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r/trolleyproblem

▲ 1 r/trolleyproblem+1 crossposts

Would you rather: let someone die slowly of poison or cure them at great personal effort and risk?

Preamble: A new magic drug is released on the market. It is expertly advertised to a significant amount of people and mostly targets a specific group(you will never be part of this targeted group). This targeted group who are people in need of help buy into this pill that promises to solve their problems and with or without their knowledge are poisoned by it. It is a slow poison that won't end their life but puts them in a state of non-living and makes them believe the drug is working. This drug influences their views and actions and they unquestionably endorse it to others who are unaware of it or are similarly vulnerable and are dismissive to those who choose not to take it and are actively hostile to those who discredit it.

You are (merely)acquainted with someone who you've only known briefly. They were a vulnerable person who the pill is marketed towards and you pitied their previously sorry state. You are eventually wronged by this person under the influence of this "magic" pill and can see its poison clearly having affected them and slowly spreading to other people in similarly vulnerable situations as your acquaintance was in.

You and others have the capacity/resources to develop an antidote for these afflicted peoples but it will take years of great effort and personal risk but helping to cure this poison will in turn benefit society and those in vulnerable states as a whole and eventually be a mild benefit to groups and peoples like yours in the end. (Another mini question: would you rather boycott the pill off the market or help others at the source to prevent them from being put in their vulnerable states that the pill capitalizes on? Neither option will absolutely eradicate the problem as with every drug, people will always find a way to get it, but it will leave those afflicted only to those beyond help and too far gone vs letting it simply fester and spread.)

These people under the influence of the pill have wronged others and the pill will never affect you or similar groups of people.

Do you let them "die" and succumb to the poison bc of these reasons and bc it is the easier option? Do you think they deserve this fate for wanting something to save from their desperation?

Or do you painstakingly work with others to help these afflicted people at great effort and personal risk when the outcome in curing this poison will benefit society and eventually you?

How much is it worth to help someone else even though their issues will never effect you but not helping them will then inadvertently spread the poison even further?

This is all an allegory/metaphor for a current societal issue but I'll let you decide which one it is.

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u/DM_ME_YOUR_MAMMARIES — 4 days ago
▲ 77 r/trolleyproblem

Schrödinger s Trolley

Before you is a trolley heading down a track. On the track is a box with a cat inside. The cat may or may not be dead, you don’t know for sure.

You can do nothing and let the box be run over, potentially killing the cat, or you can pull the lever beside you which has a 50% chance of bringing the trolley to a safe stop…and a 50% chance of being diverted to the second track, which you know for a fact has a living cat tied to it.

What do you do?

u/MC_Minnow — 8 days ago
▲ 10 r/trolleyproblem

Real life trolley problem.

I was listening to a podcast discussing pro and anti vaccine arguments, basically the perspective around whether we should be able to force people to take vaccines that have even the most remote chance of hurting them. Even if not doing it impacts many other people. Then it hit me. It's the trolley problem. The argument around vaccines is the trolley problem playing out in real life. And that's why people will never agree. Different points of view. (Disclaimer: I'm assuming the antivaccer just doesn't "get" that the risk of harm from the disease is greater than the risk of harm from the vaccine, or disregards it.)

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u/moocat55 — 11 days ago
▲ 45 r/trolleyproblem+1 crossposts

I think I finally understood why ego can ruin things in seconds

I recently came across this image about Acharya Prashant's book Ego.

The line on it says: "Kaam bigaad de sirf 6 seconds mein." Basically, your ego can mess things up in just 6 seconds.

And honestly, that made me think. We usually think of ego as something obvious. Someone being arrogant. Someone showing off. Someone thinking they're better than everyone else.

But I think ego shows up in much more ordinary situations. Someone says something that hurts you, and immediately you want to reply. Someone ignores you, and suddenly you feel like ignoring them back. Someone disagrees with you, and you start trying to prove that you're right. Someone points out your mistake, and instead of looking at what they said, you start thinking about how to defend yourself.

Nothing major has actually happened. But inside your head, a whole story starts. "How dare they?" "Why should I be the one to apologize?" "They need to understand what they did." And then you react.

Sometimes it takes only a few seconds. Later, when you're calm, you look back and think: "Why did I even do that?" That's the part I find interesting about ego. It doesn't always feel like ego. It often feels like self-respect, justice, or simply doing what is right. And because it feels so reasonable in that moment, we don't stop to question it.

Maybe the real challenge isn't getting rid of the ego. Maybe it's simply noticing that moment when you are about to react and asking: "Am I responding to the situation, or am I just protecting my image of myself?"

I've started finding that question surprisingly useful. Have you ever reacted to something in the moment and regretted it once you had calmed down?

u/Curious_Compound — 12 days ago
▲ 3 r/trolleyproblem

The ultimate trolley problem dream

I saw a dream a virus from out of space, affected everyone with a zombie virus. which will soon take over the world, I joined a small haven of a city where there was governance, I was tasked with helping everyone there. I worked scientist who believes in end justifies the means, he was working on injecting pores to which breathing it will cure everyone from zombie virus, I realised the scientist has experimented with 15 girls to find a cure and he made significant progress in which the last girl survived (I thought once he has cured everyone I will kill him), now he just need the one thing now and that is a blood extracted from a dead woman after she is just died and is turning into zombie, note that this mission was being secretly being conducted… and I was responsible for getting it as soon as possible … There was a lady working on desk nearby and I asked her to go on a walk, we talked about life and then asked if she’d like to quickly participate in sex in a bathroom and she said yes, we started having sex and i was going to kill her, one life to save everyone but i couldn’t do it, can’t kill her. And my dream ended.

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u/immaculate_disgrace — 10 days ago
▲ 11 r/trolleyproblem

Inaction is not an option in these Trolley Problems

The trolley speeds towards the switch, which was left halfway between the two tracks, which will cause the trolley to derail, killing the individual on one track, and the five on the other track, and you, and everyone on the trolley. You have just enough time to throw the switch one way or the other so that the only fatalities will be either the one or the five. Who do you save and who has to die?

One five-year-old child or five 100-year old people?

One baby or five clones of the same baby?

One human or five robots with such advanced a.i. that they are indistinguishable from sentient self-aware humans with thoughts and feelings?

One mosquito or five rapists?

Jack Black or all five Backstreet Boys?

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u/Oso_the-Bear — 14 days ago
▲ 3 r/trolleyproblem

Practical Ethics of Driving

Say that you're driving a trolley, and you see one person on the track ahead of you. If you divert the trolley to another track going around a corner, you miss them, but there's a 1/5 chance of someone being on the other track. Do you turn?

This feels like a very possible scenario while driving. If a car suddenly stops just ahead and your choices are to hit it or to swerve to the side, dodging the accident but potentially causing another, doesn't that present the same question?

I feel like in the first case, the dilemma feels much easier than the normal trolley problem. You're not hitting anyone on purpose, you're just taking a risk. Rather than the scale of the tragedy, the probability of the tragedy varies. I would turn.

In the second case, though, if we assume the car in front of you is at fault, would it be worse to risk harming someone who made no mistake if it meant a chance at avoiding the tragedy?

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u/Illustrious_Eye8484 — 12 days ago