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Absurd Trolley Problems

• MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
  Is the text gently floating around a bit on the page for anyone else? I just noticed after a few rounds and it's really unsettling.
  • high_pathetic 4y ago
    Yes, it does. I guess the intention is to create a sense of rush or panic.
  • is0tope 4y ago
    Yes I suddenly noticed it, looked at the title, noticed it was floating too (panic). Looked at the URL bar, not floating, phew. For a second I though had been dosed with something hah.
  • ungawatkt 4y ago
    Yup, it's by far the most disconcerting thing about the whole site to me, well above any of the trolley problems.
  • drewtato 4y ago
    To disable the animation: .wavy-text-word { animation: unset !important; }
• markrazini8 4y ago
• sceptically 4y ago
  How is the text-fade-in effect done? I like it!
  • McBeige 4y ago
    It's soooo sloooow. But yeah it's nicely done
• voioo 4y ago
  got 51 at the end :)
• themapsmith 4y ago
  "Pull the lever, Crunk" kept playing in my head whenever I chose to pull it
• csours 4y ago
  Oh no! A pandemic virus is spreading throughout the world, do you take sensible precautions and get vaccinated when it's your turn, or do nothing? What if you don't know exactly what the lever does? What if pulling the lever makes all the infants in the world cry for an hour straight? What if pulling the lever only saves a life one time in 1000, but it sprains your wrist 1 time in 10. What if the sensible precautions are very very annoying? What if you're not sure about the side effects of the vaccine?
  • TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    What if you’re thinking too much?
    • csours 4y ago
      Story of my life.
  • DuskStar 4y ago
    What if pulling the lever has a 50 percent chance of reducing deaths, but always eliminates societal cohesion and trust?
    • canucklady 4y ago
      Ugh, masks are not that bad. I literally went to a party and danced until 4AM with my friends in a N95 and it was fine. We only unmasked to do tequila shots. If you're talking about vaccines, I have an all natural colloidal silver supplement to sell you.
    • lucd 4y ago
      What eliminates social cohesion and trust is * the disease itself * the people instrumentalizing the disease and/or the sanitary measures to partisan ends..
    • vkou 4y ago
      What if the elimination of the societal cohesion and trust was the product of a cynical, self-serving multi-decade political movement and propaganda campaign, and had only a little to do with pulling the lever, but the people who pulled the lever got most of the blame for it?
• systemvoltage 4y ago
  Turns out I am extremely selfish.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• ravi-delia 4y ago
  Ending with a contextless kill count was the perfect touch. This feels almost as profound as it is silly, but I'm not sure how meta-level the profundity is. Lovely site for sure
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • duskwuff 4y ago
    I just wish they'd included the complete kill count, not just the people. "You killed 85 people, one painting, and five lobsters." Or whatever.
    • McBeige 4y ago
      Don't forget robots. Sentient robots are AT LEAST between cat and lobster, perhaps above human. Robot rights now!
• paxys 4y ago
  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 question can sway people's opinions.
  • divbzero 4y ago
    Yes, the alternative could be more car driving which “emits CO₂ killing 12 people over 30 years”.
    • onion2k 4y ago
      Or people walk instead, emitting no carbon and killing zero people... This is what's fascinating about the Trolley Problem, and philosophy in general, and how it applies outside of philosophy - most people struggle to answer questions based on the evidence available without bringing in some external justification for their answer. People wamt a 'logical' reason to justify their choice. They can't say "I don't know", or "I used the limited data I had" when the choice they'd make goes against the something they belive about the real world (eg 'public transport is good'). They bring in a "but what if <imaginary thing that supports their biases>!" and make a decision based on that instead. They even believe they made the right choice. This applies to everything from choosing a tech stack to picking who to vote for. It's infuriating once you see it.
      • Dylan16807 4y ago
        It's a pretty huge assumption to say that walking is fast enough.
  • bee_rider 4y ago
    This seems to take place in a hypothetical universe with an overabundance of trolleys.
• _virtu 4y ago
  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.
  • irrational 4y ago
    They weren’t just 5 people, they were 5 old people. I chose to believe that they were very old and about to die anyway.
  • fartcannon 4y ago
    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.
    • __blockcipher__ 4y ago
      > 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.
      • _virtu 4y ago
        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.
• aaron695 4y ago
• thirdplace_ 4y ago
  59% would sacrifice their own life for five people? Someone been messing with the votes.
  • throwaway742 4y ago
    Some people might not value their own life very much.
  • woodruffw 4y ago
    I selected that one. Not because I'm particularly selfless, but because I think it's morally wrong to throw the switch whenever doing so amounts to killing someone, even when inaction results in more death.
    • Supermancho 4y ago
      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 lot of these pretty easy and a few (like first cousin vs 3rd cousins) a matter of happenstance, just like the happenstance that I was looking at these absurd trolley problems.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • mperdemata 4y ago
        But why isn't NOT pulling the lever "taking action"?
        • Supermancho 4y ago
          "There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path" - Morpheus, The Matrix
• gverrilla 4y ago
  Not many people care about Mona Lisa lmao
  • irrational 4y ago
    We have lots of detailed images of it. If the real thing is destroyed, oh well.
    • throwaway744678 4y ago
      Also, it was put in The Blockchain, so we're good.
  • missedthecue 4y ago
    It would live on as a ripped up painting with two wheel marks run across it and a very interesting backstory.
    • gverrilla 4y ago
      true. and then people would debate for decades if it should be repaired or not. https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/the-day-michelangelos-pieta-was-vandalised-in-a-hammer-attack.html https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/the-day-michelangelos-piet...
  • brewdad 4y ago
    I voted to save it but it really is a terrible experience trying to see it in person.
• Semaphor 4y ago
  I wonder what the explanations are for 18, most people killed the robots. Assumption of backups? Or caring about your own species more?
  • 22c 4y ago
    To really be sure, I think you need to test for the switched case as well. ie. would you do nothing and kill a human or switch and kill sentient robot.
  • tedunangst 4y ago
    I don't think the chatbots are actually sentient.
    • Semaphor 4y ago
      It said sentient, though.
      • tedunangst 4y ago
        Yeah, I've heard that before.
      • pcthrowaway 4y ago
        OK google
  • robocat 4y ago
    The robots don’t look to be tied down. Neither does the cat. Why the robots choose to get involved with murderous trams is another question…
  • robbomacrae 4y ago
    Chickens are sentient. Would you have changed your answer if it were chickens? I chose to save the human as the prompt didn't set a bar for the level of sentience. Also partly because of shameless speciesism. I love animals, have gone mostly vegetarian, but I would still save a human over any other animal.
• JonathanFly 4y ago
  >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 even be that different, day to day.
  • tmlb 4y ago
    Would your answer change if you were stuck on the trolley quite literally for eternity, rather than just the remainder of your biological life?
    • s0teri0s 4y ago
      My response, to leave them there was based on 1) not taking lives as a result of my decision, and 2) if they're alive, they might eventually find a way to stop the trolley and get off. My choice gives them that chance, in my opinion.
    • JonathanFly 4y ago
      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.
      • amelius 4y ago
        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.
• breuleux 4y ago
  As a compatibilist, I don't know what to do with level 28 ("Oh no! A trolley problem is playing out before you. Do you actually have a choice in this situation? Or has everything been predetermined since the universe began"). Both statements can be true! Although I guess that means there is no choice :(
  • TOGoS 4y ago
    If you choose to click "everything has been predetermined", you still have made a choice. -- Rush (paraphrased)
    • agloeregrets 4y ago
      Have you? Or has the set of predetermined actions that have happened before you conditioned you to make the choice they have determined for you?
      • TOGoS 4y ago
        My point is that it doesn't matter. :)
  • x3n0ph3n3 4y ago
    Determinism doesn't mean that we don't _choose_. Free will is an incoherent idea, but choice still exists in a deterministic universe. Choice is just the outcome of that determinism.
  • FranticFervor 4y ago
    I found that problem kind of silly. I chose the free will option because it seemed to imply that determinism would just let the people get run over. I don't know if it would have been the same in end, but if the free will option was the only one that saved lives it strikes me as an unfair way to discount determinism as some sort of passive "I'll just let people die" mindset, when arguably the neuron interaction in my brain would make me choose the same result in identical circumstances.
• templaedhel 4y ago
  This feels like a great introduction to the “Lizardman’s constant” (https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and...) > Lizardman’s Constant is an idea proposed by Scott Alexander that each poll always has about 4% weird answers. In one poll, 4% of Americans said that reptilian people do control our world and, in another 4% answered ‘Yes’ to the question ‘Have you ever been decapitated?’
  • mediumdeviation 4y ago
    That’s strangely a whole 3 percentage points higher than the number of Americans who self identify as ‘evil’ (on the D&D alignment chart) - see 4:47 at https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/where-americans-fall-on-the-dd-alignment-chart/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/where-americans-fall-on-t..., although at this point we’re probably well within polling margin of error.
