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jgerrish
rax0m
I did the problems under the assumption that "pulling the lever" was an act, while doing nothing was not acting. Implied legal (and moral) liabilities made a difference in my choices.
Al-Khwarizmi
Legally perhaps, but morally, I've never gotten why so many people think that the physical act of pulling or not pulling makes so much difference.
It's a binary decision with two outcomes, in my personal view it is irrelevant which of the outcomes is caused by physical action and which by inaction (at least, supposing that you have enough time to think about what to do - obviously, if you have to react in a split second, it's understandable to be biased towards inaction because you may need more time to make the right decision, but that's not the point of these problems in the way they are posed).
If you have enough time to think what to do, inaction is a conscious choice and if it does more harm than good, you are guilty of not choosing action.
Sebb767
You go from passively letting someone die to actively killing someone. Which is a major difference.
Now, you might think that it isn't given enough time, but it's easy to argue that you're currently letting kids die in Africa by your inaction (or Ukrainians or homeless people etc.). Being slightly at fault for someones death is basically a permanent state of affairs, whereas actively killing someone is something few people would be willing to do. It definitely makes a difference.
pizza234
> I've never gotten why so many people think that the physical act of pulling or not pulling makes so much difference.
By pulling the level, one is intentionally killing a person, to save five. In more general terms, a life is taken away for the greater good of society.
A foundation of societies (modern ones, and I guess, some more than others) is that taking a life away has highly specific restrictions, which are usually justified by the person doing harmful acts (representing a danger to other people). To put it in another way, any citizen has the guarantee that, unless they do something harmful, they're safe. It's a contract between the citizen and the society.
By pulling the lever to save one, the contract is broken. To be consistent with the societal principle, it should be the person on the alternate track to decide whether the lever should be pulled, not an observer.
(The above reasoning is based on a very generic vision of the law. If anybody has some details, they're very welcome :))
amalcon
You probably use a consequentialist meta-ethical framework. This is great -- I do too -- but in a deontological or virtue-based system it may or may not work out this way. We've already got an example of such a deontological system here: if one takes the (somewhat unusual but not unheard of) view that legality implies morality, then there's a moral difference because there's a legal difference.
The trolley problem is meant precisely to highlight these differences, and I think it's one of the best arguments for consequentialism. In my less charitable moments, I like to refer to the concept of privileging inaction as an informal fallacy. It's not really, though; it's just that folks have different philosophical starting points.
amohn9
There's a version of the problem that tries to highlight this:
A runaway trolley is heading down the tracks toward five workers who will all be killed if the trolley proceeds on its present course. Next to you is a stranger who happens to be very large. The only way to save the lives of the five workers is to push this stranger onto the tracks where his large body will stop the trolley. The stranger will die if you do this, but the five workers will be saved.
Does the act of physically pushing a person onto the tracks make it different than pulling a lever?
vincnetas
Inaction is overwhelming if you think about it. by inaction you are guilty of every sufering person around you. And you can expand that pool by saying that your inaction to find out more sufering people is also part of your guilt. of course provided you are already not doing your max right now to help tham. but hey, youre on HN, so i assume you still got free time to spare ;)
grog454
> I've never gotten why so many people think that the physical act of pulling or not pulling makes so much difference.
One reason could be because your presence at this railroad switch is exceptional or at least unusual in some way. Maybe its worth considering what would happen if you weren't there at all.
When working in a new codebase, it's generally better to assume that something odd is the way it is for a reason, rather than changing it to something that seems right (easier to understand) to you. This is because in the real world, there is so much you don't / can't yet know about a situation that you're thrown in to.
I guess this is kind of reflected in the switch example where its 5 people that tied themselves to the railroad vs. one who didn't, and something like 85% "choose" the 5. How do you know how they got there? That implies so much prior knowledge and background that isn't really considered in the oversimplified "choices" in the website. Maybe they were forced to tie themselves to the railroad at gunpoint, or maybe it's a weird death-by-train suicide cult.
throw123123123
Because the real world is more complex than a lever, and there are many unknowns in how either physical or human manifestations respond to actions, and doing nothing removes your intent from the mix.
A very clear example of this is medicine with the "do no harm" principle - that the actions of the physician should be chosen to minimize the scenarios of harming the patient under any circumstance - under chance, under lack of patient compliance, etc.
Furthermore, the actions in the real world have also different experiences and meanings. Its easy to think about pulling a lever to kill 1 instead of 5, but not easy to think of killing one to harvest their organs and save other 5, though they are, with a lot of abstraction, "equivalent moral actions".
HALtheWise
The trolley problem is usually phrased with a "bystander" making the decision, but is simplified to the point of ignoring most of what is important about being a bystander, in ways that makes people's moral intuitions look unnecessarily silly precisely because it's an artificially simplified scenario. In particular, typically bystanders in the real world are both numerous and uninformed. As a result, assuming that each bystander has a randomly biased estimate of the truth, if everyone followed the simple logic of pulling the lever iff they believe doing so will net save lives, the lever is likely to be pulled far more often than it should be, because the person with the most extreme belief will conclude that doing so is worth it. In the real world, it's typically the case that "action" is much more difficult to reverse than "inaction".
There are other thought experiments that elucidate this more clearly, like a soldier deciding whether now is the right time to fire the first shot to start a battle.
People's moral intuitions have heuristics that attempt to deal with this ("bystander effect") although they definitely can be poorly-calibrated in the real world, and are almost always badly calibrated in artificial thought experiments because that's not the environment they were designed for.
bell-cot
+1, and "Implied legal (and moral) liabilities" is just one of the issues if you're viewing the Trolley Problem as a real-world, real-consequences situation. (Vs. something from the land of make-believe, which is cool / interesting / empowering to sit around & talk about.)
For starters, real-world railroad (RR) switches are more complex than what you would understand from model RR sets, cartoons, old movies, and philosophy books. They are not binary, are often less than well-maintained, and may required upper-body strength that you don't have to successfully throw. The trolley may be going too fast for the track that you divert it onto, resulting in a derailment that kills everybody you were looking at - plus some more inside the trolley. Plus extra bystanders. Your well-intentioned passerby's understanding of which way the switch is actually pointing may be wrong. RR history has some famous (& deadly) accidents where an experienced RR employee misunderstood the situation, and threw a switch the wrong way.
Real-world, I certainly would not be touching the switch.
capableweb
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
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.
cortic
> [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.
sneak
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.
darkerside
Same. I also allowed for the possibility of action by others. For example, in 100 years, someone else may be able to stop the trolley.
sbf501
Who am I to decide the fate of other humans. In cases where I have to choose between people, I do nothing. I'm not god.
pfraze
That’s a huge assumption that inaction is equivalent to not making a decision
jorvi
> Implied legal (and moral) liabilities made a difference in my choices.
This is always my problem with the trolley problem. Are we supposed to take second order effects into account?
For example, if I destroy the trolley that is killing 5 people over 30 years with CO2, does another trolley get built to replace it?
