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Absurd Trolley Problems

neal.fun

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Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#791

Post by paganel »

HenriTEL wrote: post #628
paganel wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope not all the people took this seriously, hence (probably) some of the answers. I knew I responded with "do nothing" to 100% of the questions, it's not my job to solve the problems of the Universe (and if that good person had been that good in real life then he/she wouldn't have ended up in front of an incoming trolley while the bad person was tied down on the other, "take action", line).

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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#792

Post by sbf501 »

rax0m wrote: post #396
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.

Who am I to decide the fate of other humans. In cases where I have to choose between people, I do nothing. I'm not god.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#793

Post by dorgo »

Folcon wrote: post #558
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…

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.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#794

Post by Nick87633 »

Hasu wrote: post #731
horsawlarway wrote: post #724

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So what's your alternative, throw your hands up and proclaim ethical reasoning to be impossible, nothing is true, everything is permitted, and it doesn't matter what you do? All models are wrong but that doesn't make them useless.

I think the alternate is to not try to be a railroad operator in an emergency when you might make the emergency worse or take on huge liability.

If you are a professional trolley network controller then you have the judgement and the duty to operate/not operate the lever. I think that few people would question the ethics of a professional operator flipping the switch to save the most people.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#795

Post by pfraze »

sbf501 wrote: post #792
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.

Who am I to decide the fate of other humans. In cases where I have to choose between people, I do nothing. I'm not god.

That’s a huge assumption that inaction is equivalent to not making a decision

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#796

Post by com2kid »

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 ends always justify the means., and so endorsing all terrorism and war, even genocide; whenever the ends is enough peace to make a net positive.

That has literally been humanities M.O. for thousands of years.

History is written by the victors, and somehow the books start off with mentions of moral superiority. Strange that.

"He unified a warring country, bringing an end to a century of strife and violence!"

"His conquest allowed for the formation of a national identity, bringing the people together."

etc. etc.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#797

Post by liminal »

stavros wrote: post #647
hyper_reality wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

If you are morally responsible for the child's death, you are morally responsible for basically every evil in the world right now, since you didn't do everything in your power to prevent all of them. You may say that that is the case, but if you're responsible for everything, you may as well be responsible for nothing.

OK, then go with that: You are morally responsible for basically every evil in the world to the degree that you have the ability to change it.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#798

Post by com2kid »

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.

> On what basis do you assert that not pulling is also an act?

A student not doing their homework is an action, correct? That is why their grade is penalized, for not acting.

If someone doesn't turn on the fan in the bathroom during a shower and the walls get moldy, that is an inaction that the person will be blamed for!

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#799

Post by RHSeeger »

rax0m wrote: post #396
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.

I had to put the "legal repercussions" concept aside for this; because otherwise I'd never take an action that would involve someone being killed. No matter what the "if I did nothing" option was, you'd be in for a world of hurt in the courts if you took action that wound up killing someone; even if it was them or 1,000 other people dying. Someone would take you to court.

Re: Absurd Trolley Problems

#800

Post by ASalazarMX »

llimos wrote: post #510
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…

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.

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