  • c3534l 4y ago
    I selected kill people over have my Amazon packages being late, but then I felt guilty about it and answered seriously in the rest of them.
    • moffkalast 4y ago
      You fool, Amazon will refund you the cost because it's late and you'll get your package in a few days regardless. You threw away a lifetime of free Amazon stuff! Well, until they ban you that is I guess.
• baskethead 4y ago
  The thing is that when you pull the level, you're interfering so you're the cause of the consequence after pulling the lever. If you don't pull the lever, you're not responsible for what happens, at least in my opinion. That's why in the basic case of a trolley heading towards 5 people or 1 person, I wouldn't pull the level no matter what because at least the deaths of the 5 people aren't my fault, but the death of the 1 person would be my fault.
  • mdorazio 4y ago
    Apparently we’re in the minority together. Cynically (and practically) there’s also the legal side to think about. If you cause a person to be killed by a trolley, you will at minimum be sued into oblivion. If you do nothing no legal case can realistically be levied against you. Edit: a fun part of the trolley problem not really explored here is how inconsistent most people’s logic gets when the outcomes are effectively the same but the actions are slightly different. For example, what if instead of pushing a button you had to shoot the person on the tracks? What if you could kill someone today who is going to shoot up a mall tomorrow? More fun, what if you could push a button to kill a millionaire and redistribute their wealth to save 100 families in subsaharan Africa? Logically, as soon as you go down the path of actively choosing to kill a person to achieve some “greater good”, you’ve really thrown an awful lot of morals out the window.
    • yibg 4y ago
      Isn't a standard alternative, you can push a very fat man on the track and derail the trolley. All of a sudden a lot less people are willing to sacrifice the fat man.
      • spoonjim 4y ago
        Despite the fact that a man fat enough to derail a trolley, if even possible, likely has an extremely low quality of life and an extremely short life expectancy.
        • 4y ago
• er4hn 4y ago
  I killed 67 people, but 5 deaths were due to pressing the wrong button on the painting level. Do I start over and pull more levers to lower my score or do nothing?
  • smilespray 4y ago
    Lower your score? You've just murdered 67 people!
    • McBeige 4y ago
      But if you play the trolley game twice, surely you double your kill count across games? Edit: misread your ? as !
• grayfaced 4y ago
  I wonder what would happen for the bribe problem if the rich man wasn't on the track at all. I feel the unfairness of comparing the relative value of rich life vs poor life compels people to reject the bribe. But if it was simple bribe to kill with the other side being empty, then it becomes a measure of the worth of a life.
  • Akronymus 4y ago
    For me, him offering the bribe made me refuse to divert the trolley.
    • McBeige 4y ago
      My gut reaction was to kill the rich person. I justify it like this: a world where well-being is decided by wealth is unjust and undesirable, so trying to enjoy your privilege is a moral wrongdoing because it very directly prevents the spreading-out of wellbeing. This makes it equivalent to the littering problem (in mode, not scale), where I chose to kill the litterer. I'm not confident, but that's how I rationalize it. I'd love to hear any thoughts on this.
• Others 4y ago
  I feel like this is easier if you’re a non-lever-puller. If you think it’s wrong to pull the lever if it causes anyone’s death who wasn’t dying anyway, then most of these are easy. Except the “you can’t see the track” one I suppose :P
  • Robotbeat 4y ago
    Easier but more people die.
  • dx034 4y ago
    I think it's never right to pull the lever, unless there aren't any humans on the other track. I'd sacrifice an animal or objects, but people should never be sacrificed for other people, unless they actively choose to.
    • mperdemata 4y ago
      For me, pulling and not pulling the lever are the same. Both are actions. So I have to choose one of them.
    • implements 4y ago
      “You can’t treat another person as a means to an end in way that denies their fundamental human dignity” is how the principle was explained to me. https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/German_Constitutional_Court_prohibits_shooting_down_hijacked_passenger_planes https://en.wikinews.org/wiki/German_Constitutional_Court_pro... “The court also found that the act [shooting down hijacked plane] is incompatible with the constitutional right to life and the human dignity. The act would turn passengers and crew of a hijacked plane, victims themselves, into "objects" - not only to the terrorists, but also to the state, which does not have the authority to kill innocents. If their deaths would be used to save others they would be reduced to mere "things" at the pleasure of the state. Further, the court believes that the arguments of the federal government, saying that passengers in such a situation would die anyway, are invalid, as human lives deserve protection regardless of the expected duration of their existence and that it is impossible to fully assess the situation leading to an eventual invocation of the act.”
• Areading314 4y ago
  Enjoyable and thought provoking. Thanks Neal!
• tbrownaw 4y ago
  There is one person in front of the trolley, and five people on the side track. But nobody knows that you saw the five people, and there's video of you noticing the one person.
  • brewdad 4y ago
    My kid, college aged, scored lower than me by simply saying "not my problem". Says a lot about bystander syndrome.
• quickthrower2 4y ago
  Ahhhhn nice. It didn't hijack my history stack!
• everfree 4y ago
  I'm surprised to see the popular answer to Question 3. > Oh no! A trolley is heading towards 5 people. You can pull the lever to divert it to the other track, but then your life savings will be destroyed. What do you do? Over 70% chose to pull the lever and destroy their life savings. People die of preventable causes in developing countries today. By choosing not to donate your life savings today to help them, you are choosing not to pull the Question 3 lever. According to Givewell, it takes $4500 to save a life in Guinea. So for every $4500 of your savings that you choose not to donate to Guinea, that's one person you are choosing not to pull the lever to save. Have $45,000 in savings? That's 10 people you're choosing not to pull the lever to save. I doubt that over 70% of respondents are regularly donating anywhere close to their life savings.
  • vkou 4y ago
    Watching people get run over the trolley will harm me more, than the deaths of unknown people somewhere on the other side of the world will.
  • cttet 4y ago
    It depends on how much people's life saving is.. It can be even negative... not everyone is in your situation. There are pragmatic reasons as well. For me, people spend a lot to be happy like buying luxurious stuff or go to the movies/good restaurant. Saving people makes me happy. I am willing to pay for my own happiness.
  • andreyk 4y ago
    I think many people would agree in the abstract that donating some amount of their savings to developing countries is the right thing to do -- many more people than actually do this in practice. Saying something ought to be done is not the same as doing it, basically. And of course, while donating to poor countries is fundamentally similar to Question 3, in practice it's obviously not the same; people do seem have a 'moral discount' for things that occur farther away (geographically, temporally, or otherwise).
  • paxys 4y ago
    You are discounting the simple possibility that 70% of respondents do not have any significant "life savings" to speak of.
• throwawayarnty 4y ago
  I never understood how the trolley problem applies to real life. When is there ever a situation where you have perfect and complete information about a scenario? Only in thought experiments. The situation where the boxes are probabilistic was more realistic. You’re never sure in real life that you will certainly do less harm if you pull vs not pull.
  • ncallaway 4y ago
    I don't think it's supposed to apply immediately and directly to real life. But it's supposed to use moral intuition to highlight the balance of various philosophical frameworks (mostly consequentialism vs deontologicalism). One common real-life debate where these moral trade-offs often comes up in real life is voting choices in our first past the post system. A consequentialist might say that you should vote for the lesser of two evils that has a serious prospect of winning. That, while they might not be someone you support in the abstract, in the interest of harm mitigation you might give them your vote to deny victory to the greater of two evils. Whereas a deontologicalist might say that voting for a candidate that you actively dislike and consider evil is a harm in and of itself, and that you should not cast a vote for someone you wouldn't want to see in office. Even if that means the greater of the evils ends up winning. When I was younger and struggling with this question, the trolly problem was informative to me, and has generally lead me to a harm reduction strategy when it comes to voting (while also advocating for a reform of the voting system).
    • imtringued 4y ago
      That question is actually really easy. No party represents the population. There aren't any meaningful choices to be made. Thq as weere is no such thing as a wasted vote if there is no party worth voting for. They all suffer from the same flaw. Especially the ones near the left are particularly hypocritical. My hunch is that they depend on poor and angry voters so there is no way they would ever try to achieve prosperity for them while risking to lose their voters.
  • dx034 4y ago
    It's not that unrealistic. Imagine driving a car and a kid runs onto the street. You can swerve onto the sidewalk but there are people walking there you'd hit. The question if you'd take action to save someone to (potentially) kill someone else is interesting. And it has been discussed in the context of self driving vehicles. But from all I remember, the outcome always was that an AI should never actively make a decision to sacrifice someone. And that's also how I view the trolley problem. Actively making a decision feels worse for me, even if fewer people die in the end.