Or ‘kill 5 people now or send the trolley into the future 100 years and kill 5 people then’. Is it 100% guaranteed the trolley kills them then? Or can I assume there is a tiny chance they figure out time travel and can make preparations?
Or the ‘stuck on an eternal loop’. Does this mean true eternity and are the people in the trolley immortal? Or just for 70 years?
Etherlord87
I think the trolley problem is not about simply getting the right answer. The problem is about figuring correct answers for various circumstances, defining those circumstances, discussing them and improving one's and others understanding of morality.
TheCoelacanth
> For example, if I destroy the trolley that is killing 5 people over 30 years with CO2, does another trolley get built to replace it?
Or do the passengers take their cars instead releasing far more CO2?
tromp
Ideally, the problem would require two possible actions, and not allow inaction. Two possible avenues for such a formulation are
1) The lever is in an intermediate state, that will cause the trolley to set into effect some global catastrophe, and therefore must be pulled in one of two directions. This may be a rather unconvincing scenario.
2) Have two trollies, each running down their own track, and the operator has a choice which of two levers---only one of which can be reached in time---to pull to detour a trolley to a harmless side track.
RHSeeger
I had to put the "legal repercussions" concept aside for this; because otherwise I'd never take an action that would involve someone being killed. No matter what the "if I did nothing" option was, you'd be in for a world of hurt in the courts if you took action that wound up killing someone; even if it was them or 1,000 other people dying. Someone would take you to court.
makoto12
I think this is a really good point. Definitely makes inaction feel like a choice, which is fundamental to the problem
Tao3300
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!
wizofaus
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.
simplify
> But what if you put the Do Nothing choice on a timer?
This is actually done in the game Dr. Trolly's Problem[0]. This technicality is interesting enough such that a streamer creates his own internal rule around it to handle issues of morality[1].
[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/773830/Dr_Trolleys_Proble...
llimos
This is exacerbated by the summary at the end, giving you your "kill count".
For cases where you did nothing, you did not kill anyone. The trolley did.
smeej
This gets at what is, to me, an extremely important distinction between "killing" and "allowing to die."
Death happens to everyone eventually. No way around that, at least not yet. The most I can do with a trolley switch is possibly affect the timing.
It seems to me that any time I pull the lever to direct the train toward a person (as opposed to toward other trains or lobsters or money), I'm causing the death of whoever is on the other track to happen sooner. I'm killing them.
But if I don't pull the lever, if I don't intervene, I'm allowing death, which was already coming, to come to whoever's on the original track.
As a principle, the distinction between killing and allowing to die really starts to make itself felt when we're talking about the difference between, say, turning off a respirator to allow someone to die, versus actively euthanizing someone by administering medication to stop their heart, even though in this case, both involve an action.
To me, those aren't the same act. There's no moral obligation to try to extend life as long as technologically possible. Death comes and that's OK. But there is an obligation not to cause death, and an obligation not to pursue it as its own end.
throwaway27727
I'd imagine that turning off someone's life support (respirator) is akin to killing them, but something like a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order would be allowing to die.
kitkat_new
> There's no moral obligation to try to extend life as long as technologically possible.
For me there is, if there is something to save (i.e. not brain dead).
ant6n
It kind of depends on whether you are some innocent bystander, or some employee of the trolley system who is actually trained and certified to pull that lever to divert that trolley and tasked with minimizing the loss of life.
Given that the way the problems are presented as if the decider is an innocent bystander, perhaps inaction is the most sensible choice.
onionisafruit
It just says "kill count: 54" (my result). It doesn't say who is responsible for the killing.
dwd
Ultimately the mechanic who was responsible for maintaining the brakes, but you as the controller of the switch have an illusion of free will that causes you to act accordingly to your predetermined nature and upbringing.
ASalazarMX
I think that's the beauty of the trolley problem: you decided who was going to die, because it was in your power to change the outcome.
Some people will accept the moral responsibility, while others will say their inaction absolves them of legal responsibility.
llimos
It's two different things.
Yes, it totally is a question about moral responsibility. But it's still not called "killing" by any reasonable definition of the word.
It'd be fine if it said "death count" or even "you oversaw x deaths". But not "you killed" or "you caused x deaths", because you didn't.
layer8
The problem is to pick a timeout long enough to allow the player to at least read through the description and understand the situation, but not so long that players gets impatient and pick the “action” because they don’t want to wait (and there are no real stakes on the website). A timeout could distort the results more than the current version.
jefftk
You could click a button when done reading, and then be presented with a 4s timer counting down to "don't pull the lever"
layer8
After the first level you’ll know how it works, and then I don’t see much of a difference to the current version, except that you lose those players who are annoyed by the four-second wait.
somedude895
Would be great if you had to actually pull a lever and hold it, being able to release it at any time. The cartoon figures' faces change depending on whether they're currently in danger or not. Then see how many people change their mind mid pull like with the best friend or the cat/lobster one.
stared
This action/inaction is done nicely in Trolley Problem Inc (https://store.steampowered.com/app/1582680/Trolley_Problem_I...).
As long as the trolley moves, you can switch back.
While I have mixed opinions on the game (literally mixed, i.e. both good and bad, not a euphemism for bad), it provides more uneasy emotion than any other trolley problem game I played.
The "bad" part is that it is a paid game, working only on Windows, while at the quality of a Flash game from the 2000s from Newgrounds. The good part is that it is at the creativity level of a Flash game from the 2000s from Newgrounds.
phkahler
"If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice." - Rush
paxys
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.
strken
If you included "the trolley actually exists in a realistic world and is part of a public transport network" then sure, I won't decommission it, but trolley problems are weird zero-context questions about trade-offs and I assume they fully describe the consequences of choosing each leg when answering.
It doesn't help that actual trolleys are called trams where I live, so I think of trolleys as philosophical constructs that don't have a real existence.
jeremyjh
They aren't zero-context; all the value that you attach to a human life is context. If you don't grant anything else, you are just choosing one cartoon line-drawing over another. Certainly you are free to look at it this way, but it isn't really a useful point of view in a discussion about the hypothetical consequences.
colechristensen
But they're not... real. What someone says they might do in a trolley problem situation vs what a person would actually do I would assume basically have nothing to do with each other.
Actively making a real life or death decision is quite a lot different than reasoning though a game.
maest
But it's problematic to assume these problems are in a 0-context vacuum because that would mean your actions don't actually have consequences. If the world ends immediately at the end of the experiment, then your choices in the experiment don't have any meaning, imo.
akvadrako
That is an extreme consequentialist view. Something I can relate to, but not how most people consider moral issues.
If you are in a burning, sinking ship and all going to die for sure, it's still immoral to rape someone.
egeozcan
Well, there's always the heat death of the universe, rendering everything meaningless.
HenriTEL
Even if it's in a realistic world no one said the trolley actually transported people and led to less CO2 emissions than other transports.
