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Absurd Trolley Problems

neal.fun

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Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#931

Post by ptsneves »

xrisk wrote: post #753
ptsneves wrote: post #667

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I specifically mentioned training because I knew this answer would come, and like clockwork it did. Training takes time, and often unpaid. A coffee shop worker will immediately get rewarded while the engineer will not. If they will be equally compensated then the engineer is at a disadvantage. > In my opinion, people who would like to study engineering would do so not so because of what they are paid (the situation t…

Fair argument but I don’t see why training should inherently be unpaid. In fact, I don’t see why the ability to have a good standard of living should be predicated on your profession in the first place. The fact that engineering training is… unpaid as you say seems to put people who cannot afford to not make money for rent, food, etc. at a clear disadvantage. Those already rich (and able to afford unpaid training) wo…

> Fair argument but I don’t see why training should inherently be unpaid.

Because the lack of payment is the trainee's quid-pro-quo. It makes the trainee a counterpart in the training investment. In several countries in Europe to varying degrees and forms, the state pays for the training. It pays the professors, facilities and can even pay scholarships so that a disadvantaged background is not an impediment to such training(tackling the inequality issue you mention). I am not aware of any institution/state paying even a minimum wage up to master level.

Then there is the issue of difficulty, where it is clear that learning to serve a coffee mug requires less effort than learning advanced calculus. If you pay/reward the student engineer the same as the coffee waiter, you will likely still have fewer engineers[1]. Fewer engineers will produce fewer useful infrastructure or wealth to redistribute that the coffee waiter could benefit from. Therefore according to Rawls having them earning the same would be unfair.

> In fact, I don’t see why the ability to have a good standard of living should be predicated on your profession in the first place. It is not. It is predicated on the the value the profession generates.

[1] The reward/base-line ratio feels like the reaction coefficient, where you use a higher reward to make an unlikely reaction become possible :)

PS: It took me a good while and rewrites to come up with a satisfactory answer. Thanks for the comment.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#932

Post by praptak »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #524
capableweb wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's ok, it wouldn't change my mind anyway. If I can prevent more people from getting hurt, I'd be willing to break the law and take the punishment.

Would you kill your child to save two politicians you hate the most, one annoying youtuber, a neighbour who goes on your nerves for ages and two complete strangers?

You didn't specify whether the child is annoying.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#933

Post by thegrimmest »

ParetoOptimal wrote: post #930
thegrimmest wrote: post #782

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why not? Why does your presence imply your responsibility? In the given trolly problem, we can infer how events would unfold in your absence. Why does your presence imply they should unfold any differently? Shouldn't responsibility be voluntarily accepted, rather than imposed by default?

How can you impose a duty to fight evil when "evil" itself has no workable concrete definition?

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#934

Post by larmstrong »

filoleg wrote: post #825
bobbylarrybobby wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the contract already broken when six people ended up tied to train tracks?

Yes, it was broken, but by someone else, not me. I am not at (moral) fault for someone else breaking the contract. But if I pull the lever (or pushed a fat man onto the track that would halt the train), I am the one who is responsible for the resulting death, which makes me the one who broke the contract. That's the major dilemma here, because pulling the lever is the utilitarian-correct choice that saved more lives,…

Interesting. So, in a way, by pulling the lever to save the majority, you’re making two sacrifices for the greater good⎯a life and your innocence.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#935

Post by Folcon »

dorgo wrote: post #793
Folcon wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

2 mutually exclusive buttons/levers + everybody dies if you do nothing. This way inaction is still an option but strickly worse than each of the actions/buttons.

Not sure how the everyone dies plays out from a logical perspective, but I like the framing to push for a choice.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#936

Post by TheCoelacanth »

jorvi wrote: post #671
rax0m wrote: post #396

Earlier 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.

> Implied legal (and moral) liabilities made a difference in my choices. This is always my problem with the trolley problem. Are we supposed to take second order effects into account? For example, if I destroy the trolley that is killing 5 people over 30 years with CO2, does another trolley get built to replace it? Or ‘kill 5 people now or send the trolley into the future 100 years and kill 5 people then’. Is it 100%…

> For example, if I destroy the trolley that is killing 5 people over 30 years with CO2, does another trolley get built to replace it?

Or do the passengers take their cars instead releasing far more CO2?

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#937

Post by rainox »

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…

No post body was provided.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#939

Post by Sceptique »

horsawlarway wrote: post #724
Hasu wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you know how they got there? That implies so much prior knowledge and background that isn't really considered in the oversimplified "choices" in the website. Maybe they were forced to tie themselves to the railroad at gunpoint, or maybe it's a weird death-by-train suicide cult. This kind of reasoning really defeats the point of the thought experiment, which is to construct a scenario where those consideratio…

I disagree - I think that "reasoning about moral intuitions" is completely useless if you're attempting to reason about them in utter isolation and with the assumption that the subject is omniscient. It's like economists assuming perfectly reasonable actors in markets, or physicists assuming a perfectly spherical object that ignores wind resistance. They're toy problems that don't match reality at all, and the value…

They did this experiment in real life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sl5KJ69qiA . It's not 100% perfect but it is still an amazing test.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#940

Post by nocturnial »

rcoveson wrote: post #906
nocturnial wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's take a step back. I would never criticise someone for making the decision to pull the lever. I understand that decision, I really do. I only said I wouldn't do it and explained why. It's not as clear cut as you think it is. If you think it is, then write to a philosophy professor and say you've solved the trolley dilemma through an internet vote. I hope this sounds absurd to you. You can play with numbers, but…

> I would never criticise someone for making the decision to pull the lever. I understand that decision, I really do. I only said I wouldn't do it and explained why. And I wouldn't critcise someone for not pulling the lever... unless the primary reason they didn't pull the lever was the legal consequences they would suffer. That's a terrible reason.

This really disturbs me.

You have no problem when someone decides to kill someone and thinks the laws doesn't apply to them. To make matters worse, you think someone who tries to obey the laws makes a terrible decision by not killing anyone.

If killing someone doesn't give you a pause, I would be afraid to be a minority in whatever society you live in. The laws, which you so easily dismissed, gives some rights to minorities.

What's next? Here are five people who are dying... Let's kill someone in the minority to get their organs and transplant them. It's ok! Five people will survive, while only one dies.

Laws, whether or not you like them, are there to also protect minorities.

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