• lettergram 4y ago
  I always found the trolley problem interesting. It usually boils down to who believes in karma or a creator or not. Most religions have the idea that it’s different to take a life than to stand by and do nothing. For instance, you should always try to help others (save a life), pretty much above all else. However, to take a life, requires taking action. Ie standing by as someone drowns is not the same as sticking someone under water. For murder you’re damned to hell. For standing by you’ll need to repent, but it’s a lesser sin. The trolly problem IMO is a framing problem. (1) it assumes you know the future and (2) it assumes your will is above others. The example I typically gave people when discussing this problem is actually in this fun exercise. Imagine if the 5 people strapped themselves to the tracks. Imagine they knew they would murder and wanted to die rather than murder. When you redirect the train, you actually cause more deaths, because you didn’t know the intent of those people. The exercise helps you decide what you value. For me I never apply my outside influence to the system, except when I can save a life without costing a life. I believe life is more valuable than pretty much anything I saw in the game. I’m a realist and objectivist. So for me the question is “what could I live with?” And “what information do I have to make a decision?” In reality, everyone in this situation made their bed (so to speak). So I am unwilling to ever impose my will into the system baring saving a life (without costing one).
  • AmericanChopper 4y ago
    I disagree with how you’re assessing the magnitude of the sins here. I don’t think the problem really changes at all when you introduce religion to it. There’s theistic arguments in each direction of this problem, and much like with the non-theistic arguments, you won’t find any of them to be conclusively correct.
  • throwaway787544 4y ago
    You're assuming free will though. It could be that nobody made their bed, and you're just doing what was preordained, but chalking it up to free will to feel better. Maybe you could live with anything. Maybe the information is a facade, and never really makes a difference, because you'll always just do what you were going to do anyway.
• erk__ 4y ago
  In the same genre there is the recently released Trolley Problem Inc [0] though it starts out in the same way it have some interesting things happening throughout the game. [0]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1582680/Trolley_Problem_Inc/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1582680/Trolley_Problem_I...
• dejawu 4y ago
  I was really hoping that the trolley I sent into the future in the time travel one would suddenly re-appear in a later question.
• ConstantVigil 4y ago
  Kill count: 84 Apparently I solved philosophy? Im gonna assume that title stays the same for everyone lol. So, explanation for why so high. Simply put; I don't believe 5 people really got tied to those rails each time. They are in on it somehow. If so, that is sick and twisted they would tie someone else to the rails purposely. So they deserve the trolley instead. Now on the chance that they really are all innocent; I still have another problem with it. How did they not overpower the person tying them up? The single person I can understand. Heck 2 people even. 3? 4? 5!? no. Something is up. That trolley is going over the 5. (edit: Like seriously, these people would all have to have been knocked out with some drugged food or something at a party first... And that's assuming they stay asleep, don't struggle, etc...)
  • JetAlone 4y ago
    I got 46...
  • darkerside 4y ago
    One at a time? You have a high level of confidence here that I'm not sure is warranted.
  • mrcartmeneses 4y ago
    There’s also the question of whether you should take responsibility for something that is not your responsibility, unless it es in fact YOU that tied them to the tracks.
  • miffe 4y ago
    I got 91 by pressing Do Nothing on every level.
    • paganel 4y ago
      Glad I wasn't the only one doing that.
  • zamadatix 4y ago
    Yeah it says that for everyone. The trolley situation is just meant to frame the "you have to choose" type decision without starting back and forth "whatabouts" that avoid looking into the actual question like "I simply wouldn't get into such a situation" or similar. It's impossible to make some scenario 100% of people will find bulletproof so people just use the trolley scenario to convey the concept the question is about the balance of the decision not how the need for the decision came about.
• indigodaddy 4y ago
  Level 27 Time Machine is by far the most interesting one.. It’s the only one I was truly torn on.
  • dx034 4y ago
    Same here. But then I remembered that I contribute to climate change, so I apparently don't value lives in the future as much and decided accordingly.
    • shpx 4y ago
      There's a small chance that there's only 5 people left in the future, so you should do it while it's guaranteed to not wipe out the human race.
      • indigodaddy 4y ago
        Huh I never thought of that possibility.. I did think of the possibility that earth would be totally obliterated or no human population but not the possibility of only 5 to 50 or so people..
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• pcthrowaway 4y ago
  Level 10 (pulling the level speeds up the trolley, reducing the suffering of the 5 people who are going to get run over anyway) is basically the argument for legalizing assisted suicide. Of course, I pulled the lever (I guess it's a bit different in that I didn't get consent from the people, but presumably the difference in their lifetime was miniscule, and the entire remainder would have been dread of impending death anyway)
  • atq2119 4y ago
    This is an interesting one that really drives home just how dangerous it is to try to learn from trolley problems. Yes, if you have perfect information, speeding up the trolley is likely the merciful thing to do. In real life, you never have perfect information. Speeding up the trolley is definitely the wrong thing to do because it reduces the amount of time that you and others have to find an alternative solution that might save somebody. (I still agree with your point about assisted suicide. Our points are compatible.)
• zamadatix 4y ago
  56, that was quite fun. Pre-corporate internet vibes. It'd be cool if there were a way to see a one page view of the stats at the end (and where you fit with each) instead of having to redo to see again.
• zuhayeer 4y ago
  Naturally decided to check out the author's home page: https://neal.fun/ https://neal.fun/ Super cool projects and visualizations, particularly really enjoyed https://neal.fun/deep-sea/ https://neal.fun/deep-sea/ and https://neal.fun/printing-money/ https://neal.fun/printing-money/
• antiterra 4y ago
  These trolley problems are the stuff of nightmares wherein one becomes a world leader. If all outcomes are horrible, then your lever pulls or inactions will always be subject to valid condemnation. If you take a risk, you are judged by the outcome, not whether your choice was a good calculation.
  • McBeige 4y ago
    The stuff of nightmares, or an encouragement of bravery to do the right thing regardless of the ambiguousnes and uncertainty? A bit of both, for me.
• darepublic 4y ago
  Can't believe how many people would prefer condemning passengers to an eternal trolley ride than explode them. True evil right there
  • atq2119 4y ago
    Eh, I decided not to blow them up because the notion of perfect knowledge is foolish. Those folks have an eternity to figure out how to stop the trolley or jump out. They'll manage. Also: I'm not going to presume that I have the right to take such an important choice away from them. If they tell me to pull the lever I will, but not before.
  • McBeige 4y ago
    That's just a description of normal life though. We must imagine trolleyphus happy. Unless "eternal" means immortality, in which case it's even better than life!
• ipnon 4y ago
  My favorite variation is: A trolley is heading towards a line of people corresponding to every natural number. You can pull a lever and divert the trolley towards a line of people corresponding to every real number between 0 and 1. What do you do?
  • codefreeordie 4y ago
    Mathematics [hey-o] But actually, if you choose "pull the lever" after having done the maths, then you are probably a misanthrope. Either that or you believe very strongly in the theory that if you do nothing you're not involved. But really, you're just a misanthrope.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  • TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
    hmmm.. i'm not a very mathy person but seems like an interesting question. Aren't they both just infinite? There's no such thing as a bigger inifinite? thinking about it out loud here tho I would say that every natural number is a BIGGER number than every real number between 0-1 because, well, 2 is bigger than 0-1. but then again since you said corresponding to every number.... 0.000000to infiniitiy -1 is a number in itself, so, you have infinite numbers, along an infinite number of 'places'. Final Answer, you save lives by natural numbers, because real numbers have an infinite number of 'digits' per 'places' & those 'Places' are equal to all natural numbers.
    • Akronymus 4y ago
      > There's no such thing as a bigger inifinite? Well, that is where the fun starts. Take every natural number, assign a unique real between 0 and 1 to it. Put all of them under each other. Now take the 1st digit of the first number, 2nd of the 2nd and so on, set it to a different digit than the one you took. Now you have a new, unique, real (Because it differs in at least one digit with every other real taken so far) but no more natural to assign it to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_diagonal_argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor%27s_diagonal_argument https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elvOZm0d4H0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elvOZm0d4H0
• nocturnial 4y ago
  If you factor in the legal implications, the trolley problem becomes trivial. Do nothing. I'm not qualified nor allowed to operate train infrastructure and the legal consequences will become worse if someone dies because of something I did.
  • rcoveson 4y ago
    I don't see how that trivializes the problem. With that additional consideration, the options are: 1. Let 5 people die and 1 live, and you probably don't have any legal consequences. 2. Save 5 people, cause the death of 1, and you probably go to jail. So the thing that made the answer trivial was the introduction of legal consequences that affect you personally? Doesn't the difference of 4 deaths dwarf that?
    • MrRiddle 4y ago
      Congrats, you saved Hitler, Stalin etc and killed Tesla.
    • dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
      You're implying that you'd go to jail for the lives of 4 people (or that people should), but recent experience has shown people won't even wear a mask to save other people's lives.
