery.
| It's likely a bit like Michelson-Morely, though, where it takes
| work to digest the experimental results into a useful model of
| the underlying mechanism.
|
| In that light, it's also interesting to start adding in the
| nuance you mention, piece by piece, and see how our moral
| intuitions change, vacillate, and even give simultaneous
| conflicting answers.
| 1ark wrote:
| I thought the point was that you have to think a little bit
| more about the real consequences from the loss of public
| transit etc.
| arczyx wrote:
| > For some reason more people picked the latter. So, they just
| dislike public transit?
|
| I mean, it seems like it's the same trolley that have run over
| a lot of people for the previous 19 levels, why wouldn't I want
| to decommission such bloodthirsty trolley?
| harha wrote:
| Curious if that would end the game (though not enough to try
| again)
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| It doesn't. I wasn't trying to make serious philosophical
| choices I was just having fun and picking whatever amused
| me.
| ayewo wrote:
| I bounced after hitting level 21. Did you get to the end?
| praptak wrote:
| This also leads to a trolley problem!
|
| Keep existing public transit system that contributes to X
| deaths per year from pollution an accidents, or...
|
| ...pull the lever and...
|
| Replace it with a public transit system of bloodthirsty
| trolleys. There is zero pollution! Only 1% of X deaths per
| year from accidents! Just one catch: all the accidents
| involve the trolley morphing into a scary mechanical beast
| and biting a random person's head off.
| mcv wrote:
| People also cause pollution, so it might be less polluting
| in the long run to keep the trolley.
|
| But more seriously, I just realised that this is actually
| an argument that's often used against various environmental
| measures. People argue against wind turbines because they
| kill birds, ignoring the fact that pollution from fossil
| fuel kills far more, and birds are killed in larger numbers
| by other causes (cars, windows, cats). But somehow inaction
| seems more moral to some people if that action still leads
| to some deaths. Same with a multitude of other social
| issues.
| praptak wrote:
| If I remember correctly the original trolley problem was
| actually two problems. One was "pull the lever to kill
| one person instead of five" the other was "push someone
| onto the tracks (killing them) to stop the trolley and
| save five people".
|
| More people were in favor of pulling the lever than there
| were in favor of pushing someone onto the tracks. This
| indeed hints that the more direct action, the harsher the
| judgement.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| Yep, the original is "pull the lever to kill on person
| instead of five" and there are many many more variations
| with more direct action. The pure utilitarian will still
| choose the "kill one instead of five" no matter the
| situation. But some variations come up with things like:
| "you are a doctor with 5 patients who need 5 different
| organ transplants and are going to do die, do you kill
| the hospital janitor to harvest their organs to save 5
| people"
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| You know, that's a very good question...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in.
| ..
| loufe wrote:
| I'm kind of shocked that 2020 vs 2019 is a 7.1% INCREASE.
| Most people spent a lot of the year indoors traveling much
| less than usual. Curious.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Much has been said about this:
| https://www.vox.com/22675358/us-car-deaths-year-traffic-
| covi...
|
| The gist is that we design our streets in such a way that
| people drive dangerously fast on them when they're not
| slowed down by congestion, and during the pandemic that's
| exactly what happened. Some other countries (particularly
| in Western Europe) take a safe systems approach to street
| design and did not have the same uptick in fatalities
| that we did.
| dr_orpheus wrote:
| Thank you for the interesting article. I started skimming
| it after a little bit though and my eyes happened to pick
| up this line out of context. What a name to go with that
| quote:
|
| ""They were just sick and tired of kids being killed in
| the streets," says Jason Slaughter"
| Heyso wrote:
| LMAO. That's a very simple and senseful answer I missed to
| think of.
| baron816 wrote:
| Isn't the trolly also reducing carbon emissions by killing so
| many people? With enough of these questions, it will be able
| to reduce the world's population to zero, at which point
| there should be no carbon emissions from humans.
| SahAssar wrote:
| Decomposition emits carbon, right? Let's fire everyone into
| interplanetary space to be sure we solved the problem.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| You can run the trolley into a giant vat of molten glass
| that would pour over all the dead bodies of humanity and
| freeze them from decomposing into the atmosphere. (note
| that the energy used to create this large vat of glass
| was from renewables)
| porphyra wrote:
| True but America as a nation did in fact decommission many
| trolleys so it seems this line of thinking is very common.
| UberFly wrote:
| Only to decide to recommission them in many places,
| increasing the heat-attack rate for those trying to get to
| work on time through the 6 year long construction zones.
| ptsneves wrote:
| From my point of view trams have no advantages over buses.
| On the other hand they need lots of special purpose
| infrastructure and often condition road traffic rules
| terribly, like forcing traffic lights instead of
| roundabouts. Actually I am open to hear the advantages of
| trams.
| WillDaSilva wrote:
| They are far more comfortable than buses. Larger too. If
| you rely on public transit, then your city switching to
| trams for the highest frequency routes can be a
| significant quality of life improvement for you and the
| many thousands of others who will use them every day.
|
| That isn't their only advantage, but it's one which is
| often overlooked.
| mcv wrote:
| Running on rails is super efficient once they are in
| place. Less resistance, less wear and tear. For high-
| frequency routes, they really are great. But for new
| routes, trolley buses are probably a lot cheaper to set
| up. Maybe use trolley buses first, and only switch to
| trams once it's clear that this really is a high demand,
| high frequency route that's not going to go away.
| bigDinosaur wrote:
| One of the major problems with anything that isn't on
| rails is that it is easy to make go away. Unironically
| one of the reasons for trams is that it's harder to rip
| up the tracks and delete the service entirely as opposed
| to bus routes which can vanish in a single day or be
| altered in incredibly dumb ways. Of course, if you're
| sufficiently destructive you can rip up any
| infrastructure.
| mcv wrote:
| Sadly this hasn't stopped people from destroying massive
| amounts of rail infrastructure.
| evandijk70 wrote:
| There is indeed about a 30% reduction in power usage when
| comparing trams to electric buses.
|
| https://bathtrams.uk/the-most-energy-efficient-mode-of-
| publi...
|
| Still, I feel that trams will be dying soon. The improved
| efficiency is simply not enough to justify the extra
| infrastructure and inflexibility. Modern battery electric
| buses have a range of 500+km and can thus be used for an
| entire day, and charged at times when electricity is
| cheap and green (ie overnight on wind energy).
| mcv wrote:
| Battery electric buses require batteries, which may be
| flexible, but are also expensive.
|
| I don't see existing trams and light rail disappearing
| soon. Not in cities that have well-functioning networks,
| like Amsterdam. But I can imagine that for new projects,
| electric buses are preferable.
| JetAlone wrote:
| Whether it's public or private property, the trolley is really
| not mine alone to destroy. We need to decide, _together_ what
| to do with it. Maybe we could stop it, and put it in a museum.
| Maybe we could change its source of power and make it a green
| trolley.
|
| My feeling was, if I let the trolley go, it can be destroyed
| later. It will be harder to undo the decision to destroy it.
| Who knows, maybe the transportation capabilities it offers can
| save lives by rushing people to hospital. I just don't believe
| that pulling the switch and destroying a vehicle is really the
| only _possible_ opportunity to stop emissions that will get
| released over 30 whole years. So I didn 't pull it.
| beeboop wrote:
| Basically same for me. I wouldn't actively go out and destroy
| someone's car to reduce emissions. I'm not going to take an
| action to destroy something for the sake of making up for the
| shortcomings of our collective global leadership
| mcv wrote:
| Yeah, that one made it clear how much context matters. These
| problems pretend there's no context, but we always look at them
| with some subconscious context in mind.
|
| In this case, I did pull the lever, because it could be
| replaced by an electric trolley. But if killing the trolley
| means more cars and more car accidents and CO2, then of course
| we should keep the trolley. But if we ignore context and just
| look at kill 5 people or kill the inanimate object responsible
| for killing those 5 people, the answer is obvious. (But did I
| really ignore the context there?)
|
| Others also have important subconscious context. Sacrifice 5
| elderly people to save one baby. How elderly are they? Are they
| so elderly they're just waiting for death, or do they each
| still have more than 20 years of relatively healthy life left?
| And thanks to modern health care, that baby now has a very good
| chance to survive until adulthood, but 100-200 years ago, that
| chance was only 50%. Maybe not worth sacrificing 5 people for.
| I think that one was the hardest.
|
| (My friends may be somewhat worried to learn that I had
| surprisingly little trouble sacrificing my best friend for 5
| strangers. But really, I'd prefer to kill whoever keeps tying
| these people to the track.)
| Kiro wrote:
| Easiest one IMO. Spare an evil baby who would gladly
| sacrifice every single person on this planet for some
| ridiculous thing they feel entitled to or spare five diligent
| elders?
| Aeolun wrote:
| Eh, it doesn't matter how old the people are, really. They
| have all already gotten to experience the joy of life. The
| baby hasn't, so they have the most to lose.
| SheetPost wrote:
| the baby (young enough) doesn't understand the situation
|
| also, you can easily flip it: elderly cannot be saved from
| the torture of existence, having lived so long, but the
| baby has barely suffered anything yet - we can save it!
| Rayhem wrote:
| The elderly also have wisdom to offer. The baby only has
| _potential_ wisdom. Of course, if you 're trading on
| potential, the baby could potentially grow up to be a
| serial killer. Or the elderly could potentially be mute.
| __s wrote:
| It does matter. Five young people have been fully invested
| in & will now produce value for the next few decades.
| Whereas a baby has still not been fully invested in, years
| of education etc, so they're cheaper to replace
| darkerside wrote:
| If I were your friend, I'd be concerned, too.
| zeta0134 wrote:
| I assumed that the trolly company would need to clean up the
| mess, with lots of construction equipment, and would replace
| the trolly, incurring the cost of building a new one. I guessed
| that the CO2 emissions from that result would dwarf the
| emissions of the extant one, so I left it alone.
| paganel wrote:
| I hope not all the people took this seriously, hence (probably)
| some of the answers.
