Spyke
lemmy.world

In that case, no, and you’re not responsible anymore. Those people working on switching out the trolley parts had every available opportunity to fully stop the trolley, more-so than you. You diverted it to save a life immediately, that crew maintaining this Trolley of Death are the real murderers.

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Gorkreply
lemm.ee

What if the maintenance crew themselves didn't know that the trolley was going to hit the tied down person 1000 miles away?

I blame the trolley company's CEO and shareholders for allowing a random person to divert the trolley's path in the first place.

63

They were told that for every part they replaced, they were diverting another trolley down a 1000-mile track

30
Metypereply
lemmy.world

Well it's like my grandmother always used to say: "Capitalism is like a death trolley barrelling down 1000 miles of track towards you"

9

Capitalism is maintained by others, and all most of us can do in our day to day lives is make sure that the people in our immediate vicinity aren't killed by it.

1

They couldn't have replaced the trolley parts had you not sent it.

My favorite trolley experiment is still the dad presenting it to the little kid, who proceeded to think outside the box and moved the one person to the other track with the second. And then ran them both over.

43
lemmy.world

At that point you pretty much got a whole day to go and rescue the guy, assuming trolley is traveling around 40-50mph

37
Iron Lynxreply
lemmy.world

Bold of you to assume there's a highway connection between you and the distant victim.

6
Iron Lynxreply
lemmy.world

For the sake of the argument, the train takes the same tracks as the trolley and the trolley service otherwise has the same budget as the US DOD.

8

At the very least, if you throw the switch you then have a thousand miles to figure out a way to save them. Or to put the other person on the same track, depending on your style.

3
lemmy.world

After a few miles down the tracks, I won't see or hear the trolley anymore, therefore i can not be certain it even exists anymore. It may have run over someone, it may have derailed, it may have exploded, it may have run out of fuel and stopped, a black hole might have opened up in its path and swallowed it whole.

26

The lack of object permanence solution to the trolly problem.

20
lemmy.world

Can someone please stop the maniac who keeps tying all these people to trollie tracks?

26

The trolley problem becomes a lot more complex once you realize everyone on the tracks willfully volunteered to be there.

5
sh.itjust.works

Problems like this aren't unsolved, it's just that these problems have different answers depending on the context.

Is it the same trolley that kills the man? Yes because repairing the trolley doesn't change it's name.

Is it the same trolley that kills the man? No because it is physically not the same trolley.

Humans divide their cells until the original cells are gone. Are they a different person?

Yes they are.

No they aren't.

Depends on what you're measuring or what problem you're trying to solve. But both perspectives are simultaneously true. Wait until you get to math and find out there's different lengths of infinity. It's all tools used to solve problems.

23
Isoprenoidreply
programming.dev

depending on the context

This is exactly why these trolley problems don't work. When we strip away all context and ask simplified questions the nuance disappears and the question becomes almost meaningless.

15

That's why I think these are mostly nonsense. These types of questions aren't philosophical, they're psychological. They don't teach anything, they just test what you value, and they're not the best types of questions for doing that either.

4

You can also win sometimes by playing, depending on the context.

1

Easy task: Pull the lever, jump into car, rescue the man, far away. Then burn down the trolley and everyone involved in your misery.

14

If you take a thought experiment and replace all the thought with meaningless garbage, is it still a thought experiment?

12
lemmy.ca

How does one replace the trolley's trucks (wheels and axles) without stopping it over 1000 mi?

8

Build an entire scaffolding around it, itself running on the same rail

7

In that people have been creating their own trolley problem memes to illustrate either how they think Biden is just as bad as Trump or that despite Biden being imperfect, he's still the ethical "flip of the switch".

I love the downvotes though on a simple question. It's ironically unencumbering to be projected onto without any context to base one's disagreement or anger.

2
PunnyNamereply
lemmy.world

Hmm. Leaving things confusing on purpose?

Also, you aren't the op

3

There is definitely a contingent of people forming that spend too much time on Lemmy that we begin referencing other posts we see on Lemmy. My comment assumes that people spend as much time not touching grass as me.

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