Edit: On the other side, if you really decide to not take more context, you just destroyed the only existing trolley of the universe.
rootusrootus
> It doesn't help that actual trolleys are called trams where I live
Does anyone really still call them that? A trolley is not a tram, it's a trolley, and harkens back from last century. In the US, some people call them trams, most of us call them trains. Portland does have a special version they like to call a streetcar, though. Functionally a light rail train, but runs in normal lanes of traffic.
toyg
> It doesn't help that actual trolleys are called trams where I live
Yeah, when I clicked on the link I was hoping that finally someone had solved the problem of never having a pound coin to unlock trolleys at the supermarket.
fendy3002
And some people just want to watch the trolley crash.
arczyx
> For some reason more people picked the latter. So, they just dislike public transit?
I mean, it seems like it's the same trolley that have run over a lot of people for the previous 19 levels, why wouldn't I want to decommission such bloodthirsty trolley?
baron816
Isn’t the trolly also reducing carbon emissions by killing so many people? With enough of these questions, it will be able to reduce the world’s population to zero, at which point there should be no carbon emissions from humans.
SahAssar
Decomposition emits carbon, right? Let's fire everyone into interplanetary space to be sure we solved the problem.
IIAOPSW
You know, that's a very good question...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...
loufe
I'm kind of shocked that 2020 vs 2019 is a 7.1% INCREASE. Most people spent a lot of the year indoors traveling much less than usual. Curious.
praptak
This also leads to a trolley problem!
Keep existing public transit system that contributes to X deaths per year from pollution an accidents, or...
...pull the lever and...
Replace it with a public transit system of bloodthirsty trolleys. There is zero pollution! Only 1% of X deaths per year from accidents! Just one catch: all the accidents involve the trolley morphing into a scary mechanical beast and biting a random person's head off.
mcv
People also cause pollution, so it might be less polluting in the long run to keep the trolley.
But more seriously, I just realised that this is actually an argument that's often used against various environmental measures. People argue against wind turbines because they kill birds, ignoring the fact that pollution from fossil fuel kills far more, and birds are killed in larger numbers by other causes (cars, windows, cats). But somehow inaction seems more moral to some people if that action still leads to some deaths. Same with a multitude of other social issues.
Heyso
LMAO. That's a very simple and senseful answer I missed to think of.
harha
Curious if that would end the game (though not enough to try again)
TaylorAlexander
It doesn’t. I wasn’t trying to make serious philosophical choices I was just having fun and picking whatever amused me.
ISL
My logic on that particular question was that someone would probably get a new trolley to replace it (trolleys are insured, right?), no matter what I thought, so I let the trolley go.
mrcartmeneses
I also reasoned that the trolly would be replaced. But with a newer, less polluting model.
However I did not take into account the CO2 emissions and possible industrial accidents at the trolly factory or trolly materials mines.
thriftwy
Almost universally, the most eco friendly trolley (clothes, home) is the one you already have.
addandsubtract
> However I did not take into account the CO2 emissions and possible industrial accidents at the trolly factory or trolly materials mines.
I would argue that it shouldn't factor into the equation. The polluting trolley will be replaced sooner or later, anyway. You're just moving the date forward.
The catch is that the argument could be made every year, with a new, more efficient trolley replacing the previous. In which case the construction costs obviously need to be considered, and it wouldn't be worth to spend 100 CO2 to save 10.
mensetmanusman
I took into account the cash for clunkers program which was a huge disaster.
darkerside
Mine was also, what right do I have to destroy someone else's property? I'm surprised people seemed not to consider that or care.
NavinF
That has the same impact as an uninsured trolley. Also see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
JetAlone
Whether it's public or private property, the trolley is really not mine alone to destroy. We need to decide, together what to do with it. Maybe we could stop it, and put it in a museum. Maybe we could change its source of power and make it a green trolley.
My feeling was, if I let the trolley go, it can be destroyed later. It will be harder to undo the decision to destroy it. Who knows, maybe the transportation capabilities it offers can save lives by rushing people to hospital. I just don't believe that pulling the switch and destroying a vehicle is really the only possible opportunity to stop emissions that will get released over 30 whole years. So I didn't pull it.
beeboop
Basically same for me. I wouldn't actively go out and destroy someone's car to reduce emissions. I'm not going to take an action to destroy something for the sake of making up for the shortcomings of our collective global leadership
jedberg
I always assume trolley problems are in a vacuum without context. Otherwise for every one of them you have to ask, "what is the background of each person on each track" to make a proper choice.
I assume the information they have told me is the only thing relevant and everything else is equal.
ptsneves
In philosophy Kant would disagree with you with his Categorical Imperative[1]. Rawls also went that way, with the veil of ignorance[2]. The lack of state or context is not only desirable but is the whole foundation on why their theories are rational.
Of course many philosophers disagree and arguably terrible things were done with such mindset[3]. The point I am trying to make is that if you need context then you cannot have a universal rational decision, thus you will be imposing your own morals possibly over others. You might be fine with it, but now you relativized morals.
PS: I highly recommend the Great Lectures on Audible on philosophy. Specifically "Why Evil Exists" and "The Modern Political Tradition: Hobbes to Habermas".
The first one is more on the religious part, but provides great background on moral and ethical thought starting with the Gilgamesh all the way to XX century psychology.
The second is a great over view of western thought, with philosophical counter arguments on thinkers I never heard of, but which i find essential to help form one's thought on how Western society must progress. That book changed my life due to the sheer exposure of captivating ideas even sometimes conflicting. I loved Rawls but consider myself a freedom guy. Now my thought is clearer: How can we find a way to measure that further distribution would harm the most disadvantaged? This is still open but a more practical question, that i can use on evaluating certain concrete policies. Example:
In Portugal the minimum wage has been increased to the point it matches the average salary. A person who did not train to specialize and works in a coffee shop earns similarly to an engineer that spent his first 24 years studying. This is harmful because without differences in rewards, higher difficulty but needed professions will not have enough practitioners. Therefore society as a whole will suffer because it lacks trained specialists to improve the untrained coffee worker's life. "Bam, simple as that". It soothes me in the face of the torrent of events and ideologies pushed upon me all the time.
[1] "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative [2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/original-position/ [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eichmann_in_Jerusalem#Eichmann
xrisk
I think it’s certainly a myth that an engineer’s profession is “inherently harder” than a coffee brewers.
In my opinion, people who would like to study engineering would do so not so because of what they are paid (the situation today), but because of their genuine interest.
On further reflection, it seems ludicrous to believe that that hardest professions are the most paid. The average CS job pays obscenely well, but is relatively trivial. Primary healthcare providers, essential services workers and so on are severely underpaid.
frenet
I don't see how minimum wage is the problem. Engineers aren't better compensated in other markets because of low minimum wages but because they are expected to deliver more value. The Internet tells me that the minimum wages in Portugal is 823€ a month. That isn't a lot compared to many other markets. Sounds more like a productivity problem. Or that someone else is capturing much of the value.
High minimum and median salaries are usually good for engineers as it requires more productive companies which requires more engineers. When workers are cheap few wants to pay for expensive systems.
lazide
How can the minimum be increased to match the average without making it mathematically impossible for there to be no salaries above the average?
darkerside
Isn't the most likely outcome that engineering salaries will go up even higher causing massive inflation?
mcv
Yeah, that one made it clear how much context matters. These problems pretend there's no context, but we always look at them with some subconscious context in mind.