|
| I knew I responded with "do nothing" to 100% of the questions,
| it's not my job to solve the problems of the Universe (and if
| that good person had been that good in real life then he/she
| wouldn't have ended up in front of an incoming trolley while
| the bad person was tied down on the other, "take action",
| line).
| HenriTEL wrote:
| Judge: 20 years of prison for not helping people in danger.
| You: Hey, it's not my job to solve the problems of the
| Universe! Duh
| paganel wrote:
| We're talking about some damn cartoons. That's the whole
| "philosophical" point of this trolley problem, which can be
| better described as a sadistic game, i.e. that we shouldn't
| let this type of nonsense get between us and our real
| "inner values" (for lack of a better term), we shouldn't
| let the people who "apply" this game condition us.
| VoodooJuJu wrote:
| I prefer the emissions and death rate of people living in their
| own mostly self-sustaining little village, within walking
| distance of everything they need, and not needing to constantly
| travel around to other people's villages.
| codefreeordie wrote:
| Right, you can run it in to a brick wall, ending the CO2
| emissions _and its usefulness as part of a transit network_ ,
| and also, of course, depriving its owner of a valuable asset
| (the trolley)
| Nition wrote:
| The results on all the questions implied to me that most people
| answered more as if it was a quiz than a philosophical
| question. That is, they'd tried to select the most
| logical/utilitarian answer based on the wording of the question
| rather than necessarily thinking about what they personally
| would do in that situation, or any wider context that may
| exist.
| darkerside wrote:
| I think there was a mix, but people taking the quiz
| interpretation definitely modified the results from what I
| expected.
| kazinator wrote:
| Remember that around 12% preferred that someone die, rather
| than their Amazon package being late.
| frognumber wrote:
| I suspect around 12% preferred to read the problems but
| always click the same choice to avoid giving away PII.
|
| A quarter probably did that, considering both options.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| 12% no, probably 0.012%
| doteka wrote:
| What PII
| frognumber wrote:
| Whenever you visit a web site, that's tied back to your
| device and your name / identity. Data brokers have
| browser fingerprints. You have lots of CDNs hosting
| content and third party cookies. You're not anonymous
| online anymore.
|
| Many "fun" surveys are built to help collect data to
| better profile you. There are many techniques here, from
| asking a mixture of innocuous and profiling questions, to
| looking for correlations. With a few, you can extrapolate
| a person's age, political leanings, etc.
|
| This is snowballing, and it's hard to predict how data
| collected today will be used, or what inferences will be
| possible. It's safer not to do a threat analysis every
| time, but just to click one button each time and not risk
| letting profilers know your value system.
| t0astbread wrote:
| Or people just didn't take the quiz seriously and clicked
| the joke options every time.
| Markoff wrote:
| Agreed, they don't say anything about replacement trolley,
| maybe the new one will kill just slightly less people, maybe
| they won't replace it at all, way too many factors to consider
| and I am not really management of transport company to make
| these decisions.
| fleischhauf wrote:
| I just assumed it would be replaced with some better trolley.
| After all which barbaric people would just not have any public
| transport at all?
| divbzero wrote:
| Yes, the alternative could be more car driving which "emits CO2
| killing 12 people over 30 years".
| onion2k wrote:
| Or people walk instead, emitting no carbon and killing zero
| people...
|
| This is what's fascinating about the Trolley Problem, and
| philosophy in general, and how it applies outside of
| philosophy - most people struggle to answer questions based
| on the evidence available without bringing in some external
| justification for their answer. People wamt a 'logical'
| reason to justify their choice. They can't say "I don't
| know", or "I used the limited data I had" when the choice
| they'd make goes against the something they belive about the
| real world (eg 'public transport is good'). They bring in a
| "but what if <imaginary thing that supports their biases>!"
| and make a decision based on that instead. They even believe
| they made the right choice.
|
| This applies to everything from choosing a tech stack to
| picking who to vote for. It's infuriating once you see it.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| It's a pretty huge assumption to say that walking is fast
| enough.
| ISL wrote:
| My logic on that particular question was that someone would
| probably get a new trolley to replace it (trolleys are insured,
| right?), no matter what I thought, so I let the trolley go.
| mrcartmeneses wrote:
| I also reasoned that the trolly would be replaced. But with a
| newer, less polluting model.
|
| However I did not take into account the CO2 emissions and
| possible industrial accidents at the trolly factory or trolly
| materials mines.
| addandsubtract wrote:
| > However I did not take into account the CO2 emissions and
| possible industrial accidents at the trolly factory or
| trolly materials mines.
|
| I would argue that it shouldn't factor into the equation.
| The polluting trolley will be replaced sooner or later,
| anyway. You're just moving the date forward.
|
| The catch is that the argument could be made every year,
| with a new, more efficient trolley replacing the previous.
| In which case the construction costs obviously need to be
| considered, and it wouldn't be worth to spend 100 CO2 to
| save 10.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| I took into account the cash for clunkers program which was
| a huge disaster.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Almost universally, the most eco friendly trolley (clothes,
| home) is the one you already have.
| cookieswumchorr wrote:
| with a home, thats not universally true, if its pooorly
| insulated for example. trolleys, sure, they are all
| electric, so you can go down to zero emissions if you use
| green energy sources. Producing them though, metal
| production still runs with coal today just like in the
| 19th century
| akvadrako wrote:
| Even if your home is poorly insulated it would take a
| long time to recoup the (direct and indirect resource)
| costs of a new home with better insulation.
|
| Taking into account future discounting, it's probably
| almost never a good idea.
| m0llusk wrote:
| But not your pool pump. If you have an old pool pump then
| you should definitely consider replacing it with a modern
| one as they function better, more reliably, and use far
| less energy.
| red369 wrote:
| I agree, but interestingly, perhaps not for cars:
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2009/aug/17/car-
| scra...
| NavinF wrote:
| That has the same impact as an uninsured trolley. Also see
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
| darkerside wrote:
| Mine was also, what right do I have to destroy someone else's
| property? I'm surprised people seemed not to consider that or
| care.
| unglaublich wrote:
| No one likes public transport, but people like motorized
| traffic even less. It's a relative choice.
|
| The option should have been between decommissioning the train,
| saving 3 people and a few tons CO2, and decommissioning all
| motorized vehicles, saving millions of people every year and
| having a real impact on CO2 reduction.
| Akronymus wrote:
| >No one likes public transport
|
| I have a anecdatum of one, that being myself, that I like
| public transport. Just, the US public transport is god awful
| and you may be thinking of the US style of public transport,
| or the lack thereof, and thus come to that conclusion. Which,
| fair enough. Just not representative of the wider world.
| wizofaus wrote:
| "No one likes public transport" - if by that you mean almost
| anyone would prefer to have forms of transport that don't
| have all the disadvantages of PT (being crowded, limited
| routes, scheduling/timetabling issues) then sure, but it's
| also true almost anyone would prefer to have forms of
| transport that don't have all the disadvantages of private
| travel (cost, traffic, parking etc.). I'd still suggest there
| are plenty who'd choose much better public transport over
| much better private travel options. (Disclaimer: I'm in the
| latter camp - I get myself almost everywhere by bicycle where
| possible).
| Gigachad wrote:
| I like public transport. And not in a "its a necessary evil"
| way. In a "I love riding on the train" way.
| dxdm wrote:
| In Germany, a lot of the time, public transport is awesome. I
| love public transport here. You can always find something to
| complain about, and of course there will be exceptions, but
| compared to other places I've been to, public transport here
| is available, useful, and clean.
| UberFly wrote:
| Where I live it's available, useful, and un-clean, so many
| people avoid the rolling drug dens. (West-Coast US)
| strken wrote:
| If you included "the trolley actually exists in a realistic
| world and is part of a public transport network" then sure, I
| won't decommission it, but trolley problems are weird zero-
| context questions about trade-offs and I assume they fully
| describe the consequences of choosing each leg when answering.
|
| It doesn't help that actual trolleys are called trams where I
| live, so I think of trolleys as philosophical constructs that
| don't have a real existence.
| fendy3002 wrote:
| And some people just want to watch the trolley crash.
| maest wrote:
| But it's problematic to assume these problems are in a
| 0-context vacuum because that would mean your actions don't
| actually have consequences. If the world ends immediately at
| the end of the experiment, then your choices in the
| experiment don't have any meaning, imo.
| egeozcan wrote:
| Well, there's always the heat death of the universe,
| rendering everything meaningless.
| akvadrako wrote:
| That is an extreme consequentialist view. Something I can
| relate to, but not how most people consider moral issues.
|
| If you are in a burning, sinking ship and all going to die
| for sure, it's still immoral to rape someone.
| Etherlord87 wrote:
| However if you're in a plane nose-diving vertically,
| shooting someone a second before the plane hits the
| ground (in a way that obviously is going to kill
| everyone), hardly has any moral relevancy. It's taking 1s
| of life from someone, probably comparable to smoking a
| cig near someone. More so, this is a low-quality second
| of life, with all the stress coming from the awareness of
| imminent death.
|
| So the argument still stands, the difference in the
| consequences, when considered outside of any context, is
| simply not worth the mental effort to figure out if the
| lever should be pulled. The exercise is only interesting
| because it provokes to think about real life scenarios.
| Spivak wrote:
| Right but if you ask someone whether that situation is
| murder I bet most people would say yes. And I bet they
| would apply the same logic to someone on death row or
| with a terminal illness.
| HenriTEL wrote:
| Even if it's in a realistic world no one said the trolley
| actually transported people and led to less CO2 emissions
| than other transports.
|
| Edit: On the other side, if you really decide to not take
| more context, you just destroyed the only existing trolley of
| the universe.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > It doesn't help that actual trolleys are called trams where
| I live
|
| Does anyone really still call them that? A trolley is not a
| tram, it's a trolley, and harkens back from last century. In
| the US, some people call them trams, most of us call them
| trains. Portland does have a special version they like to
| call a streetcar, though. Functionally a light rail train,
| but runs in normal lanes of traffic.
| jeremyjh wrote:
| They aren't zero-context; all the value that you attach to a
| human life is context. If you don't grant anything else, you
| are just choosing one cartoon line-drawing over another.
