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Absurd Trolley Problems

neal.fun

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Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#771

Post by _virtu »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #31
_virtu wrote: post #15

The question regarding baby vs old people was really telling. It’s practically the argument for / against abortion. What’s strange to me is that someone would choose to kill five people who are capable of thought instead of an undeveloped human being. But I suppose that’s why we’re seeing the reversal of Roe v Wade being supported. Sigh, fuckin religion.

I think a common utilitarian way of thinking is years of life left. A baby has a far greater expected value of remaining years and thus is often assigned higher moral value by people. For me it was a no-brainer to kill the old people, although I was imagining them as very old such that they each only had ~5 years left on average.

I think of it from more of an anti-natalist perspective. The child will have a far greater chance of suffering while the adults will have a chance for less suffering due to their expected lifespan. That’s why I thought about it in the frame of abortion. We’ll typically assign the notion of having a life positive value, but from my perspective that’s just a chance for more suffering.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#773

Post by blabberwocky »

littlestymaar wrote: post #454
_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…

> 4. If my life is at stake, I pull the lever to save myself. I find this answer really interesting, because in the entire corpus, this was the most morally unambiguous question of all, and the answer is diametrically opposed to yours. Would have I the courage to do so in real life, I don't know, and it's probable that I would not. But from a moral perspective it's damn clear: the only people I am unambiguously allow…

This doesn’t seem morally unambiguous at all, and in fact society reached the opposite conclusion for many centuries in outlawing suicide but allowing some killing of others (e.g., the executioner tasked with killing the person convicted of attempting suicide).

An equally compelling principle might be that the only person I know to be worth saving is myself.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#774

Post by LtWorf »

hyper_reality wrote: post #642
sneak wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not my circus, not my monkeys. I don't think I can be held morally responsible for inaction in any circumstance. We didn't start the fire etc. I answered "no pull" to every one except the one where the express goal was pranking the trolley driver (and no implied harm from pulling). This is apparently an unpopular opinion, but the only one I can reconcile with my own concept of responsibility.

To pick an extreme but well-known thought experiment. You are walking past a pond, and see a child drowning in it. You glance around and there is nobody else nearby. You could easily jump in and save the child. It will certainly die if you do not. If you choose to do nothing and ignore the drowning child, are you really not morally responsible in any way for the child's death?

1st rule of first aid and rescue: "if you think it isn't completely safe, don't do it. Better 1 dies than 2"

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#775

Post by crznp »

Sebb767 wrote: post #554
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Consider this version: there is someone on the track and if I don't act, they will almost certainly die. Or I can act and almost certainly save them, but it sends the trolley somewhere unexpected.

If I were a professional rail operator, I could take action. I know how to operate the switch, I know where both of the lines go, I can contact the trolley operator to let them know what happened. As a bystander, I would not take action. Maybe it would save that person, but dooms all the passengers on the trolley. Maybe someone had it under control and I'm throwing a wrench in their plans. In general, we probably don't want random bystanders to be messing with the operation of heavy machinery.

Sometimes there is a duty to act: if I am babysitting a child and they are suffering in the cold, I better bring them somewhere warm. I may have some responsibility if I see someone suffering in the cold and I have an extra blanket that I could give them. But I am not responsible for buying blankets to give out every time it is cold, nor am I responsible for throwing railroad switches. In those cases, I am more culpable for my actions than my failure to act.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#776

Post by JoshCole »

sneak wrote: post #530
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 :)

On what basis do you assert that not pulling is also an act? It seems to me that you are asserting inaction == action which, to me, is false.

It can help to understand why some people think inaction is an action by abstracting the problem such that you can model it in a computer using standard decision problem algorithms. When you do that you have an initial state and you have two edges and they lead to terminal outcome nodes. The choice of which edge to take is an action. This isn't (usually) controversial. People generally call the do nothing action an action in these circumstances: game theory extensive form will call it that, as will Q learning, and often you'll see the same framing even in things like the expecti minimax algorithm though sometimes they'll prefer to call it a move.