In this case, I did pull the lever, because it could be replaced by an electric trolley. But if killing the trolley means more cars and more car accidents and CO2, then of course we should keep the trolley. But if we ignore context and just look at kill 5 people or kill the inanimate object responsible for killing those 5 people, the answer is obvious. (But did I really ignore the context there?)
Others also have important subconscious context. Sacrifice 5 elderly people to save one baby. How elderly are they? Are they so elderly they're just waiting for death, or do they each still have more than 20 years of relatively healthy life left? And thanks to modern health care, that baby now has a very good chance to survive until adulthood, but 100-200 years ago, that chance was only 50%. Maybe not worth sacrificing 5 people for. I think that one was the hardest.
(My friends may be somewhat worried to learn that I had surprisingly little trouble sacrificing my best friend for 5 strangers. But really, I'd prefer to kill whoever keeps tying these people to the track.)
Aeolun
Eh, it doesn’t matter how old the people are, really. They have all already gotten to experience the joy of life. The baby hasn’t, so they have the most to lose.
__s
It does matter. Five young people have been fully invested in & will now produce value for the next few decades. Whereas a baby has still not been fully invested in, years of education etc, so they're cheaper to replace
SheetPost
the baby (young enough) doesn't understand the situation
also, you can easily flip it: elderly cannot be saved from the torture of existence, having lived so long, but the baby has barely suffered anything yet - we can save it!
Kiro
Easiest one IMO. Spare an evil baby who would gladly sacrifice every single person on this planet for some ridiculous thing they feel entitled to or spare five diligent elders?
darkerside
If I were your friend, I'd be concerned, too.
codefreeordie
Right, you can run it in to a brick wall, ending the CO2 emissions and its usefulness as part of a transit network, and also, of course, depriving its owner of a valuable asset (the trolley)
Nition
The results on all the questions implied to me that most people answered more as if it was a quiz than a philosophical question. That is, they'd tried to select the most logical/utilitarian answer based on the wording of the question rather than necessarily thinking about what they personally would do in that situation, or any wider context that may exist.
darkerside
I think there was a mix, but people taking the quiz interpretation definitely modified the results from what I expected.
belter
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/ten-years-ago/
https://neal.fun/lets-settle-this/
https://neal.fun/ambient-chaos/
https://neal.fun/who-was-alive/
Silica6149
Anyone know what tools he uses for the animations, like the size of space one?
gaws
HTML and CSS
JonathanFly
>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.
robocat
* Hook up the trolley to a massive generator set and get free energy. Use the free energy to solve global warming and the energy crisis.
* Study the science behind the infinitely reliable trolley. If the science is tractorable then humanity wins.
* How are the people prevented from leaving the trolley? New science?
* Is the trolley just a thought experiment? Then we can think about other solutions.
* Is the trolley somewhere inaccessible? How did the people get there? Science.
undefined
stackbutterflow
If they're stuck in a loop for eternity, implying they'll never die, does it mean the trolley is going at light speed?
joshschreuder
I interpreted it as the passengers would go round in circles for eternity, but not necessarily living passengers. I assumed they would die of hunger and dehydration which seemed less humane than instantaneous death by explosion.
gridspy
Exactly. What would superman do?
tmlb
Would your answer change if you were stuck on the trolley quite literally for eternity, rather than just the remainder of your biological life?
makeitdouble
On a serious note, it feels worse in every case that the end of your life is in the hand of an external actor.
Best case scenario you can do what you want and deal with whatever urge you have at your pace. Worst case scenario you don't have agency, and just stay stuck suffering instead of dying. Personally I'd take the chance.
s0teri0s
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.
brewdad
Would it change if you were stuck on the trolley with the type of people that seem to occupy my city's transit now that fare enforcement no longer happens and no one is asked to leave the trolley at the end of the line?
red75prime
> stuck on the trolley quite literally for eternity
What "literally" means in this case? Am I completely certain that I'll be stuck on the trolley for eternity? I would think that I'm having a psychotic break and delay my decision.
utucuro
Literally, as in, if a passenger finds a way of getting out of the trolley somehow, they will be put back in so the thought experiment can continue working as intended. Absurd amendment to an absurd trolley problem.
ars
That depends - am I bored for eternity, or is there interesting stuff for me to do?
bobsmooth
You're stuck on a trolley.
JonathanFly
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
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.
thriftwy
If I live for an eternity I figure out how to make my own big bangs eventually, all while still being on the trolley.
soco
Does the trolley have toilets?
addandsubtract
No, but it also doesn't have food or drinks. So where you're going, you won't need toilets.
coalpha
I guess I may have misinterpreted this as a choice between forcing the passengers to go around in circles for literally eternity versus dying immediately. Figured that it'd get awful boring after the trillionth or so revolution, especially if there were no other options. At some point, I imagine the passengers would be begging for the sweet release of death and I didn't want to condemn anyone to that fate.
s0teri0s
Well, they have a trolley and a track, so there is always the option of throwing themselves in front of the oncoming trolley.
tmlb
This is why I thought it was one of the more interesting problems in the list. There’s a lot of potential suffering that can fit inside an eternity.
ryan-allen
I pulled the lever. It said "eternity" and I couldn't possibly condemn the passengers to eternal life. Maybe it's because I read The Eyes of Heisenberg by Frank Herbert [0]
biofox
But... I want eternal life :(
jedberg
I pulled the lever. I didn't want to condemn the passengers to an eternity of monotony.
dheerajvs
> if you don't the trolley and it's passengers will go in circles for eternity
I interpret that as the passengers would live their natural life-span and then their rotting bodies would go in circles for eternity.
Replace the trolley with planet Earth and it's no different from regular life. (approximating eternity with life of the Sun).
theycallmemorty
This one is a metaphor for life on earth, endlessly going in circles with no way to get off or go somewhere else.
Amazing that 50% of people are nihilistic enough to just blow it up.
behringer
They made a show about this called snow piercer.
SV_BubbleTime
You talking about the sequel to Willie Wonka? Good movie. I saw they made a show but haven’t seen it yet.
dieze
The network executives should have pulled the lever after the first season
_nalply
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.
mcv
I noticed I kept switching between several principles. Possibly triggered by the details of the problem. Some of the principles:
1. If you're able to act, you are already responsible for the outcome. Inaction is a choice too. There's no intrinsic moral difference between pulling the lever or not.
2. Acting from a position of ignorance is irresponsible. Better not to act than to take the risk of making the situation worse. (This contradicts #1.)
3. The person who tied these people to the track is the one who really carries the responsibility to this tragedy, not me.
All three of these are valid, and yet contradictory to some extent.
Apparently I solved philosophy at the cost of 59 lives. Not sure it was worth that sacrifice.
eurasiantiger
Imagine being at a railyard at the time of a crash and being seen throwing a switch in front of a moving train.
There’s no real-world case where that person is not considered responsible.
Not to mention that trains really cannot go over switches at speed. A runaway trolley would probably derail at the switch if it was set on the side track.