| Certainly you are free to look at it this way, but it isn't
| really a useful point of view in a discussion about the
| hypothetical consequences.
| colechristensen wrote:
| But they're not... real. What someone says they might do in
| a trolley problem situation vs what a person would actually
| do I would assume basically have nothing to do with each
| other.
|
| Actively making a real life or death decision is quite a
| lot different than reasoning though a game.
| kukx wrote:
| Certainly the simulation and the action in the real life
| has some connection. It just a matter how strong the
| connection is. I guess no one will test it though, at
| least that is what I hope.
| toyg wrote:
| _> It doesn 't help that actual trolleys are called trams
| where I live_
|
| Yeah, when I clicked on the link I was hoping that finally
| someone had solved the problem of never having a pound coin
| to unlock trolleys at the supermarket.
| teawrecks wrote:
| My dad never grasped thought problems either. Same for riddles.
| He would always try to find a crack in the description or
| wording that he could exploit to find a solution you didn't
| expect, when in reality it just subverted the thought problem,
| transforming it into a different one that was easier to answer,
| but not useful to anyone.
|
| If the choice was between 3 deaths over 30 years and something
| more than that, then the problem would have stated as much. But
| it didn't. You don't add extraneous details that you thought of
| to bend the problem to what you want it to be, you make the
| choice between two sides as they are presented.
| bee_rider wrote:
| This seems to take place in a hypothetical universe with an
| overabundance of trolleys.
| yellowapple wrote:
| And they cost $300k apiece, which seems like a bargain in the
| context of the average public works project.
| labster wrote:
| So the real lesson is that we need more trolleys!
|
| Actually streetcars are kind of a bargain because they use
| mostly existing infrastructure. But that's the downside
| too, because they can easily get stuck in traffic. The LA
| Red Car system died in the end because without its own
| right-of-way, it was worse than cars, less convenient than
| buses.
| mcv wrote:
| Then give them their own right-of-way. Amsterdam trams go
| through the streets, but you're not supposed to block
| them. They often have their own lane (though frequently
| still shared with buses and taxis), and when they don't,
| it's because the street is too narrow, but that's usually
| only for a limited section of the street.
| evandijk70 wrote:
| You still need tracks and power lines. If the only
| benefit of streetcars over buses is right-of-way, why not
| just give buses right of way.
|
| After some deliberation, my muncipality recently decided
| against a streetcar-system and for a bus-based system
| with electric buses, right-of-way everywhere and
| dedicated bus-lanes where possible (nearly everywhere).
|
| It worked out really well.
| mcv wrote:
| I don't know, man. These things are death traps.
| twelvedogs wrote:
| i wouldn't do it to a real world trolley as it would cost a lot
| to replace something that is better in many respects to the
| alternatives but i wasn't taking it too seriously and they only
| gave the trolley negative traits within the question
| Izkata wrote:
| I was one of them: Somewhere around 10-15 I got bored and just
| wanted to see all the scenarios so I was mostly just going "Do
| nothing.. Do nothing.. Do nothing.." for the rest.
| Markoff wrote:
| My comments for when I disagreed with majority.
|
| So I first disagreed with majority at level 10 mercy, I mean if
| they are dead anyway and trolley running faster only might make
| it less painful without guarantee what is the point playing the
| God, they are dead anyway and nobody will guarantee it won't be
| actually worse if I do something. This ain't exactly euthanasia
| with drugs proven to work.
|
| Level 12 best friend - I am surprised majority value life of one
| best friend more than lives of 5 strangers, in the end it's still
| people and 1:5 seems like nobrainer decision. Now, if it would be
| family I would agree with majority, but just the friend ain't
| family and heck even for the family I'd maybe have to consider
| whether it's old grandma vs 5 young people.
|
| level 13 cant see - well they should then choose different
| picture, but from picture it seems very likely you can save 5
| people instead 1 even if you are not exactly sure
|
| level 15 age - I'm surprised most of the people are ready to
| sacrifice 5 elderly people (define what age is that, whether they
| have still 10-30 years of life ahead) and let 5 families to
| suffer instead 1 baby which still doesn't have even self
| conscience and family can have other baby and they are not used
| to it for years
|
| level 17 math - i'm quite badd with these odds and math so I went
| rather with doing nothing if not sure and was with majority
|
| level 19 economic damage - agree with majority, but don't
| understand why would people rather destroy 900K worth trams
| instead 300K worth trams
|
| level 20 external costs - I don't think it's up to me to decide
| in what order should be trams replaced, also they dont say
| whether will be the tram replaced at all, way too many variables
| to consider which decision is better
|
| level 22 - wow, majority of people are mean pranksters
|
| level 23 - TIL majority of people is willing to sacrifice
| someone's life over littering and rather play God, I'd say 1 life
| equals 1 life and I won't really change direction of tram over
| such small thing as littering, now if you would say that person
| is murderer or drives dangerously that would be different
|
| level 25 lifespan - is one life really worth ten lives each with
| at least 10 years ahead for majority? 10 years is quite a long
| time, 50 is longer but it's still just one life over 5
| aaron695 wrote:
| smeej wrote:
| The combo tradeoff between saving tens of thousands of lives of
| people who had, on average, 6-12 months of life expectancy,
| versus potentially shortening the lives of millions or billions
| of people by only months or weeks, and not seeing those effects
| for 70-80 years, seems to have been part of the covid shutdown
| tradeoff calculation.
|
| Granted, it has all the additional complication of the
| uncertainty of the real world, but there were a lot of claims of,
| "I can't believe you won't shut down for (weeks/months/years) to
| save grandma!"
|
| I wonder, in the end, if those decisions will end up having saved
| or cost more total days of human life.
|
| How many people's lives are you willing to shorten by even a week
| or a month due to increased stress to save the life of someone
| whose comorbidities will likely kill them in 6 months anyway?
| qsdf38100 wrote:
| Being 70 yo makes you high risk wrt Covid, but it doesn't mean
| you have a life expectancy of 6-12 months.
|
| You must confuse with terminally ill cancer patients.
|
| Where are your numbers coming from?
| smeej wrote:
| "High risk," yes, but when they were reporting on people who
| were actually dying of covid, for most of the first year, the
| data was that it was people with comorbidities, people who
| already had significant health conditions. It wasn't the 70yo
| marathoners who were dying. It was the ones who had CHF or
| COPD and obesity who were. (OF COURSE there are exceptions to
| this, but the majority of people who were dying were not
| otherwise healthy.)
| qsdf38100 wrote:
| Why is saving grandma going to cost months of life expectancy
| to other people ?
| smeej wrote:
| Stress. The kind of social, personal, financial stress people
| experienced, especially the "essential workers" who had to
| continue working in person, or people who were already
| struggling to make ends meet who suddenly didn't get paid
| what they were expecting, went through significant life
| stress events.
|
| Or around the world, millions of additional people have been
| added to the ranks of the "food insecure," who now run
| increased risk of malnourishment and starvation.
|
| There's certainly an extremely privileged cohort, probably
| heavily represented on HN, for whom transitioning to WFH was
| no big deal or actually a benefit, but we're still feeling
| the effects of supply chain disruptions even in the
| wealthiest countries, and there are millions (billions?) of
| people whose lives are much more severely impacted.
| sumo89 wrote:
| This website barely works in Firefox
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Level 27 Time Machine is by far the most interesting one.. It's
| the only one I was truly torn on.
| dx034 wrote:
| Same here. But then I remembered that I contribute to climate
| change, so I apparently don't value lives in the future as much
| and decided accordingly.
| shpx wrote:
| There's a small chance that there's only 5 people left in the
| future, so you should do it while it's guaranteed to not wipe
| out the human race.
| indigodaddy wrote:
| Huh I never thought of that possibility.. I did think of
| the possibility that earth would be totally obliterated or
| no human population but not the possibility of only 5 to 50
| or so people..
| [deleted]
| er4hn wrote:
| I killed 67 people, but 5 deaths were due to pressing the wrong
| button on the painting level.
|
| Do I start over and pull more levers to lower my score or do
| nothing?
| smilespray wrote:
| Lower your score? You've just murdered 67 people!
| McBeige wrote:
| But if you play the trolley game twice, surely you double
| your kill count across games?
|
| Edit: misread your ? as !
| symmetricsaurus wrote:
| Need more complexity:
| https://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/trolley.htm
| moffkalast wrote:
| Ah yes I always wanted my trolley problems to start with "a
| brain in a vat"
| idontknowmyacc wrote:
| Kill count 93 reporting in.
