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Absurd Trolley Problems

neal.fun

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Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#341

Post by nocturnial »

Markoff wrote: post #335
nocturnial wrote: post #191

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.

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.

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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#342

Post by wruza »

_nalply wrote: post #319

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 responsibi…

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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#344

Post by once_inc »

_nalply wrote: post #319

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 responsibi…

I think I did the exact same thing you did (except for 1 problem which I misread).

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#345

Post by Markoff »

ShortStretto wrote: post #311
timmb wrote: post #303

Most chilling for me was the majority who would divert the trolly away from a good citizen to kill a citizen who litters.

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.

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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#346

Post by UberFly »

porphyra wrote: post #41
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…

True but America as a nation did in fact decommission many trolleys so it seems this line of thinking is very common.

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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#348

Post by s0teri0s »

implements wrote: post #281

Does everyone get “Congratulations! You have solved Philosophy.” at the end?

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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#349

Post by NKosmatos »

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 :-)

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#350

Post by UberFly »

dxdm wrote: post #266
unglaublich wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Where I live it's available, useful, and un-clean, so many people avoid the rolling drug dens. (West-Coast US)
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