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?
Not everyone has much of a fortune. In fact many people have net debt
Absurd Trolley Problems
551–560 of 951 posts
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#552This is worth playing through just for the win screen! :)
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#553Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
I took into account the cash for clunkers program which was a huge disaster.
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#554Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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 sec…
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.
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#555Earlier quoted context omitted.
> [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 furt…
> 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 pe…
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?
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#556Got a kill count of 84. Had a pretty heavy bias against making an active choice so you could get a much lower count.
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#557This 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…
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.
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#558This 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…
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).
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#559This 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…
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.
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.
Re: Absurd Trolley Problems
#560Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 cann…
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…
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.