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Absurd Trolley Problems

neal.fun

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Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#391

Post by wizofaus »

makoto12 wrote: post #372
jgerrish wrote: post #363

This 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…

I think this is a really good point. Definitely makes inaction feel like a choice, which is fundamental to the problem

I've thought that too, and it's hard to believe you really could convince yourself that your level of responsibility/guilt for the outcome is significantly less in the case you choose not to intervene even when you easily could. If the lever was some distance away (and certainly if other people were just as able to reach it on time) then not running to and pulling it seem to be a less culpable choice.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#392

Post by frognumber »

doteka wrote: post #332
frognumber wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect around 12% preferred to read the problems but always click the same choice to avoid giving away PII. A quarter probably did that, considering both options.

What PII

Whenever you visit a web site, that's tied back to your device and your name / identity. Data brokers have browser fingerprints. You have lots of CDNs hosting content and third party cookies. You're not anonymous online anymore.

Many "fun" surveys are built to help collect data to better profile you. There are many techniques here, from asking a mixture of innocuous and profiling questions, to looking for correlations. With a few, you can extrapolate a person's age, political leanings, etc.

This is snowballing, and it's hard to predict how data collected today will be used, or what inferences will be possible. It's safer not to do a threat analysis every time, but just to click one button each time and not risk letting profilers know your value system.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#394

Post by FartyMcFarter »

macrael wrote: post #336

If pulling the lever is going to kill someone, I never pull it. The only hard one is if pulling it will save my own life, I probably would in that case but it would be wrong. Pulling the lever makes you a murderer instead of a bystander.

If you consciouly choose to do nothing whilst having full information about the consequences, that is still an action.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#395

Post by _nalply »

galfarragem wrote: post #374
_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…

The ultimate trolley problem is one where you pull the lever to save a larger amount of people that have chosen a unsafe area while punishing a smaller amount of people that have chosen a safe area (unless someone pulls the lever)... Ultimately this is politics . Morality is not math, but, as always, things might be more foggy: lack of free choice and a really skewed ratio (e.g. punish one to save 100 million) may te…

Please be explicit. Do you mean something like insurance: a small amount of people has insurance but someone decided to insure even the people who haven't paid insurance?

In that case it's clear that I won't pull the lever. It's not a question of life and death, and because I am not sure whether pulling the lever helps preventing lots of damage, I won't do anything, especially because perhaps it's just a vague and abstract story you made up.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#396

Post by rax0m »

jgerrish wrote: post #363

This 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…

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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#398

Post by _nalply »

SilverBirch wrote: post #366
_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…

Yeah one of the issues with the trolley problem is how literally you take the problem. If you take it perfectly literally and say "5 vs 1" (for the pure example) no other context I think you can very easily come to a conclusion that is the opposite of what you'd do in real life, where either due to lack of certainty, lack of perfect knowledge or some iterative game theory interpretation, you would act differently.

The problem is the responsibility. If you aren't willing to take over responsibility, it's better not to do anything. If you already have responsibility then it's a different matter.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#399

Post by Xcelerate »

There’s only one of them that really gave me a lot of pause. 5 elderly people or one baby? Not necessarily that specific problem itself, but the Sorites paradox that is implied.

What about 5 elderly people with one day of natural life left vs one baby with an expected lifespan of 100 years? Are we trying to maximize total time of human life? What if it’s low quality time though? 1,000,000 elderly people that had one hour left to live or one baby?

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#400

Post by _nalply »

once_inc wrote: post #344
_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…

I think I did the exact same thing you did (except for 1 problem which I misread).

This happened to me too, I answered one problem a bit differently than I intended.

But exactly that's the case in point!

That damn lever is way too dangerous to touch. Only touch if you are extremely confident.

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