Be Excellent To Each Other

So, this is the Trolley (or tram) problem:



And this is the Fat Man problem:



[edit]Ignore the fact that I put 'through'. If I edit it now the poll loses all the answers.

I certainly would.

I'd jam the switch halfway, derailing the trolley.

Bloody engineers

That's not really the trolley problem - that's just the introduction to it to set a standard. The expanded problem has many different aspects - a fat man on a bridge - things like that.

EDIT: to explain a bit more clearly...

The trolley is heading down teh tracks towards a group of ten people, lets say. There is a VERY fat man on a bridge above the tracks. If you pushed him off the bridge his bulk would be enough to stop the trolley and save the other people's lives.

Do you push him?

(it is expanded further in many different ways)

I think I'd tut at the unlikeliness of the siituation and look around for either Jeremy Beadle or a sniggering dog.

I wouldn't flip the switch as it is not up to me to ultimately decide who lives or dies.

The article suggests that most would flip the switch (yes, I probably would). But most would not push the fat man, even though the effect, and outcome, is the same. That's the more interesting part.

That's the original trolley problem - the others are variations of it.

However, I will mash up the poll and include the fat man problem.

I'd shoot them all, and then divert the trolley.

Also, if you did nothing, you'd have five corpses to loot, rather than one, and I need a new pair of shoes.

Yes, I would. Diverting the trolley is, morally speaking, the better option than standing by and doing nothing and allowing 5 people to die.

It's interesting to compare to the Fat Man experiment, where you actually have to push the fat guy to his death to save the other five. I'd be much more wary of saying yes to that, as you're then involving a new actor in the process. I struggle to differentiate why that's much worse than flipping the switch and killing one guy, though. Perhaps because in the trolley experiment someone was going to die anyway.

EDIT - oh, it didn't tell me loads of people had posted in the meantime. Oops.

Should we sacrifice Myp? [yes/no]

Quick reply doesn't.

In this situation, of course, it is.

That's a bit of an abdication of your moral duty to do the best by others, isn't it? Avoiding making the hard decision so your conscience is clean, but allowing five people to die?

If it isn't up to you to decide, who is it up to?

It's the authorities who have obviously let this poor philosopher down with lack of support for his mental health issues.

And, of course, you have decided.

Kalmar - so it's not up to Jesus?

I think that is the point of the experiment. Many people apparently struggle to explain why they think flipping the switch is OK but pushing the fat man is not. In the first instance, all of the people on the tracks are already part of the situation whereas the at man is an innocent bystander.

But Ahhhhhh!

Aaaah, yes, very good point. You have chosen to kill five people. Which makes you a monster.

Kalmar - consider the lily.

Grim... says it is up to me, so I guess I still wouldn't flip the switch. I wasn't aware that I was under a moral duty to do the best by others, but the idea of interfering sits uncomfortably with me. Which is the point of the thought experiment I guess. Also 5x shoes and wallets.

Of course, fat people are evil, so we should kill as many as possible anyway.

True, but the 1 person tied on the tracks is also perfectly safe, unless.
And the fat man is clearly rubbernecking to see what happens, so he's involved to an extent.

Many more Allied soldiers died in World War II than Jewish people died in the Holocaust. Does that make military intervention to prevent genocide a bad thing?

Well, you are if you have any humanity at all, see. But then we know your sort, Mr Scientist.



Would you rescue a drowning man/woman/child? If it's not up to you who lives and dies, you should never interfere with anything.

Done that stuff before. Fucking tourists.

That's a little more complex, not least because of the "It'll be over by Christmas" attitude of the allied generals. They weren't expecting such horrific casualties. Hang on, well, the Western ones weren't. The Soviet ones were pretty much planning it. And it's the Soviet casualties that get you over the 6 million.

But I agree with the implied opinion that it is not a bad thing.

And none of the allies went to war to prevent genocide. The Russians were quite happy sending off huge chunks of their own people to die in camps. And I'd flip the switch.

Would more have died in the long run if we didn't go to war, though?
Etc etc.

I'd commission a series of in-depth interviews, character studies and psychoanalyses to determine the characters and benefit to society of the potential victims. Once complete I'd form a panel to discuss the results and weigh up the pros and cons of the individuals and the sets which they form. Only when a significant majority was formed would a decision on the least-worst position of the switch be taken, and the tendering process for a contractor to implement the selection could begin according to the usual union-agreed and regulation-satisfying preferred vendors and bidding rules. Concurrently, a brief public consultation would be carried out to ensure overall faith in the process and result. Obviously, if it transpired that time was becoming pressing, the consultation could be foreshortened or even disregarded entirely.

How can you be so sure the trolley is operated by Virgin trains?

Tut, stupid final edits. OMG I'M TOTALLY etc.

And I completely forgot about budgetary planning, approval and constraints, and who to order the lunches from and booking the meeting rooms.

What if I flip the switch and it's actually the detonator for a bomb, killing all six of them?

Which is why I broadened my point in the second sentence.

If the one man on the other track is Leonard Nimoy, I'm letting the other 5 people die.

That is illogical.

Yeah, the other five might be Leonard Nimoy too.

I'm not reading two sentences.

I'd flip the fat man.

BeeX Cottage is near a railway line.

I'll use my super strength and speed to save everyone. And capture the madman.

Seriously?

--

But anyway, I don't think the option of pushing the fatman would even occur to me.

And it also becomes his choice as he's as much a bystander as you.

Which raises a good question, Dave - would people throw themselves onto the tracks to save the five people? If you say no to that, but yes to pushing someone else, there's something a bit broken in that morality.

It also becomes his choice to push you! Although you might not derail the trolley.

It has to be someone fat.

This comes as a surprise to you?