5 ms·

That's interesting. I didn't consider any legal liabilities at all, and would easily break the law in order to sacrifice one person in trade for five people. I

That's interesting. I didn't consider any legal liabilities at all, and would easily break the law in order to sacrifice one person in trade for five people. I also didn't consider doing "nothing", not pulling the lever was also an act, and I didn't "see" any options doing nothing. Fun to see how differently people approach these ones :)

praptak 4y ago
Actual law strongly discerns between action and inaction. For example the Polish penal code says you can only be criminally liable for a result of inaction only if you had a specific legal obligation to prevent it.
- capableweb 4y ago
  That's ok, it wouldn't change my mind anyway. If I can prevent more people from getting hurt, I'd be willing to break the law and take the punishment.
  - tut-urut-utut 4y ago
    Would you kill your child to save two politicians you hate the most, one annoying youtuber, a neighbour who goes on your nerves for ages and two complete strangers?
    - praptak 4y ago
      You didn't specify whether the child is annoying.
  - bobthechef 4y ago
  - lupire 4y ago
sneak 4y ago
On what basis do you assert that not pulling is also an act? It seems to me that you are asserting inaction == action which, to me, is false.
- capableweb 4y ago
  I can either pull the lever or I can not pull the lever. Choosing to not pulling the lever when I know I can save others, would be me making the choice to not saving others.
  - sneak 4y ago
    You could also leave the room, put on a movie, get accidentally distracted, et c. Do these all carry the same weight to you?
    - bregma 4y ago
      There is a reason why negligence is not considered a defence in law.
    - Dudeman112 4y ago
      >Do these all carry the same weight to you? Yes. Alas, we humans ( including myself ) are quite good at not feeling responsible if the issue isn't staring us in the face
- JoshCole 4y ago
  It can help to understand why some people think inaction is an action by abstracting the problem such that you can model it in a computer using standard decision problem algorithms. When you do that you have an initial state and you have two edges and they lead to terminal outcome nodes. The choice of which edge to take is an action. This isn't (usually) controversial. People generally call the do nothing action an action in these circumstances: game theory extensive form will call it that, as will Q learning, and often you'll see the same framing even in things like the expecti minimax algorithm though sometimes they'll prefer to call it a move. In my estimation, inaction only seems to not be an action, because people are afraid of the idea that they are causally connected with outcomes in which things are killed - they want to avoid tit for tat game theoretic follow on concerns that aren't part of the game definition but might be implied by it. I think for myself, I discount this concern, because I assume policies of mercy are preferred to policies of judgement - the world is so complex and hard and some err isn't just reasonable, but inevitable. Not allowing for mercy in response to harm from decisions seems more likely to trap in tit for tat. So intent ends up mattering to me much more than the outcome when I consider the follow-on games that are implied.
cortic 4y ago
> [I] would easily break the law in order to sacrifice one person in trade for five people. This is a quite disturbing statement. So many psychopathic examples; If you were a doctor would you randomly kill healthy people with compatible organs to multiple patients? Or a researcher inflicting gruesome deaths to thousands of innocent healthy people to save millions later... In fact we could simplify your statement further; The ends always justify the means., and so endorsing all terrorism and war, even genocide; whenever the ends is enough peace to make a net positive.
- capableweb 4y ago
  > This is a quite disturbing statement So it is to be human :) > If you were a doctor would you randomly kill healthy people No. > researcher inflicting gruesome deaths to thousands of innocent healthy people to save millions later If it was guaranteed to save millions later, I'd think about it, if we remove the "gruesome" and "healthy people" parts. But "inflicting gruesome deaths to thousands of innocent healthy people" for the mere possibility of saving millions later? No. It all depends on the context obvious, as life is never between two binary choices or black VS white. I don't think it's so disturbing to wanting to help a bigger part. I (and many others) already do this constantly by protesting and striking. Strikes generally impacts people who don't actually have anything to do with what you're striking against (example: when doctors strike, it hurts sick people), but in order for you and your colleagues to make a wage you can actually survive on, it does sometimes justify the means.
  - galangalalgol 4y ago
    What about the standard but missing question. If there is no lever but someone you can push into the tracks to divert the trolley, would you? If there is no one to push, would you jump in the tracks yourself?
  - Etherlord87 4y ago
    > If you were a doctor would you randomly kill healthy people with compatible organs to multiple patients? > > No. Why not? It's clearly a different approach than your original to turn the lever to kill a person in order to save 5 other people. So what changed? > researcher inflicting gruesome deaths to thousands of innocent healthy people to save millions later > > If it was guaranteed to save millions later, I'd think about it, if we remove the "gruesome" and "healthy people" parts. So you're willing to turn the lever to save 5 people because it's seemingly obvious those 5 people will therefore be saved (reasonable to me) and you see no problem killing 1 person, to reference your previous post, not only you would do that, you would easily break the law to do that! However, when it comes to killing thousands, in order to save millions, so the "net gain" is now not 4 but millions, and it's no longer the same order of magnitude, but it's a difference of 3 orders of magnitude, even if we remove the "gruesome" and "healthy people" parts, you will only "think about it"???? :D > It all depends on the context It seems to me you don't care about the context when it comes to killing one person, but once the stakes are higher and involve thousands, you hesitate. So I too find it disturbing, not just that you don't want to treat people individually and just consider the outcome of the trolley dilemma as +4 gain, rather than killing to save, but also the automatic disregard to individual rights creates a portrait of a person very dangerous to the society.

