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Absurd Trolley Problems

neal.fun

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Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#231

Post by exodust »

dx034 wrote: post #145
throwawayarnty wrote: post #105

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.

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 deci…

> 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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#232

Post by Akronymus »

unglaublich wrote: post #206
paxys wrote: post #12

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 questio…

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.

>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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#233

Post by mcosta »

magnio wrote: post #181
cowtools wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

I take the money.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#234

Post by coalpha »

JonathanFly wrote: post #21

>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…

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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#235

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo »

uudecoded wrote: post #204
ConstantVigil wrote: post #117

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 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 th…

>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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#236

Post by epgui »

ConstantVigil wrote: post #226
uudecoded wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

> 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 w…

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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#237

Post by atq2119 »

darepublic wrote: post #164

Can't believe how many people would prefer condemning passengers to an eternal trolley ride than explode them. True evil right there

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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#238

Post by csydas »

everfree wrote: post #98

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 ar…

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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#240

Post by epgui »

TrapLord_Rhodo wrote: post #235
uudecoded wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

>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 hav…

> 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.

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