Ensorceled
> Not to mention that trains really cannot go over switches at speed.
As someone who used to work on the railway (Maintenance of Way Workers Unite!!); in real life ... I'd throw the switch hoping to derail the train!
Aeolun
I think it’s reasonable to assume the trolley goes fast enough to do the deed, but not fast enough it couldn’t round the bend.
rootusrootus
> Inaction is a choice too
Only in the narrow situation where you know all possible outcomes and have a sufficient time to consider them. In the real world, given a limited amount of time and ignorance of many details, inaction is not even remotely the same as action.
karategeek6
Not sure why you state #2 contradicts #1. If you are in a position of ignorance, choosing inaction (unless and until said ignorance can be rectified, anyway) is the correct action.
littlestymaar
> 4. If my life is at stake, I pull the lever to save myself.
I find this answer really interesting, because in the entire corpus, this was the most morally unambiguous question of all, and the answer is diametrically opposed to yours.
Would have I the courage to do so in real life, I don't know, and it's probable that I would not. But from a moral perspective it's damn clear: the only people I am unambiguously allowed to kill to save someone else is myself. Killing someone to save someone else is a moral dilemma as it makes me take someone's life, but killing myself isn't.
darkerside
Interestingly, I had almost the opposite reaction. In the absence of information, I don't know how these people got here or why. Maybe they're being executed as criminals, maybe they are suicide attempts, maybe they are truly heinous people in the hands of a Just God.
But, I do know, if it's me on the track, I don't want to die. It's almost the only truly inarguable choice. With everything else, you think you know best for other people. With that one, you just know you don't want to die.
littlestymaar
I think you're mixing up two things: willingness to die, and the morality of the sacrifice.
Most of us will be scared shitless if we were in that situation, and I'm pretty sure the majority (me included) will act as a coward. But nobody would blame them, because we all know we would likely have done the same.
But on the other hand, we praise the heroes who sacrifice themselves because we recognize that they did the right thing, no matter how much it costed them.
undefined
YPPH
I also find it interesting. I wonder how extreme the parent comment would go? Would they sacrifice themselves to save, say, a million people?
A solipsistic view might say that those people are part of our own consciousness. If we let them die, we continue to exist. If we sacrifice ourselves, all of us cease to exist since they are just manifestations of our consciousness. As Christopher Hitchens once said, beware of solipsism...
addandsubtract
> I wonder how extreme the parent comment would go? Would they sacrifice themselves to save, say, a million people?
On the other hand, how many people would you need to save to sacrifice yourself? 5? 2? 1? Does that one person need to be younger than you? Not disabled? Not a criminal?
blabberwocky
This doesn’t seem morally unambiguous at all, and in fact society reached the opposite conclusion for many centuries in outlawing suicide but allowing some killing of others (e.g., the executioner tasked with killing the person convicted of attempting suicide).
An equally compelling principle might be that the only person I know to be worth saving is myself.
galfarragem
The ultimate trolley problem is one where you pull the lever to save a larger amount of people that have chosen a unsafe area while punishing a smaller amount of people that have chosen a safe area (unless someone pulls the lever)... Ultimately this is politics.
Morality is not math, but, as always, things might be more foggy: lack of free choice and a really skewed ratio (e.g. punish one to save 100 million) may test the limits of morality.
_nalply
Please be explicit. Do you mean something like insurance: a small amount of people has insurance but someone decided to insure even the people who haven't paid insurance?
In that case it's clear that I won't pull the lever. It's not a question of life and death, and because I am not sure whether pulling the lever helps preventing lots of damage, I won't do anything, especially because perhaps it's just a vague and abstract story you made up.
galfarragem
An extreme example:
Government builds a dam. It clearly recommends people to not build in front of the dam, it may crack and a flood would be a tragedy. 100K people ignore it and slowly houses appear: it's cheaper, better land, views, etc. 1K people choose to comply with Government and build in a safe but ugly and infertile area. One day, suddenly, a huge crack appears. At the last minute engineers discovered "a lever" to flood the safe area instead and save 99K lives. They don't have time to evacuate anybody. Should they pull the lever?
By limits of morality I mean:
- Free choice: if the people living in the unsafe area didn't understand the danger or didn't have another choice but to live there?
- Skewed ratio: if only 10 people lived in the safe area and 1 million had chosen to live in the unsafe area?
SilverBirch
Yeah one of the issues with the trolley problem is how literally you take the problem. If you take it perfectly literally and say "5 vs 1" (for the pure example) no other context I think you can very easily come to a conclusion that is the opposite of what you'd do in real life, where either due to lack of certainty, lack of perfect knowledge or some iterative game theory interpretation, you would act differently.
_nalply
The problem is the responsibility. If you aren't willing to take over responsibility, it's better not to do anything. If you already have responsibility then it's a different matter.
addandsubtract
The problem I have with the premise, is that as soon as you're standing next to the level, you're responsible. You had the opportunity to pull the lever, but didn't, which makes you responsible.
Similarly, if you're diving a car and someone walks across the road in front of you, are you not responsible for their death if you choose not to step on the brakes? Does inaction relieve you of any responsibility?
lumenwrites
> 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.
drom55
> and finally that I "have solved philosophy"
I guess it displays that to everyone, I chose to kill someone to get my amazon package sooner, I don't think that's solving philosophy
UweSchmidt
re #4: There are many instances of people sacrificing themselves to save others, Chernobyl workers, figher pilots not ejecting but steering the plane away flightshow visitors etc.
I expect these people to act this way routinely, give hazard pay to their entire profession to compensate for the risk, but likewise consider it my obligation to act likewise when the situation is clear (like in the Trolley Problem).
renewiltord
Copenhagen interpretation. If you haven't interacted with system you can't be blamed.
cranekam
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.
mcv
> Isn’t choosing not to interact when you were able to still a form of interaction?
It is. If you can't act, then it's not your responsibility, but if you can and choose not to, then it is.
In many countries, this is codified in the law: if you see someone drown or otherwise in lethal trouble, you're expected to do what you can to save them. You can't choose not to interact in order to avoid responsibility; if you're aware of the situation and in a position to act, you carry some responsibility.
_nalply
Think responsibility. Even if you watched the thing roll you don't have a lot of responsibility. Only a little. Because as you said that I am involved.
Let's say there will be an investigation because of criminal liability by inaction (civil law jurisdiction). First you aren't in guarantor status (one example is the surgeon during a surgery), and second if you explain that you tought it through and showed that the what-if case is dangerous, you won't be punished for inaction.
So, no, it does not really matter that you are involved by being there.
And now I am sure that many people could develop post traumatic stress disorder because they feel they have failed to save people. I am sure that these people can be helped if they are shown the possible outcomes of action and inaction, especially that action is often more problematic than inaction.
littlestymaar
Since you've observed the system, you've already interacted with it. Sorry, nice try.
