753
Sublime
(media.hachyderm.io)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2023
753 points (98.1% liked)
memes
21422 readers
2541 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads/AI Slop
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live. We also consider AI slop to be spam in this community and is subject to removal.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
Is the implication that the guy pulled the lever to steer the train onto the track with lots of people on it?
in the original thought experiment not pulling the lever results in the death of the 5 people on tracks, that's the choice of an attempt to avoid responsibility as you technically had no involvement in their deaths. Pulling the lever means you take direct responsibility for the death of one person, saving 5
Woah. Never once in my life have I heard that reasoning for not pulling the lever. I have always thought that since I was actively choosing not to pull it, that it was still a direct effect of my choice. I fully believe that people think the way you just described and now I have to reevaluate humanity.
Huh, every time I hear about the trolley problem it's always "now imagine that instead of pulling the lever, you need to push someone onto the track so the trolley stops after that first collision." Some people would pull the lever but not push someone onto the tracks, and that's where it gets interesting.
The difference is that in the lever example someone else tied the person to the track.
Easier to assign all blame to them, then.
And if you can push someone, you could use your own body too. Maybe the scenarios word around that (you have to push somebody and hold the lever, for example).
I imagine the nightmares from pushing a person would be worse than those from pulling a lever.
Actions vs outcomes right? Like "I didn't murder someone" vs "I did what would cause the least harm".
I may be wrong but it seems like focusing on my own actions as the basis of morality is self-centered in nature. Whereas thinking about the outcome—how the people in the track are affected—is other-centered. Doing nothing seems to seek to avoid judgement of self at the cost of 5 lives. The other seeks to save 5 lives at the cost of actively killing one person.
Though, I suppose, one could wonder what terrible things the latter might choose to do to save many more.
From that standpoint, you can ask interesting questions by tweaking the numbers.
Would you want someone in charge who's willing to actively kill 5000 people to save 5200?
What about killing 1 person for a 50% chance of saving 5?
As soon as you accept that killing people is morally OK, you open yourself up to math and the decision of how to measure the value of a person's life.
Oh I don’t think you disagree with them!
They’re saying if you are okay to pull the lever in ANY case, then you’re going to be trying to do math in EVERY case.
Some cases will be easy, but others will be hard. Which is fine - public safety isn’t easy, neither is hostage negotiation or combat or wherever this comes into play in real life.
Yeah I totally agree, well said.
From what I understand, this idea was first printed in 1967, concurrent to but separate from this essay.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/father-sacrifice-son-train-bridge/
Looks like it's even earlier than that. But it puts a different spin on it if the one is a loved one. It's not really a math problem. It's an illustration of sacrifice.
It perhaps shows how successful the trolly experiment has been, playing its part in changing our cultural attitudes as a whole, since its' purpose (lately, I dunno about originally) was to get people to realize exactly what you just said: that choosing to do nothing is still a choice. Sort of a "wake up, sheeple!" message.
Older generations like Boomers and especially Great before that were ignoring climate change and so much else - not having access to the internet, knowledge was more difficult to come by back then.
Today's era involves different struggles, mainly against misinformation, but at least people more often have their eyes open.
Edit: NSFW video version from the TV show The Good Place that adds some new dimensions to the problem: https://youtu.be/DtRhrfhP5b4?si=zI6lV0G_VRhzjz97.:-)
Probably the guy on the right doesn’t see the people on the left track about to die. And the guy on the left doesn’t see the person on the right whose life was saved.
The moral is something something perspective something.
Its usually pulling the lever to kill only the one person so the lever guy didnt pull it, the left guy saw the people on the left track because of how its curved, the right guy saw nothing but as it entered the curve he now sees they avoided a person and is happy
Yes
10 to 15 children, and a kitten. But the guy on the other track was Elon Musk, saving the world with EVs and rockets and stuff. How would you have chosen?
There is only ever one answer to any trolley problem
Elon musk, saving the world? With EVs? And stuff? Ah okay. A little too easy to choose then?
Not the hardest trolley problem, I admit..
https://youtu.be/qWBnhQOXpWE?t=476
Perfect score!