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| kill count: 94. Is that a high score?
| wruza wrote:
| "Solved the philosophy", what does that mean? Also would be nice
| to see my score on few distribution graphs.
| Jeff_Brown wrote:
| The sample of people you're a part of becomes different as these
| problems go on.
| dvh wrote:
| It's easy for me: never, under any circumstances operate railroad
| equipment. You can't possibly know what is on the other track or
| what it will do to the train, you could kill thousands. Even if
| railroad ceo is standing besides you you have no way of verifying
| it. Seriously, don't touch railroad equipment, people will die!
| jbigelow76 wrote:
| By the time it got to the trolley sacrificing more trolleys
| section (LOL) am I the one who was thinking "I don't care if this
| is the wrong call, fuck all these trolleys!" :)
| jonathankoren wrote:
| There was a trolley meme (actually about student debt
| forgiveness) that had a long line of people dead, more live
| people, and the cut off to no one. The dilemma was, "You can pull
| the lever, and save everyone, but would that be fair to everyone
| that was already killed?"
|
| I really like that one.
| laputan_machine wrote:
| 33% of people will kill themselves over another individual
| (sure...)
|
| 17% of people will kill themselves over killing 5 clones
|
| Come on guys, consistency, please!
| wruza wrote:
| You're actually multiplying yourself in the second case. To see
| it this way you have to have a specific idea of consciousness
| and "self".
| laputan_machine wrote:
| A clone of you, isn't _you_ , it is by definition a copy.
|
| You do not possess their memories when they do something
| else, you do not control them, you do not have _their_
| consciousness. It isn 't you. When you cease to exist you do
| not "live on" (in the physical sense) through them, you are
| dead.
| wruza wrote:
| The idea I mentioned is hard to explain in a comment, but
| I'll try to message the essence, at least what works for
| me.
|
| Which is, there is a chance (and further reasoning bases on
| it) that we all don't feel as a single entity only because
| we are physically separated by low-bandwidth channels, e.g.
| visual, auditorial, text. Opposed to parts of our brains,
| which are connected by high-bandwidth links. This creates
| an illusion of self, while we all are actually the single
| phenomenon divided into islands. Under this idea the thing
| that matters (to some) is your own physical structure, not
| from which eyes specifically "you" are looking at the
| moment, because "you" are everywhere.
|
| Some call it the hard problem of consciousness, or a part
| of it, but details may heavily vary.
|
| Hope that provides a glimpse into it.
|
| Added: also curious, from your perspective, do you really
| die when Scott "beams you up"?
| laputan_machine wrote:
| Yeah it'd be cool if we could live as a super organism
| like ants or bees.
|
| As to your question:
|
| Yes, to me, logically, your body is atomised and then
| remade. You die, then a clone appears.
|
| To everyone else. you are the same, but you, the original
| you, is dead. Pretty harrowing when you think about it
| SpEd3Y wrote:
| Andrzej Sapkowski in the Witcher books, through Geralt, said
| something that might apply to this situation: "Evil is evil [...]
| Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are
| negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit. I haven't
| done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil
| and another, then I prefer not to choose at all"
|
| Thoughts? :)
| McBeige wrote:
| You don't get to not choose.
| SpEd3Y wrote:
| Why? :)
|
| Edit: Switzerland chose to stay neutral in a world war. I
| think that's fine. Not getting involved is a viable option in
| my opinion.
| [deleted]
| ajnin wrote:
| Agreed, I think the utilitarian approach that goes something
| like "let N and M be two integers so that N > M, then N human
| lives are worth more that M human lives" (with subtleties
| related to age and so forth) is very, very dangerous. It can
| lead to all sorts of atrocities in the name of some greater
| good. My approach is to never pull the lever unless 1) I would
| get killed or 2) humans would get killed vs something non-human
| on the other track.
| vlaaad wrote:
| This quote is very popular, but the moral of the story you are
| referencing is the opposite. Geralt rejects this point of view
| at the end, because inaction is also action.
| SpEd3Y wrote:
| I think is so popular because of the Killing Monsters
| trailer.
|
| He does end up actually making a choice. But the choice is
| not between killing Renfri and Stregobor (which was the
| initial lesser evil choice) but he chooses to stop Renfris'
| gang from killing innocent people to draw Stregobor out.
| Renfri could have then left and look for another opportunity
| to kill Stregobor. Geralt told her at least two times to
| leave and she refused saying she made her choice, attacked
| Geralt and died. So Geralt ended up killing Renfri but as a
| result of her choice, not his. And he did stop Stregobor from
| taking her body and study it (which was his initial intent).
| So he did definitely not take his side. I would argue Geralt
| chose between good and evil, not between two lesser evils.
| _virtu wrote:
| The question regarding baby vs old people was really telling.
| It's practically the argument for / against abortion. What's
| strange to me is that someone would choose to kill five people
| who are capable of thought instead of an undeveloped human being.
| But I suppose that's why we're seeing the reversal of Roe v Wade
| being supported. Sigh, fuckin religion.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| I think a common utilitarian way of thinking is years of life
| left. A baby has a far greater expected value of remaining
| years and thus is often assigned higher moral value by people.
| For me it was a no-brainer to kill the old people, although I
| was imagining them as very old such that they each only had ~5
| years left on average.
| manwe150 wrote:
| I chose to read it as "would you kill a teenager, or all of
| that teenager's caregivers." I felt that sufficiently raised
| the moral stakes, to make both choices similarly hazardous,
| while fitting into the parameters written into the scenario.
| grayfaced wrote:
| Mostly agreed. But in another society that values the wisdom
| of their elders, then they could see that as a large loss.
| Where-as the baby is replaceable with very little cost to
| society. I wonder if the stats would be different in an
| Eastern society.
| cowtools wrote:
| I suppose it depends on infant mortality rate
| _virtu wrote:
| I think of it from more of an anti-natalist perspective. The
| child will have a far greater chance of suffering while the
| adults will have a chance for less suffering due to their
| expected lifespan. That's why I thought about it in the frame
| of abortion. We'll typically assign the notion of having a
| life positive value, but from my perspective that's just a
| chance for more suffering.
| stepanhruda wrote:
| Do one that says "a child that will have a terrible life" vs
| "two adults who will have a good life" and let's see the
| percents.
| throwaway744678 wrote:
| In that case, it is not really linked to abortion: the baby is
| already born. A convincing (to me) argument that I heard during
| COVID debates is that by saving a baby you save, on average, 80
| years of potential future life; for elderly people, 5 x 10/15
| years.
| 22c wrote:
| You can't really boil down trolley problems into "Would you
| kill x or y?".
|
| Generally someone is _already_ in the way of the trolley, so
| the question is more like "Would you kill x in order to save
| y?".
|
| So you could ask people this:
|
| Would you kill a baby to save 5 elderly people?
|
| Would you kill 5 elderly people to save a baby?
|
| How people answer these questions does not really have anything
| to do with abortion.
| McBeige wrote:
| > You can't really boil down trolley problems into "Would you
| kill x or y?".
|
| Thoughts on why you can't? I think you can and _must_.
| 22c wrote:
| It's a big difference that someone is already in the way.
| If you take no action they die anyway. If you suddenly
| collapse on the ground or get struck by lightning before
| you can pull the lever, they still die. It's not your fault
| that they died.
| yellowapple wrote:
| > It's practically the argument for / against abortion.
|
| 1. Abortions usually happen _before_ there 's an actual living
| baby.
|
| 2. Abortions don't usually result in sparing the lives of
| adults.
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| I took it as simply 1 full life expectancy vs 5x remaining life
| expectancy of a senior citizen. Put a few more older people on
| the tracks and I'd pick the other switch.
| yardstick wrote:
| Plus the child still has the potential to bring more life
| into this world, whereas the old people are now infertile (my
| definition of old being they are too old to procreate).
| McBeige wrote:
| Those additional lives are hypothetical and in the future,
| and maximizing the number of humans alive might not be the
| right thing to do. IMO this is one of the really juicy
| questions.
| yardstick wrote:
| Fair point. Given the decreasing birth rate in the
| western world, I figured we need a few more humans to pay
| for prior generations retirement. Only half joking...
| jtsiskin wrote:
| ...I don't think this is very close to the abortion debate at
| all.
| _carbyau_ wrote:
| Not really anything to do with abortion.
|
| Many people are annoyed by Boomer actions _every_ day...
| irrational wrote:
| They weren't just 5 people, they were 5 old people. I chose to
| believe that they were very old and about to die anyway.
| fartcannon wrote:
| I think you might have read a little too much of your own
| politics into that question.
|
| Supporting abortion rights doesn't mean killing babies.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| > Supporting abortion rights doesn't mean killing babies.
|
| There is something very revealing about the GP's attitude
| though. They literally interpret someone wanting to avoid
| killing a baby as being the exact same thing as opposing
| abortion. So in their worldview abortion really _is_ all
| about killing babies.
| _virtu wrote:
| Eh, not so much. See my other comment to the sibling thread
| in regards to this discussion.
|
| There are two parts to this discussion that people are
| pointing out that I could have done a better job
| explaining.
|
| First that I'm confounding the trolley problem of killing a
| baby with abortion. I'm well aware it's a thought
| experiment that's used in philosophy. I understand that
| killing a baby is different than abortion. My main point
| which wasn't articulated at all in the first thread was
| more from an anti-natalist perspective. The society I live
| in primarily assigns more value to the fetus and or baby
| than they do the people that already are living.
|
| A lot of the argument comes down to whether or not the
| child will have a chance to do great things and to
| experience life. Killing the baby means stopping them from
| having this opportunity. However I look at it from the
| perspective of potential suffering and current ability to
| feel and think. Killing the baby really doesn't stop the
| baby from thinking because well, baby. And more importantly
| killing the baby stops a lifetime of suffering.
|
| Second, my worldview doesn't contain that mentality.
| Abortion isn't about killing babies. To me it's more about
| stopping potential life. Whether or not that life has
| potential that is actually good is the part that I disagree
| with most of society.
| chomp wrote:
| You're way, way overthinking it. The world isn't black and
| white, this is a game, and there's always more choices than
| just two. I'm pro choice and my choice was to run over the old
| people.
| JetAlone wrote:
| In virtu's defence, it's difficult to avoid overthinking
| things in this day and age. We've been conditioned to look
| for the overlap with our politics in so much that it consumes
| many of us. Culture wars take heavy psychological tolls on
| the participants.
| jeisc wrote:
| always do nothing who really knows what will happen when you pull
| the switch
| nezirus wrote:
| Aside from the kill count calculations, the hardest thing for me
| here would be actually to be in the "position of power". Who are
| we to decide such things, even if we have some info (or think we
| have).
| johncoltrane wrote:
| Do nothing. Do nothing. Etc. Easy.
| thirdplace_ wrote:
| 59% would sacrifice their own life for five people? Someone been
| messing with the votes.