      • rcoveson 4y ago
        Yes, people are shitty utilitarians. I can think of a thousand equally egregious examples that we're both guilty of. Doesn't mean we wouldn't be good people when presented with a social situation that our culture and instincts actually prepared us for. Think about how many people have sacrificed themselves for others. Not just jail time, but death. Would each of those people have lived completely pure, selfless lives if they hadn't done what they did? Probably not. Who knows, some might have ended up being anti-maskers. It is said that "dying is easy". Making one clearly right choice, damn the extreme consequences, is actually very normal for humans. Just as normal as spending a whole life making bad decisions. Even more bizarre is the two "modes" aren't even mutually exclusive.
• burnt-croissant 4y ago
  The measured side of me always wants to err on the side of inaction. The one about life savings is a difficult one and I think at a distance without the peer pressure or emotional bias of a high pressure situation I would certainly choose to save the life savings. More interesting I think would be a question involving family members. How many people do you kill (by pulling the lever) to save a parent, or your child?
• TrapLord_Rhodo 4y ago
  > Oh no! A trolley is heading towards 5 people. The lever just speeds up the trolley, which might make it less painful. What do you do? I voted no, cause really? who the hell would SPEED UP a train to hit someeone because it 'might' make it less painful. Disregarding the million other mights that could be assumed. The logic here is astounding & yet. 33% of people agree with you, 67% disagree (20,485 votes) I guess the lesson here is people act on assumptions as tho they are fact.
  • bmo-at 4y ago
    I was surprised about that one as well. Here is another assumption: Speeding up the train might reduce their chance of being saved by a third party. So by speeding up the trolley you might make it less painful, but also might rob them of the chance of being saved. I know this is just a thought experiment, but there are a million variables to a scenario like this and just adjusting for the first one you see is a slippery slope.
    • CuriousCosmic 4y ago
      A lot of the problems are structured as parallels to real world problems. While strictly speaking I voted "do nothing" for that problem, I wholeheartedly support the real world parallel which is euthanasia (speeding up the trolley to reduce the pain of inevitable death).
  • McBeige 4y ago
    I voted to speed it up. "I don't know everything so I remain cautious" is a mentality I applied for some problems, and not for others. In this case I thought the problem would be trivial/boring if considered from that mentality, so I instead made a choice between condemning someone to a 10 second life of 10/10 pain and condemning someone to a 5 second life of 5/10 pain.
  • tgv 4y ago
    It's going to happen anyway, so there's a net positive effect of speeding it up. I can't imagine people not choosing to do so. > I guess the lesson here is people act on assumptions as tho they are fact. As I wrote above: these problems are too artificial to draw real conclusions. They're thought experiments. The only information you can use is given. For the rest, you have to fall back to "defaults" (each life is worth the same, etc.). If you look at it like that, it's interesting to see how many people would opt to run over the rich man.
• mongol 4y ago
  These are presented as ethical dilemmas, but are they also legal dilemmas? Example 1, for example. If you can clearly see that one person will die if you pull a lever, and he will not die that if you don't, is that not murder or manslaughter? If not, why?
  • moffkalast 4y ago
    It's a fun thing to think about in a no-personal-consequences sort of way, if it were a real life situation you bet nobody is going to touch that lever with a 10 foot pole otherwise they're likely going to prison for a long time with how modern prosecution works.
• vemv 4y ago
  Counterpart to the robot problem: You can do nothing and kill one human, or pull the lever and kill one alien who can experience consciousness, feelings and pain at a higher level than ours.
• catchmeifyoucan 4y ago
  Minor UX, could be just me, sometimes I got the “pull the lever” and “do nothing” options confused and did the wrong thing. Would be interesting if instead of pulling the lever, I could just pick the option, either underlined in the text, or as a choice.
• farzher 4y ago
  the answers are more absurd than the questions
• implements 4y ago
  Does everyone get “Congratulations! You have solved Philosophy.” at the end?
  • s0teri0s 4y ago
    I dunno, but I did. It had an empty ring to it though. I don't feel like one can solve Philosophy. I've never thought of philosophy as a solvable thing, like all the philosophical conundrums I've encountered were specifically designed not to be solved, but only contemplated. And not just koans, either.
• jl6 4y ago
  I think the trolley problem serves to highlight how important it is to focus on solving real problems rather than hypothetical problems. The real world usually offers addition information that helps resolve dilemmas.
  • kennywinker 4y ago
    But if one real world problem was tied to the tracks, and you could flip a switch to a different track where five hypothetical problems were tied to the tracks, would you switch it?
• ddenisen 4y ago
  Like somebody else has noted, the trolley problem exemplifies that people assign different weight multipliers to proactive action vs inaction, instead of strictly comparing the direct expectation of both outcomes. Two real life applications of this that I find interesting are: * Tech company employees who choose not to sell their vested RSUs (inaction) as opposed to selling them and diversifying into other investments such as index funds (action) even though the latter is economically more correct. * Members of the general public who refused to receive the COVID vaccine (inaction) as opposed to getting vaccinated (action). In their minds, the risk of getting injured due to vaccine side effects is incorrectly weighted more than the risk of developing complications from COVID, because the former would be a consequence of a conscious action (i.e. "pulling the lever") as opposed to doing nothing (letting the trolley go down the default path of getting sick).
• rekoil 4y ago
  I thought it was interesting that so many people chose to pull the lever and become personally responsible for the outcome in many of these scenarios. Like the ones not involving people dying for instance, I don't want to be personally responsible for destroying 1 trolley just because some idiot had set one on a path to destroy 3, I can just see the shitstorm some stupid company will kick up in order to make me pay there for example.
  • andreyk 4y ago
    But if you are by the lever and know the outcome of pulling it (as is implicitly the presumption in these thoughts experiments), are you not personally responsible for choosing the outcome either way?
  • McBeige 4y ago
    That only makes sense if you think in terms of law to the detriment of morality. Does responsibility play any role in morality?
• timmb 4y ago
  Most chilling for me was the majority who would divert the trolly away from a good citizen to kill a citizen who litters.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • ShortStretto 4y ago
    Don't think I got that far but the thoguht process is not hard to follow. One person is gonna die either way so it might as well be the "better" option.
    • Markoff 4y ago
      Except it's not up to you to decide which of these two will die, both lives are equal and you must perform action to kill the littering guy, if you do nothing someone will die anyway, it just won't be the littering guy.
      • Hamuko 4y ago
        >Except it's not up to you to decide which of these two will die I'm standing next to the track switcher, so I'd argue that it is.
      • McBeige 4y ago
        Heck yeah it's my decision! I don't want to live in a world where decisions are made like this, but in this case we must accept our role as the lever puller. Or walk away I guess, but that's no different from actively condemning the litterless person.
      • Tepix 4y ago
        What if the problem is rephrased and inaction would mean death for both?
        • Markoff 4y ago
• 867-5309 4y ago
  did anyone else wear their unphilosophical sadistic karma-denying internet-can't-hurt-me hat to intentionally skew phony statistics because they thought everyone else would do the same?
  • NKosmatos 4y ago
    No :-) Come on now, there's no good reason to answer random/opposite from what you would normally do, just to skew statistics. Obviously this is the internet we're talking about, so there are bound to be "silly" answers and these count as well. We can't all think the same and answer the same ;-)
  • McBeige 4y ago
    A trolley problem is going uncontrollably down the tracks. Do you pull a lever to intentionally derail it, or let it pass without consequence? /s
• beaker52 4y ago
  This might be something for my own trip, but the "trolley continuing for eternity" question was interesting to me. I experienced it as if the universe (the creator) was asking itself (me) whether it should carry on doing itself (literally, and figuratively) or stop and bring the trolley ride of life to a complete end. Enough philosophy for today. returns to pretending that being a jelly-covered skeleton that has a hole in its face to put food which eventually comes out of another hole 3-inches from their magical life-creating sex organs (that they rub together to make new ones) and waking up every day to a world where they sit in front of a box that requires they press buttons in the right sequence to make their own life continue, is completely bloody normal Happy Existential Wednesday.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• stewbrew 4y ago
  WRT #4: How am I supposed to pull the lever when I'm tied to the rails?
  • FartyMcFarter 4y ago
    Your arms aren't tied.
    • stewbrew 4y ago
      Yes, but if I could stand up to pull the lever that's meters away, I wouldn't be in the position to ask myself what to do.
• _nalply 4y ago
  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 responsibility you assumed. You need to be very sure and the odds need to be extreme. None of the problems managed to tip the odds. So whenever I was afraid that pulling the lever kills someone, I didn't pull the levers. 4. If my life is at stake, I pull the lever to save myself. 5. If I am extremely sure that no lives are at stake and I am relatively confident that pulling the lever will avoid lots and lots of damage, then I pull the lever. If I am unsure, I do nothing. 6. In all other cases responsibility is too high and I won't do anything. The idea: don't touch the damn thing. The website told me that I decided differently than the majority of people and finally that I "have solved philosophy" EDIT: The top comment made a good point. I had to click a button to do nothing. This made me realize that I a had a silent assumption: 7. Time to decide is short. The trolley is already coasting. So I didn't think long and hard because I didn't have time and when I was unsure I would have let the trolley coast past without having pulled the lever.