(if you don't click on the link though, you're fine)
kortex
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.
el_nahual
There's a (famous?) quote from a google engineer Andrew Chatham who worked on self driving cars. When asked about the trolley problem, he said "It takes some of the intellectual intrigue out of the problem, but the answer is almost always ‘slam on the brakes’” [0]
[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/22/self-driv...
synu
You could adjust the question to be “the brakes have failed and..” to avoid that out.
dorgo
I know, you try to save the trolley scenario. But if brakes fail then it doesn't matter what the AI (or driver) decides. To blame is the one who is responsible for the brakes not to fail.
salford
True, I imagine the next course of action would be something like "do nothing" — continue straight, try to be predictable, hope that other people in the situation can react accordingly.
hyper_reality
> - 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
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.
m0llusk
This is prominent in the elderly or children tests. Older people have gifts of experience that can be invaluable to the rest of us, especially when broadly shared. Children have great potential but through most of human history have been relatively cheap, easy to replace, and more of a value sink than generator.
beeboop
I wish the featured page did more of this
thejohnconway
> - 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.
agentultra
Enough context is lacking. That's kind of what makes it all absurd. Take the cat vs. lobsters. Did you know felis catus is responsible for the extinction of some 37 species of birds world wide mostly due to colonization. They're not indigenous predators to the North Americas and enjoy the protections and long life afforded by their proximity to humans while killing for entertainment.
Lobsters on the other hand? Useful in their natural environments, have not become an invasive apex predator, could go on and feed many people too if properly managed and allowed to live their lives.
Yet the majority of people saved the cat thinking it's a "higher life form."
A bit absurd. Also the idea of trolleys without brakes and levers and cats that can't move off the track in the face of on-coming danger.
323
If we are to judge ethically, one particular cat should not be punished for the sins of the cat species. As far as we know this particular cat didn't do nothing.
Then we need to talk about criminal liability. In the sense that a cat can't stop itself from killing birds. We don't punish toddlers if they kill a bird, because they don't understand that they shouldn't.
Also, the whole idea of "native species" is highly subjective. What is "native species" today maybe it was an "invasive species" yesterday.
agentultra
You're probably doing the local fauna a favour by eliminating the cat. The cat will kill other animals purely for amusement (by killing it and not eating it). It enjoys a longer lifespan than most local predators due to their proximity to humans that care about their well-fare, enabling them to kill more and for longer than any local predator. Stray cats are estimated to be the largest contributor to declining bird and mammal populations [0].
Also, in the city I live in, outdoor cats are illegal regardless of registration (which is also required).
The lobsters on the other hand, if you live near a coastal city to their native habitat, could be reintroduced and improve the local ecosystem.
com2kid
If the lobsters are tied to a trolley track, they aren't long for this world anyway. Trolley tracks aren't exactly a lobster's native habitat.
Untie the cat and it'll, likely, be a-ok.
agentultra
Take out the cat though and you have dinner for 5 families!
SturgeonsLaw
> deferred consequence is better than immediate (since it opens the door to other later interventions)
Yep, I sent that trolley into the future just in case some time in the future they invent a cure for getting run over by trolleys
lern_too_spel
Soock was wrong — this is not how rational people behave. Rational people preserve their own life. If they die, the consequences of their choices can no longer matter to them. A cat isn't going to affect my longevity, but a cat is more likely to be a pet than five lobsters, and the emotional distress of the owner will have some greater expected impact on my longevity than the lesser distress of the lobster fisher who lost $60 from their catch.
ConstantVigil
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...)
uudecoded
I got an 82, so assume we are thinking similarly.
I am personally interrogating my response to this:
"Oh no! A trolley is heading towards 5 people who tied themselves to the track. You can pull the lever to divert it to the other track, killing 1 person who accidentally tripped onto the track instead. What do you do?"
I save the 5 over the 1. Only 15% agree with me. Why?
This is the first Absurd Trolley Problem (I think) that explained WHY a person was tied to the track.
I think the value of this hypothetical is in establishing the value of cultural relativism versus Kantian ethics.
In that framing, I'm really surprised that, on Level 27, 70% would rather send a trolley into the future to kill 5 people 100 years from now, instead of 5 people now. In almost 11K votes, this seems significant.
My view is that this provides evidence for the Bentham "hedonic calculus". (And I'm sure there are better scholars of Kant and Bentham than I that can argue for or against this.)
Here's a "political" example: Do you want to deal with problems now, or defer? 70% will defer. (I think this checks out, and is truly hedonic.)
So, I think the data, and the utilitarian approach shows: don't expect any of our societal problems (politically agnostic) to be solved any time soon.
TrapLord_Rhodo
>A trolley is heading towards 5 people who tied themselves to the track.
My reading of this was that they were suicidal. If people want to kill themselves, that's not for me to decide if that's right, or wrong. But if i can save one person from misfortune, atleast i was ablee to do that.
>70% would rather send a trolley into the future to kill 5 people 100 years from now, instead of 5 people now.
Would you rather have $5 now, or $5 in the future? Humans are compounding, i'd rather pay you in the future when there is more abundance.
epgui
> Humans are compounding
I had the same thought, but this isn't necessarily true.
With money, it's true by design. Interest rates, inflation and money expansion are core components of the economy.
However, with humans it all depends on the fertility rate, and it's currently dropping. So in this scenario, there's a lot we don't know about the future.
I sent the trolley into the future because, all else being equal, at least it gives us 100 years to plan for the event.
ConstantVigil
> In that framing, I'm really surprised that, on Level 27, 70% would rather send a trolley into the future to kill 5 people 100 years from now, instead of 5 people now. In almost 11K votes, this seems significant.
RIGHT?!?
I mean, who know's the potential reprecussions that portal might hold for us if we send that trolley through. Sure, 5 people might be saved today; but millions could be saved instead in 100 years when that portal isn't reopening to whoop our ass for killing 5.
epgui
I voted to send the trolley into the future, because everything else being equal (5 lives and 5 lives), it gives us 100 years to try and plan for the event.
fuyu
100 years is a long time for humanity to look into ways to counteract time travelling trolleys! Sure it _says_ the future trolley will kill 5 people, but if I were in that situation I'm fairly sure I wouldn't be so certain. In your "political" example: Do you want a guaranteed bad outcome now, or what we expect to be the same bad outcome later?
YurgenJurgensen
Maybe we have medical resurrection in 100 years, so killing people might not be so bad. Plus future humans get a perfectly preserved example of a 100 year old trolley out of the deal, which is presumably a valuable antique.
easrng
>I save the 5 over the 1. Only 15% agree with me. Why?
I saved the one because the 5 presumably want to die anyway.
brewdad
Not a high total at all. I scored 97.
If there is a hell, I guess I'll be going there.
going_ham
Wow! Like GP I got only 83. I must have messed up few things here and there!
My rationale was to result to default situations because that's how most of things work. Most of the general events are resulting to average behavior. This makes more sense when you realize world moves without your presence.
So by defaulting, I am ignoring my presence and seeing the result on what happens without me. It was fun decision to make.
In one case, I genuinely saved 5 sentient robots over a human.
mrcartmeneses
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.
sejje
I killed 83 and I mostly sided with the majority.