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| I too was surprised. My gut reaction is this is "my guy"
| syndrome where people are still reasoning in the third person
| even though the problem says "you" - if you were to mad-
| scientist this experiment I bet you'd have a near 100% self-
| preservation response.
|
| On the other hand, some of the responses have a small
| contingent disagreeing, and to explain those I would remind you
| of the Lizardman Constant [1]. That is, some pollsters just
| want to watch the statistics burn.
|
| [1]: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-
| and...
| pgerety wrote:
| I'm probably not the only one that agreed to do this not to
| save others but to, your know...
| zamadatix wrote:
| I don't think 59% of people would succeed in doing it and I say
| that as part of the 59%. At the same time I thought it was the
| "which is ethically preferable" answer which is what I
| interpreted the questions being about.
| throwaway787544 wrote:
| I'd sacrifice myself for five clones, not five random people.
| Or for the robots. Robots and clones have got it tough. Random
| people are probably dicks, and I've not been a great person
| either.
| bdowling wrote:
| Or some people stopped reading the prompts after they started
| getting repetitive.
| c3534l wrote:
| The fact that its so low is kind of disturbing, and the fact
| that you're so cynical about it being so high means maybe you
| should reassess your values.
| sh4rks wrote:
| Values don't mean anything if you're dead. Five complete
| strangers? Knowing how terrible people are, they would
| probably save themselves too if they could. Every man for
| himself.
| epgui wrote:
| That's such a sad perspective. I hope you have the chance
| to have the life experience in the future to make you think
| otherwise.
| sh4rks wrote:
| Life experience that would make me want to want to die if
| I was in this scenario? I sincerely hope I don't
| experience anything like that.
|
| But I'm glad that innocent-minded people like you exist.
| Here's a question, if you had the choice between killing
| me or yourself, who would you choose?
| epgui wrote:
| I would not let myself die to save one person, but I
| certainly might to save two people. (There are lots of
| assumptions that go into this, of course.)
| McBeige wrote:
| "you" are not the thoughts and emotions that happens to
| reside in some sack of meat. Or at least that's not a
| complete picture. In some sense "ask not for whom the
| bell tolls; it tolls for thee" should be taken literally.
| 100% individualism is not the only mode of being a
| person, and not the default or "best" mode.
|
| These are mostly gut feelings and unfinished thoughts.
| I'm not sure about any parts of it except "it's not a
| complete picture". I'd love to hear any thoughts on this
| and reading recommendations are welcomed.
| Akronymus wrote:
| > Knowing how terrible people are,...
|
| I am probably just as terrible in their eyes.
| woodruffw wrote:
| I selected that one. Not because I'm particularly selfless, but
| because I think it's morally wrong to throw the switch whenever
| doing so amounts to killing someone, even when inaction results
| in more death.
| Supermancho wrote:
| I have a slightly different philosophy.
|
| I don't make a conscious choice to take action that will
| cause a stranger's death (even if more people die because I
| didn't take action) with exceptions for my monkeysphere. In
| the case of the worst enemy one, I didn't hesitate to run
| them over. In the case of self preservation, I chose to save
| myself. In the case of my best friend, other people are gonna
| die. Etc.
|
| It makes a lot of these pretty easy and a few (like first
| cousin vs 3rd cousins) a matter of happenstance, just like
| the happenstance that I was looking at these absurd trolley
| problems.
| mperdemata wrote:
| But why isn't NOT pulling the lever "taking action"?
| Supermancho wrote:
| "There's a difference between knowing the path and
| walking the path" - Morpheus, The Matrix
| [deleted]
| zamadatix wrote:
| I'm curious how far you're willing to take that, e.g. if
| instead of a couple people on a track it was "press the
| button to confirm destroying the bomber and pilot or let the
| nuke drop on NYC due to lack of confirmation" counts?
| woodruffw wrote:
| That's the eternal question :-)
|
| Allow me a dodge: I think that I'd probably press the
| button, but that it's strictly wrong for me to do so. Chalk
| it up to weakness.
| kadoban wrote:
| What if the switch is a hair-trigger movement sensor, so you
| must stand very still not to trigger it?
|
| Which one is "inaction" now, purposefully standing very
| still, or acting as you would have otherwise?
| woodruffw wrote:
| I think inaction refers to intent, not the way the wind
| blows. In the case of the hair trigger, I'd be morally
| obligated to stand very still, but it wouldn't be
| particularly blameworthy if I happened to falter. This is
| in contrast to the normal switch, where I'd be to blame if
| I pulled it.
| robocat wrote:
| That completely changes the question because it gives you
| obvious deniability, whereas the lever probably does not.
| Especially if witnessed.
|
| That matters legally (accidental death) versus intent (mens
| rea, murder).
|
| It also matters socially, because you can deny that you
| made any choice even though you may have chosen (assuming
| you only do it once). You can even deny it to yourself.
|
| It does beg the question: who set the trolley up to kill
| people, and why did you happen to be standing on the
| trigger?
| kadoban wrote:
| It may have legal and social differences, but (imo) it
| should not have moral differences. Either way, there are
| two outcomes and you're picking one.
|
| I'm just trying to poke at the gp's idea (paraphrasing)
| that inaction is morally blameless.
| codefreeordie wrote:
| I tend to feel that is the general answer, but that at _some_
| (arbitrary) level of absurd disparity of outcome, it becomes
| morally imperative to act.
|
| Like that 5-to-1 standard trolley problem is a hard question
| for me to answer, and on different days, I pick different
| answers. Probably "do nothing" most days. But if you made it
| 50,000,000-to-1, it is not a hard problem any more. Somewhere
| in between those two is "the line" where the fact that you
| are becoming a murderer is outweighed by the value of the
| life you saved.
|
| Yes, if I could be certain that I could save 50,000,000 lives
| by murdering someone, I think it would be a moral imperative
| to do so. That wouldn't change the moral evil of murder, it
| just outweighs it.
|
| I think. Don't ask what I'd do "in real life", I won't know
| until it happens (which I pray it will not)
| throwaway742 wrote:
| Some people might not value their own life very much.
| irrational wrote:
| Why is that so hard to believe? There are innumerable stories
| of people sacrificing themselves for other people. Everything
| from throwing oneself onto a grenade to having kids.
| vecter wrote:
| That is often to save people you know and care about, not
| complete strangers.
| irrational wrote:
| Lots of stories from 9/11 of people sacrificing themselves
| for strangers.
| DavStrijk78 wrote:
| desertraven wrote:
| I too am a little confused. Might be helpful to remember
| that we will all soon be forgotten whether we reproduce or
| not.
| yellowapple wrote:
| Unless you chose every death-and-suffering-maximizing
| option for these absurd trolley problems, in which case
| you will be remembered for your reign of trolley-derived
| terror.
| vimacs2 wrote:
| I'm a little confused by your rant when they clearly stated
| having kids as the sacrifice here - which makes a lot more
| intuitive sense than whatever antinatalist position you're
| projecting here onto them.
|
| Also, while I'm firmly pro reproduction, this all sounds
| more than a little judgemental and presumptuous about the
| motivations of those that chose to not procreate.
| Symmetry wrote:
| One interesting thing about the trolley problem is that while
| most people won't pull the lever when the people involved are all
| random strangers, most people will if the people are are all
| relatives. That makes me think that, subconsciously, part of the
| issue is that if you pull the lever you're afraid the victim's
| friends and family might blame you for the death and seek revenge
| but if you don't the friends and family of the victims will all
| go looking for vengeance from whoever owned the trolley and
| you'll be in the clear.
|
| https://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/02/immoral-altruism.html
|
| I certainly wouldn't direct a careening trolley from 5 sleeping
| humans to 1 awake human who would feel terror before dying, but
| if it were cows or something like that I certainly would.
| atlasunshrugged wrote:
| A potential reframe of your initial comment on subconscious
| thought is that we know the morals and values of our relatives
| better and know or think that they would be willing to
| sacrifice themselves whereas we have no idea the values of
| random strangers.
| aaa_aaa wrote:
| Of course I select all of them "do nothing" because trolley
| problems are idiotic BS.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| it's all so theoretical, I think we need to do a more concrete
| simulation to see how it all plays out
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtRhrfhP5b4
| timmb wrote:
| Most chilling for me was the majority who would divert the trolly
| away from a good citizen to kill a citizen who litters.
| moffkalast wrote:
| I think the takeaway lesson from this is don't litter or the
| public at large will literally kill you :D
| [deleted]
| ShortStretto wrote:
| Don't think I got that far but the thoguht process is not hard
| to follow. One person is gonna die either way so it might as
| well be the "better" option.
| Markoff wrote:
| Except it's not up to you to decide which of these two will
| die, both lives are equal and you must perform action to kill
| the littering guy, if you do nothing someone will die anyway,
| it just won't be the littering guy.
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _Except it 's not up to you to decide which of these two
| will die_
|
| I'm standing next to the track switcher, so I'd argue that
| it is.
| Tepix wrote:
| What if the problem is rephrased and inaction would mean
| death for both?
| Markoff wrote:
| if inaction has same result as action then it's better to
| stay away from any responsibility caused by action
| McBeige wrote:
| Heck yeah it's my decision! I don't want to live in a world
| where decisions are made like this, but in this case we
| must accept our role as the lever puller. Or walk away I
| guess, but that's no different from actively condemning the
| litterless person.
| tjs8rj wrote:
| Surprised on the answer to the "worst enemy" one. I wouldn't
| really call anyone I know personally my worst enemy, so I figured
| it'd be someone like Mao or Hitler, and of course I'd just have
| it run them over.
|
| Do other people have a worst enemy in their life?
| McBeige wrote:
| My worst enemy is the side of me that constantly doubts and
| berates me. But I guess I should accept that it's just trying
| to protect me and I needed it in the past but now I need
| something else.
|
| Nah it gets the train.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| did anyone else wear their unphilosophical sadistic karma-denying
| internet-can't-hurt-me hat to intentionally skew phony statistics
| because they thought everyone else would do the same?
| McBeige wrote:
| A trolley problem is going uncontrollably down the tracks. Do
| you pull a lever to intentionally derail it, or let it pass
| without consequence? /s
| NKosmatos wrote:
| No :-) Come on now, there's no good reason to answer
| random/opposite from what you would normally do, just to skew
| statistics. Obviously this is the internet we're talking about,
| so there are bound to be "silly" answers and these count as
| well. We can't all think the same and answer the same ;-)
| AtNightWeCode wrote:
| I think it would be better if the choice was both ways. Like the
| track was going to an end and you had to make your mind up. I
| think this is biased towards doing nothing.
|
| 68 frags for me.
|
| We had horrible exercises like this back in school. But then it
| was often mentally disabled people versus healthy people.