  • lumenwrites 4y ago
    > Only pull the lever if you are sure. With an action you assume responsibility for the outcome. Letting people die just because I don't feel super comfortable assuming the responsibility sounds pretty close to the definition of evil to me.
  • renewiltord 4y ago
    Copenhagen interpretation. If you haven't interacted with system you can't be blamed.
    • cranekam 4y ago
      Isn’t choosing not to interact when you were able to still a form of interaction? I feel like once you’re exposed to the system and what it does depends on what you do (even if “doing” is nothing) you’re involved.
• karolist 4y ago
  Did nothing in all the cases. Why? Because I'm not a hero and it's not my problem, and who knows if I have all the information to interfere anyway.
• Markoff 4y ago
  My comments for when I disagreed with majority. So I first disagreed with majority at level 10 mercy, I mean if they are dead anyway and trolley running faster only might make it less painful without guarantee what is the point playing the God, they are dead anyway and nobody will guarantee it won't be actually worse if I do something. This ain't exactly euthanasia with drugs proven to work. Level 12 best friend - I am surprised majority value life of one best friend more than lives of 5 strangers, in the end it's still people and 1:5 seems like nobrainer decision. Now, if it would be family I would agree with majority, but just the friend ain't family and heck even for the family I'd maybe have to consider whether it's old grandma vs 5 young people. level 13 cant see - well they should then choose different picture, but from picture it seems very likely you can save 5 people instead 1 even if you are not exactly sure level 15 age - I'm surprised most of the people are ready to sacrifice 5 elderly people (define what age is that, whether they have still 10-30 years of life ahead) and let 5 families to suffer instead 1 baby which still doesn't have even self conscience and family can have other baby and they are not used to it for years level 17 math - i'm quite badd with these odds and math so I went rather with doing nothing if not sure and was with majority level 19 economic damage - agree with majority, but don't understand why would people rather destroy 900K worth trams instead 300K worth trams level 20 external costs - I don't think it's up to me to decide in what order should be trams replaced, also they dont say whether will be the tram replaced at all, way too many variables to consider which decision is better level 22 - wow, majority of people are mean pranksters level 23 - TIL majority of people is willing to sacrifice someone's life over littering and rather play God, I'd say 1 life equals 1 life and I won't really change direction of tram over such small thing as littering, now if you would say that person is murderer or drives dangerously that would be different level 25 lifespan - is one life really worth ten lives each with at least 10 years ahead for majority? 10 years is quite a long time, 50 is longer but it's still just one life over 5
• wruza 4y ago
  “Solved the philosophy”, what does that mean? Also would be nice to see my score on few distribution graphs.
• laputan_machine 4y ago
  33% of people will kill themselves over another individual (sure...) 17% of people will kill themselves over killing 5 clones Come on guys, consistency, please!
  • wruza 4y ago
    You’re actually multiplying yourself in the second case. To see it this way you have to have a specific idea of consciousness and “self”.
    • laputan_machine 4y ago
      A clone of you, isn't you, it is by definition a copy. You do not possess their memories when they do something else, you do not control them, you do not have their consciousness. It isn't you. When you cease to exist you do not "live on" (in the physical sense) through them, you are dead.
      • wruza 4y ago
        The idea I mentioned is hard to explain in a comment, but I’ll try to message the essence, at least what works for me. Which is, there is a chance (and further reasoning bases on it) that we all don’t feel as a single entity only because we are physically separated by low-bandwidth channels, e.g. visual, auditorial, text. Opposed to parts of our brains, which are connected by high-bandwidth links. This creates an illusion of self, while we all are actually the single phenomenon divided into islands. Under this idea the thing that matters (to some) is your own physical structure, not from which eyes specifically “you” are looking at the moment, because “you” are everywhere. Some call it the hard problem of consciousness, or a part of it, but details may heavily vary. Hope that provides a glimpse into it. Added: also curious, from your perspective, do you really die when Scott “beams you up”?
        • laputan_machine 4y ago
          Yeah it'd be cool if we could live as a super organism like ants or bees. As to your question: Yes, to me, logically, your body is atomised and then remade. You die, then a clone appears. To everyone else. you are the same, but you, the original you, is dead. Pretty harrowing when you think about it
• bryanrasmussen 4y ago
  it's all so theoretical, I think we need to do a more concrete simulation to see how it all plays out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtRhrfhP5b4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtRhrfhP5b4
• tjs8rj 4y ago
  Surprised on the answer to the “worst enemy” one. I wouldn’t really call anyone I know personally my worst enemy, so I figured it’d be someone like Mao or Hitler, and of course I’d just have it run them over. Do other people have a worst enemy in their life?
  • McBeige 4y ago
    My worst enemy is the side of me that constantly doubts and berates me. But I guess I should accept that it's just trying to protect me and I needed it in the past but now I need something else. Nah it gets the train.
• macrael 4y ago
  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.
  • ccity88 4y ago
    > Pulling the lever makes you a murderer instead of a bystander. Ah that, I'm not too sure about. If you have the means to avert a disaster and divert the trolley but consciously choose not to do so, you'd be a murderer either way right? The baby question really hammered it home for me, most respondents chose to have the trolley kill the elderly people instead of diverting it to the baby. Sure, you stood by and did nothing but you're STILL a murderer no matter the outcome. The minute you stand by the lever you consciously choose who's going to live or die, regardless of whether you do nothing or pull the lever. Inaction is action.
    • macrael 4y ago
      So, the progression I like that got me where I am on this, ultimately silly, exercise goes like this: 1. The trolly problem, 5 v 1 with a lever. 2. The roller skater: There's a trolly that's going to run over 5 people. Someone is skating next to the train tracks in enough pads that they would stop the trolly if they were on the tracks, do you push them into the trolly's way? Saving 5? 3. The brilliant doctor: A brilliant doctor, on the cusp of a discovery that will save the lives of millions has a heart attack in the OR one night and needs an immediate heart transplant. Due to a contrived morality problem, you are locked in the hospital with no way to get a fresh heart delivered. In the room with you is a stranger who has the right blood type. Do you cut their throat and take their heart to save the doctor's life, guaranteeing that a million people will get life saving treatment over the next five years? For me, once you get there to the end, it's obvious that it's not right for me to choose to end one person's life for the potential of saving others. Trying to add up lives on the balance of a scale is an impossible effort. Better not to kill anyone. I didn't tie anyone up on the tracks. (I'm not a philosopher but I think that this is a Kant vs. Utilitarianism kind of argument, in the end.) P.S. A friend of mine poses a different moral puzzle: You are walking by a pond and see a child starting to drown, do you jump in and save them? There are people metaphorically drowning all around us and yet usually I do nothing. Maybe morality puzzles aren't that useful for navigating the real world.
• s0teri0s 4y ago
  Kill Count: 45 WOOT!
• yafinder 4y ago
  Ok, this is clearly crowdsourcing a dataset for AI alignment right right?
• NKosmatos 4y ago
  Neal makes some great and funny pages with great visualizations, but being a data freak I'd like to see more statistics. It would be great if we had a summary page where all questions and detailed results would be presented, even better with a distribution showing time taken, to see how "easy" each decision was :-)
• s0teri0s 4y ago
  I think if you choose the option to kill 5 people 100 years from now, that 5 should not be part of your total kill count, because those people won't be dead for 100 years. In fact, it is possible you could commission a brick wall to be built somehow in front of the portal opening at the other end to divert the trolley in time, sparing those people, since the future (in my opinion) is not certain.
  • SpEd3Y 4y ago
    But what if in 100 years most of humanity dies, all that's left is a group of 5 survivors that took shelter in a trolley station. Then all of the sudden a trolley appears out of thin air and kills all 5 of them? You would be the man/woman that ended human race :)
    • s0teri0s 4y ago
      Ya lays down yer money and ya takes yer chances.
• gwd 4y ago
  https://www.existentialcomics.com/comic/106 https://www.existentialcomics.com/comic/106
• langitbiru 4y ago
  Well, in China they ask this trolley problem. If you were a son, would you save your mother or your gf? The "correct answer" is your mother. "China's ministry of justice later posted the "correct" answer: exam writers are duty-bound to save their mothers. It would be a "crime of non-action" to choose romantic love over filial duty. " https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-34377611 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-34377611
  • Ekaros 4y ago
    From Western perspective that might seem strange. But I think this trolley test might be extended to pull a lever to kill man instead of a woman. Which to I think we have some very sad notions of equality...
    • tgv 4y ago
      They're not equal. E.g., if you value the survival of our species, the average woman is worth more than the average man. But if you worry about overpopulation, it's the other way around. These problems are simply too artificial to make any meaningful distinction.
• jgerrish 4y ago
  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 of the Day". No action by the end of the day triggers Do Nothing, etc. Lots of cool, interesting design choices. There's an unstated subtle ultimatum hidde. in these problems, but still cool. Sorry, geeking out.
