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.
Absurd Trolley Problems
351–360 of 951 posts
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#352Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#353Well, 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. "
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#354>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…
> 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).
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#355Level 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…
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.
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
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#356>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…
Would your answer change if you were stuck on the trolley quite literally for eternity, rather than just the remainder of your biological life?
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.
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#357Level 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…
> 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?
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.
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#358My 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?
Matching edit of the original picture:
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/096/562/597
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#359>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.
Well, they have a trolley and a track, so there is always the option of throwing themselves in front of the oncoming trolley.
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#360>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…
If they're stuck in a loop for eternity, implying they'll never die, does it mean the trolley is going at light speed?