I sometimes also assigned blame to those tied up, or at least agency; they could have prevented this situation, somehow, probably.
darkerside
One at a time? You have a high level of confidence here that I'm not sure is warranted.
zamadatix
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.
zamadatix
Can't reply to the sibling directly so in reply to it:
The simplicity in the scenarios and the ambiguity of the scenario in this type of question is desired not a fault. The goal is to set up a stage for exploration of that nuance and "shades of gray" space just as you started exploring it in your comment. The goal is not to set up the question in some way that makes it so one of the answers or reasonings is right or appropriate. As such the stats only talk to which lever was pulled, if the question could have all of the reasonings laid out beforehand in a single page then it wouldn't have been a very good trolley type question.
As for talking about the reasoning freeform that's why it was posted here! For your particular example I chose the old people because of QALY. 5*<last 10 years of life> is fewer QALY than 50 years of life starting at a young age. There are probably a half dozen other reasonings I could think of and many more I can't and that's exactly what the goal of the question is, not about actually finding a most correct answer via rigid framing.
everfree
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.
pluijzer
My guess is that it is a question about responsibility. In the trolley problem it is my responsibility to pull the lever or not. If I don't lose my money people will die. In real life it is the responsibility of everybody. Maybe still very egocentric not to donate but at least your conscience can let you sleep at night.
An interesting take on it is that if, for example you have 90.000 in savings you could choose not to pull the lever and use your savings to save 20 people in Guinea, but also this would not be a popular choice I guess.
nostrademons
There's also a matter of proximity. In many of the other problems, people chose to sacrifice more people that they didn't know well over sacrificing someone (best friend, cousin, yourself) that you do know well. The charity problem isn't quite the same as the trolley problem, because it's saving someone outside of your tribe in a faraway land, vs. saving someone who is presumably local to you and about to die in front of your eyes. Also note that people frequently do give up their life savings (in medical bills, or GoFundMe) to save people close to them.
a_wild_dandan
The charity problem is also unimaginably complex. What if I donate my entire (literal) life savings...then lose my job, go homeless, and consequently die? I've thus saved a handful of lives, lost one (myself), and doomed maybe dozens or hundreds of other lives I could've later saved! Uh, whoops. :|
Every moment, every (in)decision you make comes at the opportunity cost of many other choices, and their exponentially multiplying secondary/tertiary/etc consequences.
These thought experiments feels like (#0) solving an optimization math problem where you're:
1. Stumbling through an unimaginably large solution space and
2. Latching onto local minima (heuristics like "choose the fewest trolley deaths"), which are probably bad answers, only to realize
3. We don't even precisely know the objective function we're optimizing. So the problem has gone "up" one level. We first need to solve that optimization problem. GOTO #0.
The whole thing feels farcically hopeless and is maybe even a recursive or self referential minefield. Yikes. So the idea of avoiding it entirely by just winging it through life using your gut, or checking out entirely, doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Hell, it might be the only way to keep your sanity. It's an unsatisfying heuristic, but...oh look, we're back at step #2... :))))))
paxys
You are discounting the simple possibility that 70% of respondents do not have any significant "life savings" to speak of.
Gibbon1
Not to mention a lot of people measure account their wealth in more than just money.
Reminds me of Richard Posner, former Chief Justice of the Seventh Appelate court. His essay on how poor people have no wealth so you need the threat of prison to keep them in line. And how middle class people you only need the threat of impoverishment to keep them in line. So you can just fine them. And wealthy people only need the threat of loss of reputation to keep them in line.
Which is to say Posner is an idiot that knows nothing of poor people. Because all an honest poor person owns is his reputation. Where Musk... when you are that wealthy someones always going to overlook your transgressions.
not2b
Evidently he also didn't know anything about rich people. If they manage to damage their reputations then they figure a good PR firm and some contributions to the right places will take care of that for them.
darkerside
I think it used to be true. The Musks and Trumps have, like Neo in the Matrix, decided they have total control over their actions with no regard for mere perception any longer. Some people think the old framework is still valid, and others think it no longer applies.
People operating on different sets of facts!
mrcartmeneses
100%. I have no savings so it was an easy pull
wincy
Risky play, if I’m lucky and inflation goes up 1000% I’ll seem downright smart for counting on the breakdown of society!
Akronymus
I have the ability to re-earn my wealth. I can't undo death.
kretaceous
Exactly what I thought!
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ConstantVigil
This is all assuming that the money actually goes towards them, and not to everyone else inbetween you and that person you are trying to help.
And while yes, some good charities do exist apparently; I can't name any.
Edit: and no one better try to say 'WE' is a good charity.
everfree
GiveWell is a research platform for finding good charities. I referenced them in my original comment.
ConstantVigil
Edit: Okay, I might be a bit tired. Sorry... I should have read that twice...
Comment redacted to help hide idiocy... sorry.
oefnak
He just named one: GiveWell.
ConstantVigil
Sorry, but wasn't taking it at face value just cause it was used as a data point only at the time.
And not to be that person; but proof please.
I really do want a comprehensive list if possible of which charities are actually worthy of even being allowed to keep existing on this planet.
dhzhzjsbevs
Thanks. Almost felt guilty for a second there.
JetAlone
If five people in my immediate presence experienced such peril then watched me sacrifice my life savings to save their lives, I would expect their testimonies of admiration and relationships backed by a life-debt would end up being an asset of equal or greater value than a tremendous lot of liquid cash. I won't lie; I want to be whole-heartedly adored by them, even more than I want the rich man's $500,000 bribe.
csydas
It's a false comparison in my opinion, but I do get your idea.
With your scenario, there are two elements to consider:
1. Bystander Effect, i.e., someone else can help in this situation so I don't have to
2. People likely reason that Guineans still have some agency to try to subsist, so the threat is not as immediate
Compared to the Trolley problem proposed, there is a decision to be made _now_ that only you have control over and there will be an immediate effect in that people's lives will be saved in a situation where they have no option to help themselves or even get by at a bare minimum.
Ignoring the "I'm absolutely broke so who cares?" people (which while a fair point I think isn't quite the spirit of the scenario, which is will you sacrifice items of significance to you for the lives of others), I think that your scenario has too much distance and layers of abstraction as to how the money helps. Fundamentally, if we can't actually understand specifically what the charities do to save a life in Guinea, so it's harder for people to accept that the decision has any significant impact.
So I don't see any real inconsistency between your scenario and the trolley one. People aren't as accepting of the premise that the charitable donation immediately saves a life and count on the help of others whereas pulling the lever immediately has an observable effect.
bjornsing
But you don’t have perfect information / certainty in this case. This is more akin to a mystery box trolly case, or a fuzzy one.
atoav
I think a lot of people would pay money in the situation. You sending money to someone whose suffering you never even saw in Guinea and never hearing whether it helped is indeed a different thing than this trolly problem.
thrown_22
People want to feel like good people.
A rather hilarious example is asking if they are against bestiality. Pretty much everyone is.
Asking why in more liberal circles gets you an answer along the lines of "it hurts the animals" a lot of the time.
Then asking if it hurts animals more than eating them usually results in a ban.