  • makoto12 4y ago
    I think this is a really good point. Definitely makes inaction feel like a choice, which is fundamental to the problem
    • wizofaus 4y ago
      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.
    • Tao3300 4y ago
      Yes. E.g.: I didn't choose to kill the lobsters instead of the cat. I chose not to act. If they'd been switched, the cat would have been greased instead. The statistics are presented after the fact like you had a preference for one over the other, when in most versions of this problem, I was deliberately choosing not to participate. I refuse to be complicit in this evil. I maintain that the real answer to the trolley problem involves an overwhelming personal struggle that is so traumatizing that it transforms the hypothetical subject into a vigilante -- a hero who devotes themselves to carrying out personal justice against the nefarious evil-doers who keep setting up these trolley problems. The problem is the Joker, ergo the solution is Batman. Dismissed!
  • 4y ago
• MrPatan 4y ago
  Trolley problems suck. Anybody's response is meaningless unless we take into account the context they have in their heads. A very common piece of context is: "If you touch something and people die, it's your fault. If you don't touch anything and people die, you can very convincingly claim in front of a judge 'It wasn't me, I didn't touch anything!'" That's a very different setting than "I'm a philosopher who wants to show how much I care or don't about total utility to other philosophers"
  • adrianmsmith 4y ago
    This is exactly how I've come to think about them as well. If you get involved with something, someone might blame you. I think that's why (bad) managers often just don't seem to make any decisions. You need to know if the feature should be like X or Y, why won't they just make a decision and tell you? It's because they instinctively understand if they can get away with not making a decision (e.g. you stop waiting and just go for one of the option, or you contact someone else to make a decision) then there's less chance they'll be blamed for stuff.
  • mikkergp 4y ago
    I think the emotional context / trauma is interesting as well when considering many of the scenarios. Regardless of some sort of external validation, how will you feel after incident? The "If you touch something and people die, it's your fault" description is very clean and logical. or something like "I don't want to play god, when there's so much uncertainty", and lots of people leave it at that. But what would your conscious hoist upon you in the days and years after you made your decision. What could you _actually_ live with, not what do you think you could live with.
• symmetricsaurus 4y ago
  Need more complexity: https://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/trolley.htm https://spot.colorado.edu/~huemer/trolley.htm
  • moffkalast 4y ago
    Ah yes I always wanted my trolley problems to start with "a brain in a vat"
• padolsey 4y ago
  Ok, very curious of others' metrics and hueristics for actions that are defensible. Mine are probably composed of: - Net degree of suffering imposed (+ nth-order suffering imposed on eg. family) - Thus, nervous system pain receptor net effect (cat>lobster) - Age of individuals and thus life-years saved (baby>elderly) - Weight of burden of (in)action on own life (++suicide risk) - Confidence that the train will act as proposed - Value of human life being absolute over non-life (human>bigMoney)
• sph 4y ago
  I just love this so much. If you're reading this Neal, thanks, it was pretty fun.
• Gordonjcp 4y ago
  I couldn't get past the first one because it didn't have the correct response.
  • McBeige 4y ago
    Multi track drifting to maximize kill count?
    • Gordonjcp 4y ago
      Minimise ;-) Let the front wheels of the trolley roll over the points and then switch them, so at best it binds up and at worst derails. Of course it might derail and fall on the people, but at least you tried.
• Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  I do not understand why so many people would let the trolly destroy their fortune to save 5 random people. Why would I ever care about 5 random people?
  • SpEd3Y 4y ago
    Cause most likely they will be thankful and reward you financially and in the long term you might get your fortune back and then some. You have to play the long game! xD
  • RugnirViking 4y ago
    Not everyone has much of a fortune. In fact many people have net debt
  • lacerrr 4y ago
    Because of empathy I guess? I can go on living perfectly fine without my savings ("fortune"), without losing any quality of life really. So if I can make the lives of five people's families and loved ones better, why wouldn't I?
• Xcelerate 4y ago
  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?
  • lelag 4y ago
    I think the baby is the logical choice for utility maximisation: he still has a chance to develop in anything, maybe he could become the next Einstein or save the world. But the 5 elderly's contributions to society are probably over, however large those had been during their time.
    • moffkalast 4y ago
      From a societal standpoint it's a no brainer, 5 drains on resources vs. 1 future contributor.
• Aeolun 4y ago
  Hmm, the lobsters got to me. Apparently I value them at basically zero compared to a cat.
  • YurgenJurgensen 4y ago
    No lobster has ever pooped in my flower bed.
• eurasiantiger 4y ago
  The ending is a false dichotomy. It’s likely the universe is deterministic, but that does not mean everything is predetermined: it just means the universe is mechanistically governed by certain rules. Those rules create a fractal spectrum of causal events not unlike those seen in the Game of Life. From the interplay of those causalities emerges an ordered bubble of discrete, relatively-localized energy-matter we perceive as our physical universe—and possibly countless others like it.
• BurningPenguin 4y ago
  Somehow i reached a kill count of 69. Nice. https://imgur.com/a/A15GC00 https://imgur.com/a/A15GC00
• fedeb95 4y ago
  Now you all be honest and admit the one that took you longer to solve was the one with the life savings
  • Hamuko 4y ago
    No, I sacrificed some strangers pretty quickly.
  • McBeige 4y ago
    I have no savings, but that's probably cheating. I know I'd sacrifice your life savings in a heartbeat, does that count? ;)
    • fedeb95 4y ago
      Ahaha well for what it's worth I'd sacrifice yours
• jnsaff2 4y ago
• dvh 4y ago
  It's easy for me: never, under any circumstances operate railroad equipment. You can't possibly know what is on the other track or what it will do to the train, you could kill thousands. Even if railroad ceo is standing besides you you have no way of verifying it. Seriously, don't touch railroad equipment, people will die!
• SpEd3Y 4y ago
  Andrzej Sapkowski in the Witcher books, through Geralt, said something that might apply to this situation: "Evil is evil [...] Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I’m not a pious hermit. I haven't done only good in my life. But if I’m to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all" Thoughts? :)
  • McBeige 4y ago
    You don't get to not choose.
    • SpEd3Y 4y ago
      Why? :) Edit: Switzerland chose to stay neutral in a world war. I think that's fine. Not getting involved is a viable option in my opinion.
  • ajnin 4y ago
    Agreed, I think the utilitarian approach that goes something like "let N and M be two integers so that N > M, then N human lives are worth more that M human lives" (with subtleties related to age and so forth) is very, very dangerous. It can lead to all sorts of atrocities in the name of some greater good. My approach is to never pull the lever unless 1) I would get killed or 2) humans would get killed vs something non-human on the other track.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • vlaaad 4y ago
    This quote is very popular, but the moral of the story you are referencing is the opposite. Geralt rejects this point of view at the end, because inaction is also action.
    • SpEd3Y 4y ago
      I think is so popular because of the Killing Monsters trailer. He does end up actually making a choice. But the choice is not between killing Renfri and Stregobor (which was the initial lesser evil choice) but he chooses to stop Renfris' gang from killing innocent people to draw Stregobor out. Renfri could have then left and look for another opportunity to kill Stregobor. Geralt told her at least two times to leave and she refused saying she made her choice, attacked Geralt and died. So Geralt ended up killing Renfri but as a result of her choice, not his. And he did stop Stregobor from taking her body and study it (which was his initial intent). So he did definitely not take his side. I would argue Geralt chose between good and evil, not between two lesser evils.
• scotty79 4y ago
  I almost always choose to do nothing because while saving people is optional, not killing them yourself is mandatory.
• sumo89 4y ago
  This website barely works in Firefox
• wonderbore 4y ago
  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.
  • layer8 4y ago
    There’s also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duty_to_rescue, so you may need to pick the lesser evil.
    • wonderbore 4y ago
      Sure, but surely that duty doesn’t mean “kill someone less worthy instead.”
• belter 4y ago
  Lots of additional fun at Neal's page... My favorite is the Life Checklist and the Size of Space. https://neal.fun/size-of-space/ https://neal.fun/size-of-space/ https://neal.fun/ten-years-ago/ https://neal.fun/ten-years-ago/ https://neal.fun/lets-settle-this/ https://neal.fun/lets-settle-this/ https://neal.fun/ambient-chaos/ https://neal.fun/ambient-chaos/ https://neal.fun/spend/ https://neal.fun/spend/ https://neal.fun/who-was-alive/ https://neal.fun/who-was-alive/ https://neal.fun/life-checklist/ https://neal.fun/life-checklist/ https://neal.fun/dark-patterns/ https://neal.fun/dark-patterns/
  • Silica6149 4y ago
    Anyone know what tools he uses for the animations, like the size of space one?
    • gaws 4y ago
      HTML and CSS
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• pizzaknife 4y ago
  lobsters > cats. especially if said lobsters have a magnet
• nezirus 4y ago
  Aside from the kill count calculations, the hardest thing for me here would be actually to be in the "position of power". Who are we to decide such things, even if we have some info (or think we have).
