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Absurd Trolley Problems

neal.fun

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Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#921

Post by tmlb »

coalpha wrote: post #234
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…

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.

This is why I thought it was one of the more interesting problems in the list. There’s a lot of potential suffering that can fit inside an eternity.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#922

Post by [deleted] »

1602 wrote: post #781
zild3d wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is not the opposite here. The opposite is to not save lives of some people at the expense of taking life of another, i.e. the ends do not justify the means. It is a moral dilemma and whether you break or not break a law does not matter nor should it exclusively influence a decision here (I mean to do harm, just because you abide orders - that's immoral).

[deleted]

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#923

Post by wonderbore »

layer8 wrote: post #611
wonderbore wrote: post #474

I keep not understanding why this "problem" exists. If pulling the lever kills someone, then you killed someone. You can only do that if it's yourself or if the amount of people you save grants you some immunity, like "kill a guard to save a city" In the vast majority of times you should do absolutely nothing: It only becomes your fault if you touch it.

There’s also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue , so you may need to pick the lesser evil.

Sure, but surely that duty doesn’t mean “kill someone less worthy instead.”

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#924

Post by Markoff »

mden wrote: post #862
Markoff wrote: post #567

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Numbers of vaxxed vs unvaxxed hospitalized (per capita in same group) don't confirm this disinformation spread by pharma companies and their paid politicians.

Can you share a source? Here's a quick one I found that shows the opposite: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#rates-by-vaccine-s...

Here is for instance data directly from Czech gov

https://www.mzcr.cz/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/IS_COVID19_Ti...

Page 5, new hospitalizations, 7 day numbers per 100K people in each group June 2022 unvaxxed 1.4/100K vaxxed unfinished 1.3/100K vaxxed 2 doses 0.5/100K vaxxed with booster 1.7/100K

To be fair most of these people are hospitalized for other reason than COVID regardless their vaccination as was always the case even when they were spreading propaganda about hospitalized unvaxxed. Numbers in ICU look better for vaxxed, but there are way too many factors to consider, you are more likely to have better life style as vaxxed risk group than unvaxxed risk group, which doesn't really say vaccination works.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#925

Post by red75prime »

utucuro wrote: post #563
red75prime wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> stuck on the trolley quite literally for eternity What "literally" means in this case? Am I completely certain that I'll be stuck on the trolley for eternity? I would think that I'm having a psychotic break and delay my decision.

Literally, as in, if a passenger finds a way of getting out of the trolley somehow, they will be put back in so the thought experiment can continue working as intended. Absurd amendment to an absurd trolley problem.

That is I'm literally in a hell eternal. That will take time to sink in.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#926

Post by omegalulw »

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…

I didn't pull in this case, but my reasoning was that eventually there might be a way to rescue those people.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#927

Post by llimos »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #800
llimos wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think that's the beauty of the trolley problem: you decided who was going to die, because it was in your power to change the outcome. Some people will accept the moral responsibility, while others will say their inaction absolves them of legal responsibility.

It's two different things.

Yes, it totally is a question about moral responsibility. But it's still not called "killing" by any reasonable definition of the word.

It'd be fine if it said "death count" or even "you oversaw x deaths". But not "you killed" or "you caused x deaths", because you didn't.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#928

Post by Brendinooo »

cortic wrote: post #907
Brendinooo wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like textbook overthinking. We’re talking about a specific situation here: a trolley. Doesn’t have to extrapolate to other scenarios.

I was responding to someone who was generalizing, its not in any way pedantic to put a generalization to the test. I'm also quite surprised that someone could imply overthinking as a negative on HN. Gaining a deeper understanding of something, even modern philosophy, is intellectually useful. You should not under-think things, it does you a disservice to skip over the flaws and paradoxes in the world.

I overthink a lot, I’m not against the concept. But I do need people to counterbalance that impulse of mine sometimes. So I’m just representing that side here.

Also, I think there’s a tendency in philosophy to end up in places you just don’t need to go. Zeno says it’s impossible to walk to a destination; Diogenes counters by walking to a destination.

Sometimes a trolley problem is just a trolley problem, not a side effect from some universal theory of everything.

A law that says “don’t pull this lever” or whatever is different than “don’t kill a healthy person and harvest his organs”.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#929

Post by HenriTEL »

paganel wrote: post #791
HenriTEL wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Judge: 20 years of prison for not helping people in danger. You: Hey, it's not my job to solve the problems of the Universe! Duh

We’re talking about some damn cartoons. That’s the whole “philosophical” point of this trolley problem, which can be better described as a sadistic game, i.e. that we shouldn’t let this type of nonsense get between us and our real “inner values” (for lack of a better term), we shouldn’t let the people who “apply” this game condition us.

Of course this is a satirical game that should not be taken seriously, but only because at some point it starts making you choose between 5 lobsters and a cat. The point of this type of questioning is to know how much moralist vs utilitarian you are. It makes you question what are those inner values, where they come from and if they are rational.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#930

Post by ParetoOptimal »

thegrimmest wrote: post #782
ParetoOptimal wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are morally responsible for the child's death, you are morally responsible for basically every evil in the world right now No, you are morally responsible for every evil happening right in front of you that you could immediately change with little risk to yourself. For instance if you can't swim and the child is in the middle of the pond, I'd argue you aren't responsible because the risk is too great to your…

Why does your presence/proximity carry moral responsibility? Is it not possible to be a passive observer of evil? Heroism (jumping in the pond and saving the child) doesn't imply moral responsibility for the situation.

> Is it not possible to be a passive observer of evil?

Assuming the full question is:

> Is it not possible to be a passive observer of evil without being responsible to some degree?

No, with the caveats of being mentally and physically able to do something about it of course.

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