In my estimation, inaction only seems to not be an action, because people are afraid of the idea that they are causally connected with outcomes in which things are killed - they want to avoid tit for tat game theoretic follow on concerns that aren't part of the game definition but might be implied by it. I think for myself, I discount this concern, because I assume policies of mercy are preferred to policies of judgement - the world is so complex and hard and some err isn't just reasonable, but inevitable. Not allowing for mercy in response to harm from decisions seems more likely to trap in tit for tat. So intent ends up mattering to me much more than the outcome when I consider the follow-on games that are implied.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#777

Post by _virtu »

__blockcipher__ wrote: post #36
fartcannon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you might have read a little too much of your own politics into that question. Supporting abortion rights doesn't mean killing babies.

> Supporting abortion rights doesn't mean killing babies. There is something very revealing about the GP's attitude though. They literally interpret someone wanting to avoid killing a baby as being the exact same thing as opposing abortion. So in their worldview abortion really is all about killing babies.

Eh, not so much. See my other comment to the sibling thread in regards to this discussion.

There are two parts to this discussion that people are pointing out that I could have done a better job explaining.

First that I’m confounding the trolley problem of killing a baby with abortion. I’m well aware it’s a thought experiment that’s used in philosophy. I understand that killing a baby is different than abortion. My main point which wasn’t articulated at all in the first thread was more from an anti-natalist perspective. The society I live in primarily assigns more value to the fetus and or baby than they do the people that already are living.

A lot of the argument comes down to whether or not the child will have a chance to do great things and to experience life. Killing the baby means stopping them from having this opportunity. However I look at it from the perspective of potential suffering and current ability to feel and think. Killing the baby really doesn’t stop the baby from thinking because well, baby. And more importantly killing the baby stops a lifetime of suffering.

Second, my worldview doesn’t contain that mentality. Abortion isn’t about killing babies. To me it’s more about stopping potential life. Whether or not that life has potential that is actually good is the part that I disagree with most of society.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#778

Post by amelius »

JonathanFly wrote: post #42
tmlb wrote: post #30

Earlier 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?

If it were truly the one single opportunity I will ever have to choose to stop existing, it's a tougher choice for sure. But on the other hand, I might be so curious about what in the heck happened in the world outside - the world that led to this universe where it will be impossible for me to die for eternity, and somehow I know this with absolute 100% certainty - that I still opt out.

Well, perhaps it is not possible to die in this universe, and there are several takes on this idea, see e.g. quantum suicide on wikipedia, or perhaps time starts looping (e.g. you reincarnate as yourself), or perhaps you even reincarnate as somebody else (in the future or in the past). Remember: we know very little about what is time and consciousness.

The "you have solved philosophy" message at the end of the game is very far from the truth.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#779

Post by salford »

synu wrote: post #746
el_nahual wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a (famous?) quote from a google engineer Andrew Chatham who worked on self driving cars. When asked about the trolley problem, he said "It takes some of the intellectual intrigue out of the problem, but the answer is almost always ‘slam on the brakes’” [0] [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/22/self-driv...

You could adjust the question to be “the brakes have failed and..” to avoid that out.

True, I imagine the next course of action would be something like "do nothing" — continue straight, try to be predictable, hope that other people in the situation can react accordingly.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#780

Post by Supermancho »

mperdemata wrote: post #221
Supermancho wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a slightly different philosophy. I don't make a conscious choice to take action that will cause a stranger's death (even if more people die because I didn't take action) with exceptions for my monkeysphere. In the case of the worst enemy one, I didn't hesitate to run them over. In the case of self preservation, I chose to save myself. In the case of my best friend, other people are gonna die. Etc. It makes a l…

But why isn't NOT pulling the lever "taking action"?

"There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path" - Morpheus, The Matrix
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