• who-shot-jr 4y ago
  Kill count: 86
• Al-Khwarizmi 4y ago
  It was interesting, although I was sort of expecting a more detailed summary of the results at the end (even just a recap of all the percentages, to see in what questions I deviated the most from the majority, would have been nice).
• lucioperca 4y ago
  Trolley problem never has my solution as an option, which tries to pull the lever in-between the axes to try to derail it.
• Helmut10001 4y ago
  From an ethical point of view, the biggest problem for me was when there were two bad choices to be weighted against each other, e.g. 1 person on a track dies against 5 persons on the other track. In most of these cases, I "did nothing" - because I don't want to play god and I knew where this leads: There are ethical edge cases that I definitly do not want to think about. I am not super convinced about this in hindsight: E.g. Triages exist in hospitals to help doctors find the least worse outcome among many bad options. Most, this involves metrics such as number of dead patients, or number of lived years lost (e.g. prefer to safe children before elderly).
  • Lornedon 4y ago
    I think I just found an answer to "If god is all good, all knowing and all powerful, how come there is still evil in this world?" Maybe he would have to do something to prevent evil, but he doesn't want to play god.
  • Ensorceled 4y ago
    > I am not super convinced about this in hindsight Yeah, trolley problems are a philosophical tool to help work out the ethical edge cases for situations like the example you gave. Though they can be a distraction by reducing to the wrong bad choices. When trolley problems became mainstream because of looming spectre of self-driving cars, the example of "should the car drive off the bridge and kill the driver rather than hitting a child on the bridge" was making the rounds. I was always on the side of "I don't care if, in this absurdly rare case, the car decides to run over the kid AND then drive off the bridge because human car drivers kill more the 30000 people a year in North America alone". And, as aside, ahhhhh, remember those days of our biggest problem being that self-driving cars were about to own the streets and put thousands of truck drivers out of work.
  • hackerlight 4y ago
    > I "did nothing" - because I don't want to play god I can't understand this perspective. Deciding not to pull the lever is a decision that you've made. You are "playing god" all the same if you decide to sit there and not pull the lever. There is no ethically important distinction that comes about by the mere fact that physical movement is necessitated by one of the decisions versus the other decision. If the framing of the question changes from lever-pulling to "you must press either button A or B", and that re-framing causes you to make a different decision, then I question the ethical assumptions going into the decision making. The ethical core of the trolley problem is that you're asked to choose whether you prefer one outcome versus another -- the precise physical movements you must carry out (jumping jacks, lever-pulling, blinking, button-pressing, or just sitting still) to lock-in a particular decision are irrelevant.
• jeffrallen 4y ago
  This is worth playing through just for the win screen! :)
• _Algernon_ 4y ago
  Got a kill count of 84. Had a pretty heavy bias against making an active choice so you could get a much lower count.
  • smeej 4y ago
    I had a total bias against intervening to change the path of the trolley toward one or more people (regardless of what was on the other track), but also a bias toward action if something other than a person could be run over instead, and I only got 69. I'm surprised that "saved" 15 people compared to a bias toward inaction in general.
    • _Algernon_ 4y ago
      The bias wasn't absolute. I sacrificed the 5 people to save best friend for instance.
      • smeej 4y ago
        I thought about doing that too, but then I realized my best friend would never forgive me for choosing his life over theirs. He'd unquestionably wish to sacrifice his own life instead, and it felt appropriate to honor that desire.
• kybernetyk 4y ago
  The only way to win is not to play. I'd almost never pull the lever.
• johncoltrane 4y ago
  Do nothing. Do nothing. Etc. Easy.
• lencastre 4y ago
  Kill count 84. I have a choice and Economic Externalities, else it’s messed up.
• JasonFruit 4y ago
  I think trolley problems are mostly linguistic. Take this wording: "Oh no! A trolley is careening into a crowd! Should I try to turn it so it goes through the sparsest part of the crowd?" I think most people — by a wide margin — would say yes, because it's worded as still hitting the same thing, just hitting it in a way that does less damage, and we feel differently about that than hitting a different thing, "this guy" instead of "those guys".
  • DoughnutHole 4y ago
    That's not really just a difference of language, it's a different situation from the base trolley problem. You're describing a realistic situation where the potential outcomes are fuzzy and you're just trying to minimise the probability of damage. The base problem is binary - definitely let 5 people die or definitely deliberately kill 1 person. If you believe the probabilistic and discrete versions of the problem are the same that just means you fall into the utilitarian camp when it comes to this thought experiment, and believe that the outcome is the only thing that matters.
• gfiorav 4y ago
  I know there are flaws to my reasoning, but I can't shake the thought: How/Why those poor people ended on the track is more important to fix than to focus on the responsibility of the guy pulling the lever.
  • andybak 4y ago
    It’s that cabal of evil experimental Utilitarians.
  • layer8 4y ago
    But what if fixing the problem causes double the number of people to end up on a different track?
    • gfiorav 4y ago
      ... then you didn't fix it? My reasoning is: say that bad city design leads to a lot of pedestrians about to be struck by cars in intersections. Does it really make sense to focus on the drivers?
      • layer8 4y ago
        The premise of trolley problems is that you can’t generally prevent situations where you have to choose between two evils. But we’d like to have morality rules that allow us to make the “right choice” in any situation. It turns out that it is really hard, if not impossible, to have such a rule system that (a) allows to derive the “correct” choice, that (b) is logically consistent, and that (c) people agree with all its results.
  • pnt12 4y ago
    I also take this stance. In the real world, that would be the top concern, not the bystander who is thrown into the situation. Or if the situation is unclear, better run away instead of getting involved in a mess which you didn't cause. If someone says "ignore all the real world concerns", then does it even matter? It's the death of fantasy people, who cares? But I would take an exception if it were family or friends. In a real scenario, saving them would be worth more than saving strangers or avoiding legal problems.
• Symmetry 4y ago
  One interesting thing about the trolley problem is that while most people won't pull the lever when the people involved are all random strangers, most people will if the people are are all relatives. That makes me think that, subconsciously, part of the issue is that if you pull the lever you're afraid the victim's friends and family might blame you for the death and seek revenge but if you don't the friends and family of the victims will all go looking for vengeance from whoever owned the trolley and you'll be in the clear. https://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/02/immoral-altruism.html https://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/02/immoral-altruism.html I certainly wouldn't direct a careening trolley from 5 sleeping humans to 1 awake human who would feel terror before dying, but if it were cows or something like that I certainly would.
  • atlasunshrugged 4y ago
    A potential reframe of your initial comment on subconscious thought is that we know the morals and values of our relatives better and know or think that they would be willing to sacrifice themselves whereas we have no idea the values of random strangers.
• noasaservice 4y ago
  I chose the route of harm minimization, given this forces an answer. My kill count was 44. We really should have 3 answers: 'refuse to answer', 'pull lever', and 'dont pull lever'. Don't pull lever- is a choice that you make, and acknowledges the intent in doing that action. Refusing to answer- is not accepting the responsibility forced on you. As a comparison, it's when some terrorist on a movie says to someone "You can decide who is going to die". The better answer is to not choose. If they force that with multiple threatened to be murdered, then you choose yourself.
  • Tepix 4y ago
    > I chose the route of harm minimization As determined by the kill count? But what about time remaining alive? I.e. killing a 95-year old vs killing two children.
    • noasaservice 4y ago
      > But what about time remaining alive? That metric isn't calculated, nor is it in good scientific form to use a gross estimate as a fact. I've also always rejected the trolley problem to begin with. Rarely is anything similar to that ethical/logical problem.
• ReptileMan 4y ago
  Kill count of 81 ... too low.
• kortex 4y ago
  I found myself following a heuristic that is basically Asimov's laws: - whenever possible, do no harm - do not let harm occur due to inaction - when given a choice, preserve the most amount of healthy lifespan in aggregate - higher lifeforms are more valuable than lower ones (cat vs lobsters) - deferred consequence is better than immediate (since it opens the door to other later interventions) It kind of really brings to bear how much of a thematic device the 3 laws are. There's no way to make them congruent with actual, messy, real-world situations. Also why the whole "self-driving car trolly problem" is a non-issue - there will never be a situation where the "AI" has nice neat consequences and a binary choice laid out in front of it. It's always going to be some collection of "preserve life as best as possible" heuristics.
  • thejohnconway 4y ago
    > - whenever possible, do no harm > - do not let harm occur due to inaction Trolley problems, of course, are designed to bring these into direct conflict.
  • hyper_reality 4y ago
    > - higher lifeforms are more valuable than lower ones (cat vs lobsters) Choosing between preserving the life of one cat vs one lobster seems straightforward enough. But the trolley problem was asking whether one cat was more valuable than five lobsters. According to the stats, many people agreed, but how about one cat vs a million lobsters? Or one cat vs all the lobsters on earth? Most people would think that making lobsters extinct would be very bad (unless they really hate lobsters). The difficulty is when we can no longer rely on intuition and have to come up with a precise exchange rate of when one being's life is more valuable than another's, which, like you say, is impossible to do in the complicated world we live in and our limited understanding of consciousness and neuroscience. In absence of that, deferring to the first law "whenever possible, do no harm" seems sensible.