| TrapLord_Rhodo wrote:
| > Oh no! A trolley is heading towards 5 people. The lever just
| speeds up the trolley, which might make it less painful. What do
| you do?
|
| I voted no, cause really? who the hell would SPEED UP a train to
| hit someeone because it 'might' make it less painful.
| Disregarding the million other mights that could be assumed. The
| logic here is astounding & yet.
|
| 33% of people agree with you, 67% disagree (20,485 votes)
|
| I guess the lesson here is people act on assumptions as tho they
| are fact.
| bmo-at wrote:
| I was surprised about that one as well. Here is another
| assumption: Speeding up the train might reduce their chance of
| being saved by a third party. So by speeding up the trolley you
| might make it less painful, but also might rob them of the
| chance of being saved. I know this is just a thought
| experiment, but there are a million variables to a scenario
| like this and just adjusting for the first one you see is a
| slippery slope.
| jacoblambda wrote:
| A lot of the problems are structured as parallels to real
| world problems. While strictly speaking I voted "do nothing"
| for that problem, I wholeheartedly support the real world
| parallel which is euthanasia (speeding up the trolley to
| reduce the pain of inevitable death).
| McBeige wrote:
| I voted to speed it up. "I don't know everything so I remain
| cautious" is a mentality I applied for some problems, and not
| for others. In this case I thought the problem would be
| trivial/boring if considered from that mentality, so I instead
| made a choice between condemning someone to a 10 second life of
| 10/10 pain and condemning someone to a 5 second life of 5/10
| pain.
| tgv wrote:
| It's going to happen anyway, so there's a net positive effect
| of speeding it up. I can't imagine people not choosing to do
| so.
|
| > I guess the lesson here is people act on assumptions as tho
| they are fact.
|
| As I wrote above: these problems are too artificial to draw
| real conclusions. They're thought experiments. The only
| information you can use is given. For the rest, you have to
| fall back to "defaults" (each life is worth the same, etc.).
|
| If you look at it like that, it's interesting to see how many
| people would opt to run over the rich man.
| FranticFervor wrote:
| Also voted no, felt like pulling the lever would mean I took
| part in the inevitable killing, even if the outcome was the
| same. It would also remove precious time needed for the victims
| to recount their lives and come to terms with their situation
| before dying.
| macrael wrote:
| If pulling the lever is going to kill someone, I never pull it.
| The only hard one is if pulling it will save my own life, I
| probably would in that case but it would be wrong. Pulling the
| lever makes you a murderer instead of a bystander.
| ccity88 wrote:
| > Pulling the lever makes you a murderer instead of a
| bystander.
|
| Ah that, I'm not too sure about. If you have the means to avert
| a disaster and divert the trolley but consciously choose not to
| do so, you'd be a murderer either way right? The baby question
| really hammered it home for me, most respondents chose to have
| the trolley kill the elderly people instead of diverting it to
| the baby. Sure, you stood by and did nothing but you're STILL a
| murderer no matter the outcome. The minute you stand by the
| lever you consciously choose who's going to live or die,
| regardless of whether you do nothing or pull the lever.
| Inaction is action.
| macrael wrote:
| So, the progression I like that got me where I am on this,
| ultimately silly, exercise goes like this:
|
| 1. The trolly problem, 5 v 1 with a lever.
|
| 2. The roller skater:
|
| There's a trolly that's going to run over 5 people. Someone
| is skating next to the train tracks in enough pads that they
| would stop the trolly if they were on the tracks, do you push
| them into the trolly's way? Saving 5?
|
| 3. The brilliant doctor:
|
| A brilliant doctor, on the cusp of a discovery that will save
| the lives of millions has a heart attack in the OR one night
| and needs an immediate heart transplant. Due to a contrived
| morality problem, you are locked in the hospital with no way
| to get a fresh heart delivered. In the room with you is a
| stranger who has the right blood type. Do you cut their
| throat and take their heart to save the doctor's life,
| guaranteeing that a million people will get life saving
| treatment over the next five years?
|
| For me, once you get there to the end, it's obvious that it's
| not right for me to choose to end one person's life for the
| potential of saving others. Trying to add up lives on the
| balance of a scale is an impossible effort. Better not to
| kill anyone. I didn't tie anyone up on the tracks.
|
| (I'm not a philosopher but I think that this is a Kant vs.
| Utilitarianism kind of argument, in the end.)
|
| P.S. A friend of mine poses a different moral puzzle: You are
| walking by a pond and see a child starting to drown, do you
| jump in and save them?
|
| There are people metaphorically drowning all around us and
| yet usually I do nothing. Maybe morality puzzles aren't that
| useful for navigating the real world.
| FartyMcFarter wrote:
| If you consciouly choose to do nothing whilst having full
| information about the consequences, that is still an action.
| mongol wrote:
| These are presented as ethical dilemmas, but are they also legal
| dilemmas? Example 1, for example. If you can clearly see that one
| person will die if you pull a lever, and he will not die that if
| you don't, is that not murder or manslaughter? If not, why?
| moffkalast wrote:
| It's a fun thing to think about in a no-personal-consequences
| sort of way, if it were a real life situation you bet nobody is
| going to touch that lever with a 10 foot pole otherwise they're
| likely going to prison for a long time with how modern
| prosecution works.
| gverrilla wrote:
| Not many people care about Mona Lisa lmao
| irrational wrote:
| We have lots of detailed images of it. If the real thing is
| destroyed, oh well.
| throwaway744678 wrote:
| Also, it was put in The Blockchain, so we're good.
| missedthecue wrote:
| It would live on as a ripped up painting with two wheel marks
| run across it and a very interesting backstory.
| gverrilla wrote:
| true. and then people would debate for decades if it should
| be repaired or not.
|
| https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/the-day-michelangelos-
| piet...
| brewdad wrote:
| I voted to save it but it really is a terrible experience
| trying to see it in person.
| padolsey wrote:
| Ok, very curious of others' metrics and hueristics for actions
| that are defensible. Mine are probably composed of:
| - Net degree of suffering imposed (+ nth-order suffering imposed
| on eg. family) - Thus, nervous system pain receptor net
| effect (cat>lobster) - Age of individuals and thus life-
| years saved (baby>elderly) - Weight of burden of (in)action
| on own life (++suicide risk) - Confidence that the train
| will act as proposed - Value of human life being absolute
| over non-life (human>bigMoney)
| beaker52 wrote:
| This might be something for my own trip, but the "trolley
| continuing for eternity" question was interesting to me.
|
| I experienced it as if the universe (the creator) was asking
| itself (me) whether it should carry on doing itself (literally,
| and figuratively) or stop and bring the trolley ride of life to a
| complete end.
|
| Enough philosophy for today.
|
| _returns to pretending that being a jelly-covered skeleton that
| has a hole in its face to put food which eventually comes out of
| another hole 3-inches from their magical life-creating sex organs
| (that they rub together to make new ones) and waking up every day
| to a world where they sit in front of a box that requires they
| press buttons in the right sequence to make their own life
| continue, is completely bloody normal_
|
| Happy Existential Wednesday.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| People wouldn't laugh about these "silly" and "fun" moral
| problems if they had been forced to push their own mother into an
| oncoming train to save their son's life, like I was.
| wonderbore wrote:
| I keep not understanding why this "problem" exists. If pulling
| the lever kills someone, then _you_ killed someone. You can only
| do that if it 's yourself or if the amount of people you save
| grants you some immunity, like "kill a guard to save a city"
|
| In the vast majority of times you should do absolutely nothing:
| It only becomes your fault if you touch it.
| layer8 wrote:
| There's also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue, so
| you may need to pick the lesser evil.
| Semaphor wrote:
| I wonder what the explanations are for 18, most people killed the
| robots. Assumption of backups? Or caring about your own species
| more?
| Ekaros wrote:
| Problem with this is that pulling the lever is an action. Which
| I actively choose not to take, but to save my self. Or to kill
| a cat to make a point.
| 22c wrote:
| To really be sure, I think you need to test for the switched
| case as well. ie. would you do nothing and kill a human or
| switch and kill sentient robot.
| yellowapple wrote:
| I chose to spare the robots. Not for kind reasons, mind you,
| but rather because I did a "maximize human death and suffering"
| run (and it's fascinating that the minimum percentage of
| agreement throughout said run was 10%).
| yardstick wrote:
| I saved the robots, last thing I want is their sentient robot
| friends and family going on a rampage to destroy all humans
| because we didn't care about them enough.
| brewdad wrote:
| If we kill all the robots, they can never become our overlords.
| Right?
|
| Right?
| tedunangst wrote:
| I don't think the chatbots are actually sentient.
| Semaphor wrote:
| It said sentient, though.
| tedunangst wrote:
| Yeah, I've heard that before.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| OK google
| latency-guy wrote:
| I strictly don't believe in sentience being possible for
| robots. I think robots can and may eventually pass the Turing
| test to a meaningful degree - but only on the end of
| imitating/fooling us.
|
| So this question is more like would I like to destroy a couple
| of expensive robots or kill someone. I chose to 'kill' the
| robots. Some might see this as cheating or not in the spirit of
| the question being asked - for me, I can't and will never
| concede 'programmable sentience' as any sort of reality.
| robocat wrote:
| The robots don't look to be tied down. Neither does the cat.
|
| Why the robots choose to get involved with murderous trams is
| another question...
| robbomacrae wrote:
| Chickens are sentient. Would you have changed your answer if it
| were chickens?
|
| I chose to save the human as the prompt didn't set a bar for
| the level of sentience. Also partly because of shameless
| speciesism. I love animals, have gone mostly vegetarian, but I
| would still save a human over any other animal.
| Semaphor wrote:
| > I chose to save the human as the prompt didn't set a bar
| for the level of sentience.
|
| That's actually a very good point, I made more assumptions
| than the text gave cause for.
| yardstick wrote:
| Would you save a fit, healthy monkey that can communicate
| with us using sign language, or would you save a human in a
| permanent coma? (Or whose brain is damaged and will only ever
| have the mind of a 1 year old)
| robbomacrae wrote:
| I would choose the human in both situations.