praptak 4y ago

Actual law strongly discerns between action and inaction. For example the Polish penal code says you can only be criminally liable for a result of inaction only if you had a specific legal obligation to prevent it.

capableweb 4y ago
That's ok, it wouldn't change my mind anyway. If I can prevent more people from getting hurt, I'd be willing to break the law and take the punishment.
- tut-urut-utut 4y ago
  Would you kill your child to save two politicians you hate the most, one annoying youtuber, a neighbour who goes on your nerves for ages and two complete strangers?
  - praptak 4y ago
    You didn't specify whether the child is annoying.
- bobthechef 4y ago
- lupire 4y ago

sneak 4y ago

On what basis do you assert that not pulling is also an act? It seems to me that you are asserting inaction == action which, to me, is false.

capableweb 4y ago
I can either pull the lever or I can not pull the lever. Choosing to not pulling the lever when I know I can save others, would be me making the choice to not saving others.
- sneak 4y ago
  You could also leave the room, put on a movie, get accidentally distracted, et c. Do these all carry the same weight to you?
  - bregma 4y ago
    There is a reason why negligence is not considered a defence in law.
  - Dudeman112 4y ago
    >Do these all carry the same weight to you? Yes. Alas, we humans ( including myself ) are quite good at not feeling responsible if the issue isn't staring us in the face
JoshCole 4y ago
It can help to understand why some people think inaction is an action by abstracting the problem such that you can model it in a computer using standard decision problem algorithms. When you do that you have an initial state and you have two edges and they lead to terminal outcome nodes. The choice of which edge to take is an action. This isn't (usually) controversial. People generally call the do nothing action an action in these circumstances: game theory extensive form will call it that, as will Q learning, and often you'll see the same framing even in things like the expecti minimax algorithm though sometimes they'll prefer to call it a move. In my estimation, inaction only seems to not be an action, because people are afraid of the idea that they are causally connected with outcomes in which things are killed - they want to avoid tit for tat game theoretic follow on concerns that aren't part of the game definition but might be implied by it. I think for myself, I discount this concern, because I assume policies of mercy are preferred to policies of judgement - the world is so complex and hard and some err isn't just reasonable, but inevitable. Not allowing for mercy in response to harm from decisions seems more likely to trap in tit for tat. So intent ends up mattering to me much more than the outcome when I consider the follow-on games that are implied.

cortic 4y ago

> [I] would easily break the law in order to sacrifice one person in trade for five people. This is a quite disturbing statement. So many psychopathic examples; If you were a doctor would you randomly kill healthy people with compatible organs to multiple patients? Or a researcher inflicting gruesome deaths to thousands of innocent healthy people to save millions later... In fact we could simplify your statement further; The ends always justify the means., and so endorsing all terrorism and war, even genocide; whenever the ends is enough peace to make a net positive.

capableweb 4y ago
> This is a quite disturbing statement So it is to be human :) > If you were a doctor would you randomly kill healthy people No. > researcher inflicting gruesome deaths to thousands of innocent healthy people to save millions later If it was guaranteed to save millions later, I'd think about it, if we remove the "gruesome" and "healthy people" parts. But "inflicting gruesome deaths to thousands of innocent healthy people" for the mere possibility of saving millions later? No. It all depends on the context obvious, as life is never between two binary choices or black VS white. I don't think it's so disturbing to wanting to help a bigger part. I (and many others) already do this constantly by protesting and striking. Strikes generally impacts people who don't actually have anything to do with what you're striking against (example: when doctors strike, it hurts sick people), but in order for you and your colleagues to make a wage you can actually survive on, it does sometimes justify the means.
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  What about the standard but missing question. If there is no lever but someone you can push into the tracks to divert the trolley, would you? If there is no one to push, would you jump in the tracks yourself?
- Etherlord87 4y ago
  > If you were a doctor would you randomly kill healthy people with compatible organs to multiple patients? > > No. Why not? It's clearly a different approach than your original to turn the lever to kill a person in order to save 5 other people. So what changed? > researcher inflicting gruesome deaths to thousands of innocent healthy people to save millions later > > If it was guaranteed to save millions later, I'd think about it, if we remove the "gruesome" and "healthy people" parts. So you're willing to turn the lever to save 5 people because it's seemingly obvious those 5 people will therefore be saved (reasonable to me) and you see no problem killing 1 person, to reference your previous post, not only you would do that, you would easily break the law to do that! However, when it comes to killing thousands, in order to save millions, so the "net gain" is now not 4 but millions, and it's no longer the same order of magnitude, but it's a difference of 3 orders of magnitude, even if we remove the "gruesome" and "healthy people" parts, you will only "think about it"???? :D > It all depends on the context It seems to me you don't care about the context when it comes to killing one person, but once the stakes are higher and involve thousands, you hesitate. So I too find it disturbing, not just that you don't want to treat people individually and just consider the outcome of the trolley dilemma as +4 gain, rather than killing to save, but also the automatic disregard to individual rights creates a portrait of a person very dangerous to the society.