    • bluesnowmonkey 4y ago
      I chose to kill the cat, because there are too many of them and they devastate natural ecosystems, killing birds for instance. Lobsters on the other hand are badly depopulated. In both cases undoing a wrong committed by humanity.
• mrjin 4y ago
  The whole thing was nonsense. I never think any individual should be in the position of deciding who to live and who to die. The common fallacy would be something like let's pull the lever to save 5 by killing 1. So the question would then be how can anyone be sure it would be worthy to save the 5 by killing 1? To me, life is not a number, unless someone involved means something to me, I'll let it be.
• Jeff_Brown 4y ago
  The sample of people you're a part of becomes different as these problems go on.
• aaa_aaa 4y ago
  Of course I select all of them "do nothing" because trolley problems are idiotic BS.
• Heyso 4y ago
  Any third choices ? Maybe pulling the lever hallfway derail ? If it is fast, that means more deaths, otherwise, you may have some injuries but everyone survives ?
• starkd 4y ago
  Wow, that was a lot of really tough decisions. Now I'm wiped for the rest of the day. Gonna have to take a nap. Good job on the site.
• dalbasal 4y ago
  It's curious/ironic that instead or teaching us moral philosophy about ourselves, boundary testing trolley problems becomes a useful study for the purpose of social engineering. The problem with any kind of invisible hand is that once we talk about it, it becomes visible and loses its autonomy.
• pwpw 4y ago
  I thought it could have expanded more on animal sentience. Maybe someone can come up with better examples, but my examples would be: - A trolley is heading towards 20 puppies. Do you pull the lever to divert it towards one person? - A trolley is heading towards 20 pigs. Do you pull the lever to divert it towards one person? - A trolley is heading towards one person. Do you pull the lever to divert it towards your healthy pet dog that you consider as a family member? I think the responses would be insightful.
• Cloudef 4y ago
  I will not act as a god and divert the fate, thus I always choose not to pull the lever
  • Tepix 4y ago
    It blamed you for 91 deaths in the end regardless. If you see someone about to step onto the road and get killed, will you also not do anything?
    • Cloudef 4y ago
      In that case I would stop them, but trolley problem is more convoluted. If I do something I'll need to take responsibility, if I don't do anything the trolley company has to take the responsibility. Related: https://i.redd.it/9lbq0hx2zkk81.jpg https://i.redd.it/9lbq0hx2zkk81.jpg
  • anthonypasq 4y ago
    maybe God put you there to save someone?
    • Cloudef 4y ago
      Then they put in the wrong person :D
• HeavyStorm 4y ago
  Well, that was fun. My internal geek, however, is annoyed that it seems to miss the point of the trolley problem - that of you do nothing, you're not responsible. Answers seem to indicate that people don't get that.
• jeisc 4y ago
  always do nothing who really knows what will happen when you pull the switch
• hsnewman 4y ago
  I chose to do nothing as doing so keeps you from being activly involved in the death of a person.
• elif 4y ago
  The solution is easy. Through a simple exercise of wu wei, I have saved all the lives by not opening the link.
• shadowgovt 4y ago
  TIL of myself that robots can get stuffed.
• luispa 4y ago
  i'm a lobster guy.
• avgcorrection 4y ago
  The original/vanilla Trolley Problem is already absurd and not a legitimate problem at all. Not pulling some lever is just as much of a choice as doing it. The only salient difference is that less people are harmed, so the choice is obvious.
• smeej 4y ago
  The combo tradeoff between saving tens of thousands of lives of people who had, on average, 6-12 months of life expectancy, versus potentially shortening the lives of millions or billions of people by only months or weeks, and not seeing those effects for 70-80 years, seems to have been part of the covid shutdown tradeoff calculation. Granted, it has all the additional complication of the uncertainty of the real world, but there were a lot of claims of, "I can't believe you won't shut down for (weeks/months/years) to save grandma!" I wonder, in the end, if those decisions will end up having saved or cost more total days of human life. How many people's lives are you willing to shorten by even a week or a month due to increased stress to save the life of someone whose comorbidities will likely kill them in 6 months anyway?
  • qsdf38100 4y ago
    Why is saving grandma going to cost months of life expectancy to other people ?
    • smeej 4y ago
      Stress. The kind of social, personal, financial stress people experienced, especially the "essential workers" who had to continue working in person, or people who were already struggling to make ends meet who suddenly didn't get paid what they were expecting, went through significant life stress events. Or around the world, millions of additional people have been added to the ranks of the "food insecure," who now run increased risk of malnourishment and starvation. There's certainly an extremely privileged cohort, probably heavily represented on HN, for whom transitioning to WFH was no big deal or actually a benefit, but we're still feeling the effects of supply chain disruptions even in the wealthiest countries, and there are millions (billions?) of people whose lives are much more severely impacted.
  • qsdf38100 4y ago
    Being 70 yo makes you high risk wrt Covid, but it doesn’t mean you have a life expectancy of 6-12 months. You must confuse with terminally ill cancer patients. Where are your numbers coming from?
• Zondartul 4y ago
  This needs a variant with inversed level logic (i.e. where pulling the lever saves 1 but dooms 5). You know, to weed out the people who just like murder.
• idontknowmyacc 4y ago
  Kill count 93 reporting in.
• pkulak 4y ago
  Anyone who chose to destroy their life savings (like I did) is totally lying. I could also choose to save hundreds of lives and destroy my life savings by buying bed nets, but I don't pull that lever.
• owgevub 4y ago
  Don't pull the lever. Ever. The only winning move is to not play.
• whoomp12342 4y ago
  kill count: 94. Is that a high score?
• ccbccccbbcccbb 4y ago
  This falsely puts the burden of responsibility on the lever man, while it is those who tied the people to the tracks, launched the trolley and forced the lever man to incur all the blame are the real culprit. Making people believe the contrary is the fundamental principle of operation of all politics.
• JoeAltmaier 4y ago
  Does it have one from the AI point of view? https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/trolley-2 https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/trolley-2
• AtNightWeCode 4y ago
  I think it would be better if the choice was both ways. Like the track was going to an end and you had to make your mind up. I think this is biased towards doing nothing. 68 frags for me. We had horrible exercises like this back in school. But then it was often mentally disabled people versus healthy people.
• shlurpy 4y ago
  Maybe your time is wasted thinking about the lever, and would be better spent stopping the madmen who keep tying people to the tracks.
• jbigelow76 4y ago
  By the time it got to the trolley sacrificing more trolleys section (LOL) am I the one who was thinking "I don't care if this is the wrong call, fuck all these trolleys!" :)
• EGreg 4y ago
  For me, a very interesting part is the gamification mechanics: You progress through some polls, then show how many people chose as you did. It's a bit like Wordle. You can see whether others did like you did, and there's a certain signal of how "popular" or "normal" you are. But what can we do about sybil attacks? It seems that people need to have a limited number of votes, and random "hotornot" type selections.
• jonathankoren 4y ago
  There was a trolley meme (actually about student debt forgiveness) that had a long line of people dead, more live people, and the cut off to no one. The dilemma was, “You can pull the lever, and save everyone, but would that be fair to everyone that was already killed?” I really like that one.
• rhacker 4y ago
  Pull the lever and house someone homeless if you have a spare room. Don't pull the lever and let the homeless people die over the next few years.
• joshspankit 4y ago
  UI bug report: on my iPad, the pictures are on top of the text. This is true whether in landscape or portrait and in a few cases caused me to not understand the choice.
• andrewclunn 4y ago
  Did nothing. I am not responsible for any of this carnage. The rest of you are murderers.
• earthboundkid 4y ago
  People wouldn't laugh about these "silly" and "fun" moral problems if they had been forced to push their own mother into an oncoming train to save their son's life, like I was.
• lwswl 4y ago
  "Do Nothing" No, you have to click button to do nothing(two levers), this is an incorrect demo, it should have had a timer or something similar(so "doing nothing" would e synonymous with doing nothing). Since our trolley is at rest, I pose that the best choice is to do nothing(really nothing,not the lever marked "do nothing") so it never runs over anyone. I pressed "do nothing" twice before I realized this, so you can rightly call me a fool.
• jyscao 4y ago
  kill count: 98 (I'm biased heavily towards inaction)
• rogers18445 4y ago
  Preference falsification on a large scale can be observed in the statistics supplied by that site.
• pagade 4y ago
  Reminds me of Harvard University lecture that starts with this discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY&list=PL30C13C91CFFEFEA6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY&list=PL30C13C91C... I would highly recommend.
• recursivequine 4y ago
  Fun to play with spouse!