|
| Lots of animals die due to our existence and not just for
| our food. We accidentally kill things all the time with our
| vehicles and the pollution we cause. I wish it wasn't the
| case but you can't step outside without ruining some ants
| day.
|
| To then be faced with a choice between killing one more
| animal or a human... my heart would bleed for the monkey
| but to do anything else would be murder and pretty
| hypocritical unless one lives an extremely vegan and eco
| friendly lifestyle.
|
| No medical issue will strip away the fact that it is a
| human life. I'll make it more absurd for you... they could
| have a terminal disease and likely be dead tomorrow and I'd
| still choose to sacrifice the monkey to give them 24 more
| hours.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Wouldn't sacrifice any humans for a billion monkeys
| yardstick wrote:
| Would you save a monkey whose body contains antibodies
| for the cure for cancer for humans (or
| AIDS/HIV/whatever), or 1 human?
| spoonjim wrote:
| The monkey. The answer would be the same for just a vial
| of the antibodies, the monkey is completely incidental.
| McBeige wrote:
| If you were a monkey, would you sacrifice a billion
| humans to save a monkey?
|
| Or equivalently, would you sacrifice a billion humans to
| save a robot that's twice as sentient as the average
| human?
| spoonjim wrote:
| I cannot really say what I would do if I was a monkey,
| it's like asking me what a circle with corners would look
| like. Too far outside my ability to imagine. I wouldn't
| sacrifice any number of humans to save any kind of robot
| either, unless it was a robot critical to human survival
| like a surgical robot in the middle of a natural
| disaster.
| bckr wrote:
| coma: monkey
|
| brain damage: now there's a hard one
| tyrantalope wrote:
| I don't value them equally as human life. I'm anti robot I
| guess
| Sirened wrote:
| Yep, it's essentially the same question as the cat vs the
| lobsters. Most chose to save the cat, and that's not exactly
| surprising given the western context of cats as companion
| animals. We just value some lives more than others.
| undersuit wrote:
| Robots might not even die when you run them over just needs
| some new parts.
| sph wrote:
| I just love this so much. If you're reading this Neal, thanks, it
| was pretty fun.
| belter wrote:
| Lots of additional fun at Neal's page... My favorite is the Life
| Checklist and the Size of Space.
|
| https://neal.fun/size-of-space/
|
| https://neal.fun/ten-years-ago/
|
| https://neal.fun/lets-settle-this/
|
| https://neal.fun/ambient-chaos/
|
| https://neal.fun/spend/
|
| https://neal.fun/who-was-alive/
|
| https://neal.fun/life-checklist/
|
| https://neal.fun/dark-patterns/
| Silica6149 wrote:
| Anyone know what tools he uses for the animations, like the
| size of space one?
| gaws wrote:
| HTML and CSS
| catchmeifyoucan wrote:
| Minor UX, could be just me, sometimes I got the "pull the lever"
| and "do nothing" options confused and did the wrong thing. Would
| be interesting if instead of pulling the lever, I could just pick
| the option, either underlined in the text, or as a choice.
| who-shot-jr wrote:
| Kill count: 86
| sceptically wrote:
| How is the text-fade-in effect done? I like it!
| McBeige wrote:
| It's soooo sloooow. But yeah it's nicely done
| Heyso wrote:
| Any third choices ? Maybe pulling the lever hallfway derail ? If
| it is fast, that means more deaths, otherwise, you may have some
| injuries but everyone survives ?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| TIL of myself that robots can get stuffed.
| grayfaced wrote:
| I wonder what would happen for the bribe problem if the rich man
| wasn't on the track at all. I feel the unfairness of comparing
| the relative value of rich life vs poor life compels people to
| reject the bribe. But if it was simple bribe to kill with the
| other side being empty, then it becomes a measure of the worth of
| a life.
| Akronymus wrote:
| For me, him offering the bribe made me refuse to divert the
| trolley.
| McBeige wrote:
| My gut reaction was to kill the rich person.
|
| I justify it like this: a world where well-being is decided
| by wealth is unjust and undesirable, so trying to enjoy your
| privilege is a moral wrongdoing because it very directly
| prevents the spreading-out of wellbeing. This makes it
| equivalent to the littering problem (in mode, not scale),
| where I chose to kill the litterer.
|
| I'm not confident, but that's how I rationalize it. I'd love
| to hear any thoughts on this.
| noasaservice wrote:
| I chose the route of harm minimization, given this forces an
| answer. My kill count was 44.
|
| We really should have 3 answers: 'refuse to answer', 'pull
| lever', and 'dont pull lever'.
|
| Don't pull lever- is a choice that you make, and acknowledges the
| intent in doing that action.
|
| Refusing to answer- is not accepting the responsibility forced on
| you.
|
| As a comparison, it's when some terrorist on a movie says to
| someone "You can decide who is going to die". The better answer
| is to not choose. If they force that with multiple threatened to
| be murdered, then you choose yourself.
| Tepix wrote:
| > I chose the route of harm minimization
|
| As determined by the kill count? But what about time remaining
| alive? I.e. killing a 95-year old vs killing two children.
| noasaservice wrote:
| > But what about time remaining alive?
|
| That metric isn't calculated, nor is it in good scientific
| form to use a gross estimate as a fact.
|
| I've also always rejected the trolley problem to begin with.
| Rarely is anything similar to that ethical/logical problem.
| JonathanFly wrote:
| >Oh no! Due to a construction error, a trolley is stuck in an
| eternal loop. If you pull the lever the trolley will explode, and
| if you don't the trolley and it's passengers will go in circles
| for eternity. What do you do?
|
| 50% of people pull the lever?!?
|
| I hereby declare that if I'm ever going to be stuck in a trolley
| for my entire life, I do NOT want the lever pulled. Toss me a
| smartphone charger and my life wouldn't even be that different,
| day to day.
| theycallmemorty wrote:
| This one is a metaphor for life on earth, endlessly going in
| circles with no way to get off or go somewhere else.
|
| Amazing that 50% of people are nihilistic enough to just blow
| it up.
| tmlb wrote:
| Would your answer change if you were stuck on the trolley quite
| literally for eternity, rather than just the remainder of your
| biological life?
| JonathanFly wrote:
| If it were truly the one single opportunity I will ever have
| to choose to stop existing, it's a tougher choice for sure.
|
| But on the other hand, I might be so curious about what in
| the heck happened in the world outside - the world that led
| to this universe where it will be impossible for me to die
| for eternity, and somehow I know this with absolute 100%
| certainty - that I still opt out.
| amelius wrote:
| Well, perhaps it is not possible to die in _this_ universe,
| and there are several takes on this idea, see e.g. quantum
| suicide on wikipedia, or perhaps time starts looping (e.g.
| you reincarnate as yourself), or perhaps you even
| reincarnate as somebody else (in the future or in the
| past). Remember: we know very little about what is time and
| consciousness.
|
| The "you have solved philosophy" message at the end of the
| game is very far from the truth.
| s0teri0s wrote:
| My response, to leave them there was based on 1) not taking
| lives as a result of my decision, and 2) if they're alive,
| they might eventually find a way to stop the trolley and get
| off. My choice gives them that chance, in my opinion.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| On a serious note, it feels worse in every case that the end
| of your life is in the hand of an external actor.
|
| Best case scenario you can do what you want and deal with
| whatever urge you have at your pace. Worst case scenario you
| don't have agency, and just stay stuck suffering instead of
| dying. Personally I'd take the chance.
| thriftwy wrote:
| If I live for an eternity I figure out how to make my own big
| bangs eventually, all while still being on the trolley.
| red75prime wrote:
| > stuck on the trolley quite literally for eternity
|
| What "literally" means in this case? Am I completely certain
| that I'll be stuck on the trolley for eternity? I would think
| that I'm having a psychotic break and delay my decision.
| utucuro wrote:
| Literally, as in, if a passenger finds a way of getting out
| of the trolley somehow, they will be put back in so the
| thought experiment can continue working as intended. Absurd
| amendment to an absurd trolley problem.
| ars wrote:
| That depends - am I bored for eternity, or is there
| interesting stuff for me to do?
| bobsmooth wrote:
| You're stuck on a trolley.
| gwd wrote:
| ...but do I have an internet connection and a laptop?
| When they invent VR, can I have one of those?
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| Maybe, maybe not. You won't know until you're aboard the
| trolley.
| darkerside wrote:
| Passengers implies there are other people. Some find
| human interaction entertaining.
| soco wrote:
| Does the trolley have toilets?
| addandsubtract wrote:
| No, but it also doesn't have food or drinks. So where
| you're going, you won't need toilets.
| soco wrote:
| It's gonna be a short eternity in that case...
| brewdad wrote:
| Would it change if you were stuck on the trolley with the
| type of people that seem to occupy my city's transit now that
| fare enforcement no longer happens and no one is asked to
| leave the trolley at the end of the line?
| nly wrote:
| My reasoning was someone onboard might make a valuable
| contribution to the world even if they are stuck on the
| trolley, and the cost to the rest of society for letting it run
| seemed small.
| darkerside wrote:
| Seems like you could always pull the lever later!
| SahAssar wrote:
| I reasoned that the trolley is essentially just a scaled down
| earth, and plenty of people feel perfectly fine living their
| lives confined to that looping prison.
| jedberg wrote:
| I pulled the lever. I didn't want to condemn the passengers to
| an eternity of monotony.
| sejje wrote:
| I would love to be in there. Truly.
| ncann wrote:
| It's akin to a life sentence on the trolley. What's to love
| about that?
| [deleted]
| shric wrote:
| It's depends what/who's inside the trolley.
| muzani wrote:
| It's all the people you didn't kill (including your worst
| enemy).
| Aeolun wrote:
| Trolley has a view! Given the choice I'd rather be stuck
| in a trolley than a prison.
| hyperdimension wrote:
| But it's...only one view. Forever.
| coalpha wrote:
| I guess I may have misinterpreted this as a choice between
| forcing the passengers to go around in circles for _literally_
| eternity versus dying immediately. Figured that it 'd get awful
| boring after the trillionth or so revolution, especially if
| there were no other options. At some point, I imagine the
| passengers would be begging for the sweet release of death and
| I didn't want to condemn anyone to that fate.
| s0teri0s wrote:
| Well, they have a trolley and a track, so there is always the
| option of throwing themselves in front of the oncoming
| trolley.
| unwind wrote:
| Plot twist: misreading the last sentence like s/life/wife/,
| heh. I had time to feel sad for you for a split second before
| checking. :)
| dheerajvs wrote:
| > if you don't the trolley and it's passengers will go in
| circles for eternity
|
| I interpret that as the passengers would live their natural
| life-span and then their rotting bodies would go in circles for
| eternity.
|
| Replace the trolley with planet Earth and it's no different
| from regular life. (approximating eternity with life of the
| Sun).
