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.
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 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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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