How is the text-fade-in effect done? I like it!
Absurd Trolley Problems
271–280 of 951 posts
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#272I'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…
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…
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.
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#273> 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 th…
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 slipp…
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).
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#274>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…
* 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 s…
[deleted]
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#275I 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
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.
“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.”
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#276the answers are more absurd than the questions
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#277I'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 much easier to click the button that says "I'm a good, altruistic person!" than to actually donate away your life savings.
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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?
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Would your answer change if you were stuck on the trolley quite literally for eternity, rather than just the remainder of your biological life?
That depends - am I bored for eternity, or is there interesting stuff for me to do?
You're stuck on a trolley.
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#280If 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.
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?