The Prisoner's Trolley Problemma

If these are tracks in the US then I just understaff the engineers and maintenance teams and the train derails before I have to make a decision, checkmate.

This feels too high quality for a shit post.

wow what an excellent day in the neighbourhood

i sure hope I won't be faced with an ethical dilemma in the very near future

oh rats it's the trolley problem

This isn't philosophy anymore, it's just game theory

for the longest time, i did know that game theory did not have anything to do with “games” and that it is somehow connected to the prisoners dilemma, but the concept as such wasn’t very clear to me. If you are like my former me, take 30 minutes out of your day and visit https://ncase.me/trust/ to learn and play around with game theory; it’s a great webpage and it’s pretty good fun all around.

Unlike the classic prisoners dilemma, this isn't a nash equilibrium. When I know that the other person pulls their switch, I'd improve my outcome by not pulling mine. Compare to the prisoners dilemma, where not snitching when the other side snitches earns you five years in prison.

Which relative is on the track and which in the trolley?

Do nothing that way you don't get to jail for murder. All the pressure goes to the other guy. Sue the railway company, guy who pulled the lever and the creator. Another is find a way not to reach to that point.

This is only superficially a prisoner's dilemma. In a true one, you cannot get a better result for yourself no matter what the other person does, but here if you assume the other person pulled the lever, there is no reason to pull the lever yourself.

To fix this, you can have 4 relatives on the trolley, and 5 of the opposite faction way back on the middle track. Both do nothing, 1 relative of each is killed. One guy switches the lever, their relatives are all fine, other guy loses 5. Both switch, crash with all 8 relatives on the trolley dead.

You pull the lever, then pew pew pew the other person near the lever.

Boom.

Did I solve it?

Where's my prize?

Wait a minute, gotta shoot everyone else related too. Don't want to face any revenge.

Automatic Weaponry goes brrrr

No witnesses

Okay I saved 1 of my loved ones.

Bingo?

Now theres only one color of people.

Wait am I a racist?

If you think about this for any length of time and actually imagine this scenario, you realise you don't pull the lever and it's not even close.

Theoretically, will a collision cause a breach of the radioactive material that's in the box with my cat? Asking for a friend.

Yell to the guy on the other side that I'm going to pull the lever, so he'd better not.

Then let it go because that both maximizes global utility and poses the lowest risk of the worst case scenario.

The outcome from both levers pulled is so steep that it really makes no sense to pull the lever

Questions: why doesn't the person at the switch run and get the person off the tracks? And the people on the trolley hop off or try to the sslow the trolley?

Have these folks seen The Good Place? Or are they just approaching the same conclusion by accident?

Sounds like your typical game theory problem.

Not pulling the lever: Worst case: Your loved ones dies Best case: None

Pulling the lever: Worst case: Your loved ones dies Best case: Your loved ones survives

I think these scenarios might be easier to analyze if we made them a bit more realistic.

This an analogy for military intervention. If we empower our military to be proactive, we can save one "good guy"^TM by killing 3 bystanders. But if NATO's adversaries are participating too we lose 3 of our "good guy"^TM

This guy is already implying that youll like it better if 3 randoms die as 1 loved one, he's choosing for you already in the explanation 😭😭😭

mercifully pulling both levers.

The meaning behind the trolly problem has been entirely eroded at this point.

How much did I like that one guy really.

I would tie a really really long string to the lever and attach the string to a large bird and then scare it into flying away. Then I would eat some delicious Heinz Baked Beans

To quote something I made up and say all the time, “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.”

Throw the trolley off the side of the ferry.

Nuke it from orbit.

Which loved one are we talking about here? Some are more loved than others.

Well obviously you should pull the lever once the front wheels past the split but before the rear wheels cross it, so that trolley gets off the rails. This way everybody has the chance to survive and you have defensible position during inevitable court hearing.

I ban trolleys. Everyone walks.

I think the premise falls apart on the assumption that I consider pulling the lever as best case.

For some people, this is a problem. For others, this is a solution.

Veritasium did a great video on the prisoners dilemma... What Game Theory Reveals about Life, The Universe, and Everything Prof. Robert Axelrod held a tournament in 1980 to produce a computer program to explore the prisoners dilemma... Axelrod's Tournament

According to transit and transport regulation, such scenario would be impossible

And where are their arms and legs?

Goddamn it, Joker

The last line of these is always what the poster wants to happen

everything else is skewed rationale to make you think it is a funny

it is, in reality, anti-intellectual propaganda

Yell to the other lever dude that I'm not pulling the lever but fuck those beige dudes, hope they can't tell i'm lying, run and lay down with the beige dudes, and if I'm lucky they pull their lever too and we get maximum carnage. If lever dude suspects I'm lying and insane, and thus doesn't pull their lever, at least I won't have to answer my loved ones' questions.

Just kill them all

Yell "Jump!"

There is no such thing as an "amount of people". It's "number of people". And the question given is basic game theory, just worded to be nasty.

Jokes on you, No loved ones, so who cares if you pull the lever or not, go have a frothy instead.

Give the loved ones guns

As many frags as possible

Please learn how to draw basic sketches of railway switches. It's not that hard.

Depends on the loved one, tbh 🤷🏼‍♂️

looking at the junction points on that diagram only one side of the axle would change track if the switch was pulled resulting in a derailment so you could ignore the possibility of hitting the people in the middle thereby reducing this example to two parallel but unconnected trolley problems

i choose to kill whoever calls them trolleys and not trams

Tit. For. Tat.

pull my gun, kill the other person and move the lever, as far i can know that person is the one this whole thing upfamily up

you find some third way thats not the bad outcomes that are suggested. Theres always possibilities in life and people who say there are not are generally trying to coerce you.

Philosphers really just go "imagine how fucked up it would be if..." and then take it incredibly seriously