FartyMcFarter
It hurts the animals more than eating them.
1ark
It hurts the liberal ego more than anything.
nocturnial
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.
alistaira
The point of the hypothetical situation is to look at a 'pure' case without external consideration in order to get to the crux of the problem.
Consideration of legal implications is missing the point of the exercise.
nocturnial
The crux of the dilemma is that there are two solutions. If there aren't two then it's a lemma and the trolley problem is solved.
I didn't introduce the convoluted idea of there being train tracks and a switch. If it was purely hypothetical, you could've asked: "Would you prefer to let 5 people die or let 1 die"
Here's another hypothetical:
"A train is on a track and you are standing on bridge above it. You spot a couple of kilometers further down the track 5 people who are going to be run over by the train. Do you push someone standing beside you over the edge and onto the tracks so the train will register a collision and stops in order to save those 5 people?"
This is the exact same scenario. Only instead of pulling a lever, you have a human interaction. The percentages of who would kill that 1 person change when the trolley dilemma is asked in that way.
If we're getting to the crux of the problem, then why does the response change when you provide the exact same scenario but replace the mechanical with a human-to-human interaction?
rcoveson
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?
nocturnial
No, it doesn't. How I look at it is those (legal) rules weren't made randomly. I don't think it's an option for me to overrule what millions of people have decided on over the course of a couple of centuries. Especially if I only have a couple of seconds to think about all the implications of my action.
The calculation for me would change if there was a choice between killing 5 people and potentially killing nobody. But that's not the hypothetical here.
If those rules needs to be changed, then change them through debate and well reasoned arguments and not a split second decision. The "good samaritan" law is an example of this. If perform CPR on someone who's heart has stopped, they can't sue you if you save their life but cracked some ribs.
rcoveson
> I don't think it's an option for me to overrule what millions of people have decided on over the course of a couple of centuries. Especially if I only have a couple of seconds to think about all the implications of my action.
I find it bizarre that you're taking the side of the, say, thousands of transit policymakers--who are certainly not taking this hypothetical into account--over the majority vote of the public on this exact ethical issue. Not wanting to reason from scratch in the moment is fine, but you don't have to. This is a well-known dilemma, and the consensus is that you should kill one to save five.
> If those rules needs to be changed, then change them through debate and well reasoned arguments and not a split second decision.
Yep, that's why we're here. Now that most of us have agreed that "pull the lever" is the right call on the trolley problem, do you think the transit authorities are going to codify it as a law? Don't be ridiculous. Just take the legal hit, if it even comes. Laws are wrong sometimes, especially in hypotheticals.
darkerside
There are only a few times when people consider it acceptable to break through bureaucracy, and life or death situations is one of them.
smorrebrod
Personnaly, some answers were swayed by thinking about these legal consequences for situations like:
- Annoying the driver of the trolley for my enjoyment
- A 50% chance of killing 2 people or a 10% chance of killing 10 people
- Killing 5 people now or 5 people in the future
- Killing 1 cat or 5 lobsters
FartyMcFarter
I chose to annoy the driver because the prompt already told me that I wanted to do it.
littlestymaar
> 2. Save 5 people, cause the death of 1, and you probably go to jail.
You'll be prosecuted for sure, but if the death of the 5 was certain unless you acted, I'd be pretty surprised if you were found guilty, let alone being jailed.
dkjaudyeqooe
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
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.
Markoff
Is there any proof wearing a mask save ANY lives? People talk about this as if it were some fact, it's usually same people believing safe and effective vaccines, who quickly forgot vaccines were supposed to stop transmission, stop symptoms, they just keep pushing goal posts, while reality if you look at stats in highly vaxxed countries is that vaccines do really nothing anymore.
mcv
They should have made the mask issue one of the tests. Do you let 4 people die, or do you choose to save them but wear something uncomfortable?
MrRiddle
Congrats, you saved Hitler, Stalin etc and killed Tesla.
dkjaudyeqooe
"Nothing" would be my choice regardless, morally and philosophically. In each case you'd likely be sued by the person(s) you'd kill and they'd probably win.
If you don't intervene circumstances play out and you are blameless. In the other case you are choosing to kill someone, taking their life based on an idea in your head which may or may not be valid. In reality nothing is so clear cut and the people at risk may not have died anyway and you may kill someone needlessly.
That is not to say I wouldn't, for instance, defend someone being attacked. In that case I'm not causing someone else's death by my actions. If the attacker dies during my defense that's fine because it's due to his actions, not mine.
ahtihn
One of the problems allows you to save yourself but kill 5 other people.
"Blame" doesn't really factor into that decision.
FartyMcFarter
How so? If you choose to survive, some people can certainly blame you.
formerly_proven
The non-interventionist stance seems to be unfavored on average, both by the problem makers ("kill count: 93") and the average respondent.
Markoff
It's not trivial, dunno about US, but in many (developed) countries around world not providing help to someone (passing around car crash without stopping, if you don't see anyone providing help) has legal implications.
nocturnial
When you are certain your actions will result in the death of someone then I doubt the legal protections of helping someone is as clear cut as you think it is.
Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know all laws of all countries.
I'm hoping a lawyer would jump into this thread.
isolli
But, unlike the typical trolley problem, stopping on the side of the road comes at no cost to you or anyone else.
lettergram
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).
mcv
One of the problems did have people who tied themselves to the track, while the other person stumbled. Most people chose to let the group that chose to be on the track die.
Another interesting problem would be 5 people tied themselves to the track in front of the trolley, and 1 person tied themselves to the other track. Everybody tied themselves to the track, so should you let the one die instead of the 5? Or did the one tie themselves to the track believing that track was safe, while the other 5 tied themselves to the track expecting to die?
throwaway787544
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.
codefreeordie
If there is no free will, though, then there isn't an interesting moral quandary about you pulling the lever. You either do, because you were preordained to do so or you don't, because you were preordained not to, and in neither case does any morality or decision-making enter into the picture, since, absent free will, you are not a morality-possessing or decision-making entity.
throwaway787544
There's no free will in a clock but it's still interesting to watch the gears. And just because you don't have free will doesn't mean you don't have morals; even if you don't choose to do right or wrong, you can still distinguish them as separate concepts. And even if you can't distinguish morality, that doesn't necessarily make you amoral either. It's like being born to be an extra in a play and die once the play is over.
AmericanChopper
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.
nautilius
Interesting then that a religious society like the U.S. (>80% consider themselves religious) does not actually support helping others. This is particularly striking for law enforcement, who have no obligation to help, and then are free to choose not to. Last month, cops watched a man drown, and that's apparently perfectly fine https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/06/arizona-man-...
Humanist secular societies (e.g. France, Germany, ~30% religious people) instead have a culture and legislature that makes helping others an important duty; law enforcement and also civil citizens have a moral and legal duty to help, and it would be morally and legally unacceptable to watch someone drown.
zuhayeer
Naturally decided to check out the author's home page: https://neal.fun/
Super cool projects and visualizations, particularly really enjoyed https://neal.fun/deep-sea/ and https://neal.fun/printing-money/
beaker52
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.
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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.