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Absurd Trolley Problems

neal.fun

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Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#571

Post by zild3d »

cortic wrote: post #531
capableweb wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting. I didn't consider any legal liabilities at all, and would easily break the law in order to sacrifice one person in trade for five people. I also didn't consider doing "nothing", not pulling the lever was also an act, and I didn't "see" any options doing nothing. Fun to see how differently people approach these ones :)

> [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…

The opposite can also be seen as quite disturbing. Deciding to not save the lives of (net) 4 people, because you don't want to break a law

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#572

Post by fedeb95 »

McBeige wrote: post #492
fedeb95 wrote: post #418

Now you all be honest and admit the one that took you longer to solve was the one with the life savings

I have no savings, but that's probably cheating. I know I'd sacrifice your life savings in a heartbeat, does that count? ;)

Ahaha well for what it's worth I'd sacrifice yours

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#573

Post by Ensorceled »

Helmut10001 wrote: post #547

From an ethical point of view, the biggest problem for me was when there were two bad choices to be weighted against each other, e.g. 1 person on a track dies against 5 persons on the other track. In most of these cases, I "did nothing" - because I don't want to play god and I knew where this leads: There are ethical edge cases that I definitly do not want to think about. I am not super convinced about this in hindsi…

> I am not super convinced about this in hindsight

Yeah, trolley problems are a philosophical tool to help work out the ethical edge cases for situations like the example you gave.

Though they can be a distraction by reducing to the wrong bad choices. When trolley problems became mainstream because of looming spectre of self-driving cars, the example of "should the car drive off the bridge and kill the driver rather than hitting a child on the bridge" was making the rounds. I was always on the side of "I don't care if, in this absurdly rare case, the car decides to run over the kid AND then drive off the bridge because human car drivers kill more the 30000 people a year in North America alone".

And, as aside, ahhhhh, remember those days of our biggest problem being that self-driving cars were about to own the streets and put thousands of truck drivers out of work.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#575

Post by Ensorceled »

eurasiantiger wrote: post #421
mcv wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I noticed I kept switching between several principles. Possibly triggered by the details of the problem. Some of the principles: 1. If you're able to act, you are already responsible for the outcome. Inaction is a choice too. There's no intrinsic moral difference between pulling the lever or not. 2. Acting from a position of ignorance is irresponsible. Better not to act than to take the risk of making the situation w…

Imagine being at a railyard at the time of a crash and being seen throwing a switch in front of a moving train. There’s no real-world case where that person is not considered responsible. Not to mention that trains really cannot go over switches at speed. A runaway trolley would probably derail at the switch if it was set on the side track.

> Not to mention that trains really cannot go over switches at speed.

As someone who used to work on the railway (Maintenance of Way Workers Unite!!); in real life ... I'd throw the switch hoping to derail the train!

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#576

Post by addandsubtract »

mrcartmeneses wrote: post #104
ISL wrote: post #67

Earlier 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.

> However I did not take into account the CO2 emissions and possible industrial accidents at the trolly factory or trolly materials mines.

I would argue that it shouldn't factor into the equation. The polluting trolley will be replaced sooner or later, anyway. You're just moving the date forward.

The catch is that the argument could be made every year, with a new, more efficient trolley replacing the previous. In which case the construction costs obviously need to be considered, and it wouldn't be worth to spend 100 CO2 to save 10.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#577

Post by theycallmemorty »

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…

This one is a metaphor for life on earth, endlessly going in circles with no way to get off or go somewhere else.

Amazing that 50% of people are nihilistic enough to just blow it up.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#578

Post by HenriTEL »

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…

Maybe the phrasing changed, for me it says: > A trolley is releasing 100kg of C02 per year which will kill 5 people over 30 years

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#579

Post by fendy3002 »

strken wrote: post #270
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…

If you included "the trolley actually exists in a realistic world and is part of a public transport network" then sure, I won't decommission it, but trolley problems are weird zero-context questions about trade-offs and I assume they fully describe the consequences of choosing each leg when answering. It doesn't help that actual trolleys are called trams where I live, so I think of trolleys as philosophical construct…

And some people just want to watch the trolley crash.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#580

Post by yardstick »

McBeige wrote: post #526
yardstick wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus the child still has the potential to bring more life into this world, whereas the old people are now infertile (my definition of old being they are too old to procreate).

Those additional lives are hypothetical and in the future, and maximizing the number of humans alive might not be the right thing to do. IMO this is one of the really juicy questions.

Fair point. Given the decreasing birth rate in the western world, I figured we need a few more humans to pay for prior generations retirement. Only half joking…
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