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| but where do you poop~?
| stickfigure wrote:
| They might even write songs about you!
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsqBtZNBL60
| behringer wrote:
| They made a show about this called snow piercer.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| You talking about the sequel to Willie Wonka? Good movie. I
| saw they made a show but haven't seen it yet.
| dieze wrote:
| The network executives should have pulled the lever after the
| first season
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| I assumed the people in the trolley would starve
| IIAOPSW wrote:
| How you going to eat buddy? You want the explosion option, or
| the starve to death option?
| Tostino wrote:
| I didn't see anything in that prompt that said someone
| couldn't toss me my lunch while I pass by.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| Or that you need food at all. It says 'eternity' including
| the trolley + passengers.
| tait wrote:
| Like Charlie's wife in the Kingston Trio song about the
| MTA...
| robocat wrote:
| * Hook up the trolley to a massive generator set and get free
| energy. Use the free energy to solve global warming and the
| energy crisis.
|
| * Study the science behind the infinitely reliable trolley. If
| the science is tractorable then humanity wins.
|
| * How are the people prevented from leaving the trolley? New
| science?
|
| * Is the trolley just a thought experiment? Then we can think
| about other solutions.
|
| * Is the trolley somewhere inaccessible? How did the people get
| there? Science.
| rzzzt wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Subway_Named_Mobius
| stackbutterflow wrote:
| If they're stuck in a loop for eternity, implying they'll
| never die, does it mean the trolley is going at light speed?
| joshschreuder wrote:
| I interpreted it as the passengers would go round in
| circles for eternity, but not necessarily living
| passengers. I assumed they would die of hunger and
| dehydration which seemed less humane than instantaneous
| death by explosion.
| darkerside wrote:
| What if they have renewable food and drink, a thriving
| economy, and the ability to reproduce?
| Izkata wrote:
| ...well then, we all live on a giant trolley.
| kortex wrote:
| The year is 2199. The trolly residents have figured out
| how to tap the trolly's motion for near-limitless power.
| Despite its small size, the trolly has developed a stable
| population of 24 (give or take over the years) and has
| dubbed itself Trolland. Their primary exports are
| electricity via pantograph back to the mainland,
| information services, and entertainment syndication, as
| the trolley offers a 24/7/365 reality tv experience akin
| to the Truman show.
|
| The Trolland Show draws millions of views. The residents
| initially had relatively normal interaction with friends
| and family via Zoom calls, but as the first generations
| died off, a new social order evolved. The community is
| very tight-kit and intimate (in every sense of the word),
| while having parasocial relations with outsiders, whom
| they call Stationaries. A Cult of the Trolley which
| worships the eternal engine has sprung up, periodically
| giving offerings to the trolley and its denizens. Ratings
| skyrocketed one day in 2077 as five cultists, in an odd
| sense of irony, tied themselves to the track as a
| sacrifice to the great Prime Mover.
| [deleted]
| globular-toast wrote:
| Have you never really thought about the horrifying possibility
| of eternity?
| [deleted]
| Aeolun wrote:
| Hmm, I reasoned the same way. I wouldn't want the lever pulled.
| So I won't pull the lever for other people.
|
| I imagine I'd rather go insane from eternity than die for
| oblivion.
|
| I'm also fairly certain I'll change that opinion as time goes
| on, but that doesn't affect my current decisionmaking.
| grayfaced wrote:
| If it's stuck for eternity, I think there is enough time to ask
| the stuck person what they want.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| If you can communicate with the outside. Or maybe humanity
| exterminated itself besides the people in the magic trolley
| before you decided to get blown up.
| Scaevolus wrote:
| That's the plot to _Snowpiercer_.
| tluyben2 wrote:
| But they are not immortal there are they (never read/saw
| it)? And it's 'slightly' bigger than a trolley with more
| humans so you can (and i think they do/have?) a small
| society.
| ryan-allen wrote:
| I pulled the lever. It said "eternity" and I couldn't possibly
| condemn the passengers to eternal life. Maybe it's because I
| read The Eyes of Heisenberg by Frank Herbert [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_Heisenberg
| biofox wrote:
| But... I want eternal life :(
| Hamuko wrote:
| > _I hereby declare that if I 'm ever going to be stuck in a
| trolley for my entire life, I do NOT want the lever pulled._
|
| This isn't a democracy and I hold all of the levers of power.
| shlurpy wrote:
| Maybe your time is wasted thinking about the lever, and would be
| better spent stopping the madmen who keep tying people to the
| tracks.
| EGreg wrote:
| For me, a very interesting part is the gamification mechanics:
|
| You progress through some polls, then show how many people chose
| as you did.
|
| It's a bit like Wordle. You can see whether others did like you
| did, and there's a certain signal of how "popular" or "normal"
| you are.
|
| But what can we do about sybil attacks? It seems that people need
| to have a limited number of votes, and random "hotornot" type
| selections.
| Al-Khwarizmi wrote:
| It was interesting, although I was sort of expecting a more
| detailed summary of the results at the end (even just a recap of
| all the percentages, to see in what questions I deviated the most
| from the majority, would have been nice).
| lwswl wrote:
| "Do Nothing" No, you have to click button to do nothing(two
| levers), this is an incorrect demo, it should have had a timer or
| something similar(so "doing nothing" would e synonymous with
| doing nothing).
|
| Since our trolley is at rest, I pose that the best choice is to
| do nothing(really nothing,not the lever marked "do nothing") so
| it never runs over anyone.
|
| I pressed "do nothing" twice before I realized this, so you can
| rightly call me a fool.
| breuleux wrote:
| As a compatibilist, I don't know what to do with level 28 ("Oh
| no! A trolley problem is playing out before you. Do you actually
| have a choice in this situation? Or has everything been
| predetermined since the universe began"). Both statements can be
| true! Although I guess that means there is no choice :(
| FranticFervor wrote:
| I found that problem kind of silly. I chose the free will
| option because it seemed to imply that determinism would just
| let the people get run over. I don't know if it would have been
| the same in end, but if the free will option was the only one
| that saved lives it strikes me as an unfair way to discount
| determinism as some sort of passive "I'll just let people die"
| mindset, when arguably the neuron interaction in my brain would
| make me choose the same result in identical circumstances.
| TOGoS wrote:
| If you choose to click "everything has been predetermined", you
| still have made a choice.
|
| -- Rush (paraphrased)
| agloeregrets wrote:
| Have you? Or has the set of predetermined actions that have
| happened before you conditioned you to make the choice they
| have determined for you?
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| Determinism doesn't mean that we don't _choose_. Free will is
| an incoherent idea, but choice still exists in a deterministic
| universe. Choice is just the outcome of that determinism.
| s0teri0s wrote:
| Kill Count: 45
|
| WOOT!
| starkd wrote:
| Wow, that was a lot of really tough decisions. Now I'm wiped for
| the rest of the day. Gonna have to take a nap.
|
| Good job on the site.
| elif wrote:
| The solution is easy. Through a simple exercise of wu wei, I have
| saved all the lives by not opening the link.
| rhacker wrote:
| Pull the lever and house someone homeless if you have a spare
| room.
|
| Don't pull the lever and let the homeless people die over the
| next few years.
| lencastre wrote:
| Kill count 84. I have a choice and Economic Externalities, else
| it's messed up.
| yafinder wrote:
| Ok, this is clearly crowdsourcing a dataset for AI alignment
| right right?
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| I couldn't get past the first one because it didn't have the
| correct response.
| McBeige wrote:
| Multi track drifting to maximize kill count?
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| Minimise ;-) Let the front wheels of the trolley roll over
| the points and then switch them, so at best it binds up and
| at worst derails.
|
| Of course it might derail and fall on the people, but at
| least you tried.
| dalbasal wrote:
| It's curious/ironic that instead or teaching us moral philosophy
| about ourselves, boundary testing trolley problems becomes a
| useful study for the purpose of social engineering.
|
| The problem with any kind of invisible hand is that once we talk
| about it, it becomes visible and loses its autonomy.
| pkulak wrote:
| Anyone who chose to destroy their life savings (like I did) is
| totally lying. I could also choose to save hundreds of lives and
| destroy my life savings by buying bed nets, but I don't pull that
| lever.
| Zondartul wrote:
| This needs a variant with inversed level logic (i.e. where
| pulling the lever saves 1 but dooms 5). You know, to weed out the
| people who just like murder.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Level 10 (pulling the level speeds up the trolley, reducing the
| suffering of the 5 people who are going to get run over anyway)
| is basically the argument for legalizing assisted suicide.
|
| Of course, I pulled the lever (I guess it's a bit different in
| that I didn't get consent from the people, but presumably the
| difference in their lifetime was miniscule, and the entire
| remainder would have been dread of impending death anyway)
| atq2119 wrote:
| This is an interesting one that really drives home just how
| dangerous it is to try to learn from trolley problems.
|
| Yes, if you have perfect information, speeding up the trolley
| is likely the merciful thing to do.
|
| In real life, you _never_ have perfect information. Speeding up
| the trolley is _definitely_ the wrong thing to do because it
| reduces the amount of time that you and others have to find an
| alternative solution that might save somebody.
|
| (I still agree with your point about assisted suicide. Our
| points are compatible.)
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