Third track
[a character holds a lever connected to rails, on which a train is approaching fast]
A train is approaching fast…
Many people are tied to the tracks…
As a bystander, I can do only one thing in this current moment: flip a lever, which would send the train to another track where it would also kill people, but less of them
[next to another separate railway track, someone is trying to get the first character's attention]
Hey you, over there, look!
There is a third track here!
It is not connected to the other tracks, but there are zero people tied to it, so if you do not choose to send the train on this third track right now you are an evil genocide enabling liberal
https://thebad.website/comic/third_track
14 replies
The only correct and ethical solution is to pull the lever while the train is passing to make it double-track drift and kill everyone equally
I would have said derailing the trolley is the only ethical choice, but I did not consider that option.
You've changed my mind. Multi-track drifting it is.
One of them could literally be Hitler 2: Electric Boogaloo. I'd take no risk
Of course, after pulling the lever you then spend years ignoring the rail workers tying more people to the tracks further ahead, ensuring you get to make exactly the same choice next time.
Friends of the rail workers also need to tell you "vote blue no matter who", while refusing to vote for your shade of blue.
It's an important part of the process.
The third track person isn't being annoying enough or trying hard enough to keep the lever from being pulled and then blaming the person with the lever when it kills everyone and then telling them to read more theory.
The only fair thing to do is run everybody over
I think a better analogy is that there is a train far approaching a junction. A bystander is standing at the switch. They can see one track has what looks like people tied up. The other track is empty, except for someone holding a child over the track. The bystander shouts at them to move the child out of the way, but that someone just says, "Nope" and smirks.
The bystander is unsure and ends up not pulling the lever, sending the train onto the first track, which turns out to have lots of people tied to it. Then some other clever observers stand between the bystander and the person holding the child, yelling at the bystander for not making the objectively correct choice.
Implying that the third track is disconnected
It is, believing it isn't is how you keep false hopes alive in a system with two liberal parties controlling the entire political space.
The only way out is to organize and derail the train and/or actually build a bridge to the third track, and organizing is easier without fascists in the big house :)
You need to add another switch on track that could send the train to the third empty track before running over anyone but the rail workers refuse to pull it. And then everyone that pulled the lever without hesitation denies the third track was connected and refuses to blame the rail workers, even though they knew what would happen and had more agency to change the outcome.
'We need to add another switch to send the train to the third empty tra k'
Yes lets just use the one next to the other one that is there, you haven't looked for it hard enough. It activates a hidden ramp that didn't exist until you imagined it and the train is able to expertly land on the third rail regardless of the heading.
Thanks you have completed the analogy perfectly.
The analogy was ridiculous in the first place, always was and always will be.
Keep coping.