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The Trolley Problem

You Will Your Save?

  • Save your relatives

    Votes: 4 36.4%

  • Save your true love

    Votes: 7 63.6%
  • Total voters
    11
Fritz

Fritz

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Joined
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the U.S. of A.
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Political Leaning
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Simple, you see a speeding trolley and the tracks split into two.

On one track, your true love is trapped.

On the other, your relatives are trapped (your mom, dad, etc)

You have a lever that changes the track that the trolley moves into.

What do you do???
 
Nothing and let fate make the choice.
 
Fritz said:
Simple, you see a speeding trolley and the tracks split into two.

On one track, your true love is trapped.

On the other, your relatives are trapped (your mom, dad, etc)

You have a lever that changes the track that the trolley moves into.

What do you do???
Click to expand...

True love. I mean, doesn't everypne's parents want them to be happy, after all ;-)
 
Logical choice is true love. However....is he/she REALY your true love? Time to find out, eh?



How long do we have to make this decision?
 
Fritz said:
Simple, you see a speeding trolley and the tracks split into two.

On one track, your true love is trapped.

On the other, your relatives are trapped (your mom, dad, etc)

You have a lever that changes the track that the trolley moves into.

What do you do???
Click to expand...
You do know that this is not the normal formulation of the Trolley Problem, right?
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Nothing and let fate make the choice.
Click to expand...

This. I doubt I could bring myself to take any action. Now if one of the tracks has my kids then I will save them even if every single other person I care about is on the other track.
 
For those who have played the game, this reminds me of the final choice on Live Is Strange.

Oh, and I saved:
Chloe. It wasn't even a contest for me.
 
Fritz said:
Simple, you see a speeding trolley and the tracks split into two.

On one track, your true love is trapped.

On the other, your relatives are trapped (your mom, dad, etc)

You have a lever that changes the track that the trolley moves into.

What do you do???
Click to expand...

Get a burst of adrenaline and knock the trolley off the track saving everybody and turning my smokin' hot girlfriend on at the same time...
 
Visbek said:
You do know that this is not the normal formulation of the Trolley Problem, right?
Click to expand...

Trolley's here are shopping carts... seriously.
 
Hack the Kobayashi Maru.
 
Just as an aside... the jokes and non-answer answers denote not only the difficulty in resolving this dilemma, but the uncomfortableness in the dilemma itself.

Carry on.
 
Phys251 said:
For those who have played the game, this reminds me of the final choice on Live Is Strange.

Oh, and I saved:
Chloe. It wasn't even a contest for me.
Click to expand...

Same here. I spent the entire game ****ing up the time-space continuum to save her ass, I was not about to let her die after all of that. Sorry, Arcadia Bay.
 
You save your folks. "True Love" is the bunk. ;)
 
Fritz said:
Simple, you see a speeding trolley and the tracks split into two.

On one track, your true love is trapped.

On the other, your relatives are trapped (your mom, dad, etc)

You have a lever that changes the track that the trolley moves into.

What do you do???
Click to expand...

Save the family. True love will eventually turn on me, and we will probably wind up in a messy, expensive divorce. Family sticks with you through thick and thin.

Yeah, I'm a selfish POS. :mrgreen:
 
Look around for something to throw on the track that willl derail the trolley altogether. Beyond that I have no one true answer, as what I might decide today if faced with the decision might not be what I decide the next day.



Oh and afterwards I find the bastard who did it, and subject him to the Chinese Water Torture only substituting the water for acid.
 
maquiscat said:
Look around for something to throw on the track that willl derail the trolley altogether. Beyond that I have no one true answer, as what I might decide today if faced with the decision might not be what I decide the next day.



Oh and afterwards I find the bastard who did it, and subject him to the Chinese Water Torture only substituting the water for acid.
Click to expand...

I want to know how such a situation could arise the first place. Life is not a Bruce Willis movie.
 
OK, I realize we're now talking about a video game, but... ;)

For those interested, this is the ACTUAL "Trolley Problem" as utilized by contemporary philosophy.

Scenario 1: A train is heading down the tracks into the maintenance yard, at full speed. For whatever reason, you are the only person in control of the tracks, and you know you can't stop the train. You have two choices: Send it on the left track, where it will strike and kill FIVE workers; or send it on the right track, where it will strike and kill ONE worker. What do you do?

Scenario 2: A train is heading down the tracks into the maintenance yard, at full speed. There is only one track. You and an overweight man are standing on a platform above the train track. You can either do nothing, in which case the train will strike and kill FIVE workers; or, you can push the fat man onto the tracks, which will kill ONE person, and will stop the train in time. What do you do?

There are numerous variations on this theme, designed to elicit particular aspects of morality and choice, lots of papers, lots of discussion etc.
 
Blood is thicker than water (for the OPs version).
 
Visbek said:
OK, I realize we're now talking about a video game, but... ;)

For those interested, this is the ACTUAL "Trolley Problem" as utilized by contemporary philosophy.

Scenario 1: A train is heading down the tracks into the maintenance yard, at full speed. For whatever reason, you are the only person in control of the tracks, and you know you can't stop the train. You have two choices: Send it on the left track, where it will strike and kill FIVE workers; or send it on the right track, where it will strike and kill ONE worker. What do you do?
Click to expand...
1. Choose to kill one instead of five persons
2. Don't choose at all, and let the train (or tracks, or fate, or chance) take its own course
Visbek said:
Scenario 2: A train is heading down the tracks into the maintenance yard, at full speed. There is only one track. You and an overweight man are standing on a platform above the train track. You can either do nothing, in which case the train will strike and kill FIVE workers; or, you can push the fat man onto the tracks, which will kill ONE person, and will stop the train in time. What do you do?
Click to expand...
1. Leave the five workers, who have assumed the risk, to their fate
2. Sacrifice myself
 
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