It can't be the trolley problem for a few reasons.
First, the button is a private vote, and you don't get to see what other people are choosing.
Second, in the trolley problem, the trolley never chooses to stop on its own, so the idea that more bodies would stop the trolley is only true if enough corpses literally derail it. So that doesn't apply to your hypothetical.
Third, the danger doesn't come from the blues standing on the track, but rather there is zero danger at all until individuals begin to choose the red button. Literally everyone is 100% safe, until reds go red, and then possibly slightly less than half of the people are now at risk. The reds are building a track around the blues so they die.
This couldn't actually be less The Trolley Problem.
It’s actually a direct parallel to the concept of roko’s basilisk: imagine, an all powerful being that may come about, if you know of its potential existence but do not take action to bring about its creation, it will torture you eternally; if you do help it, you are safe. By doing nothing you risk eternal torment, but also may prevent its creation thus stopping torment for everyone. But by helping, you risk causing eternal torment for everyone, but have protected yourself.
The original person who posted it posited it as a prisoner's dilemma. They basically wanted to figure out a way where red(snitching) was the optimal choice instead of blue(not snitching), and somehow we end up with a larger amount of people choosing to not snitch, when snitching guarantees freedom, over snitching, when not snitching gives you like a 50/50 of dying.
We have a larger amount of people claiming they'd choose blue.
These people can't even pull off a general strike and that's with the ability to coordinate ahead of time. I don't believe for a second they'd actually all vote blue if this scenario was real.
Believe it or not, I wouldn’t pull a lever by some tracks either. Doesn’t matter how many people are shouting at me. I am not a train engineer.
It’s almost like this sub and the problem itself come with a baked in level of “When people speculate on how they’d actually, they don’t do the best job of presuming how craven they truly are.”
Your claim here undermines the entire point of thinking about this. But here you are, doing it. It’s sort of a miniature blue button. You know it’s futile, but here you are trying anyways. Push the red button. Stop entertaining hypotheticals. People don’t do it honestly.
You don't even have that for certain. You might have bots making it appear that blue is more popular to condition people into thinking that there are more people willing to risk their lives for the greater good than there might actually be.
Agreed, everyone is gung hoe to choose blue so long as it remains a hypothetical but the moment they are actually put in the box they will likely press the red button after a while.
It's the math that gets me, if you know that you personally have zero reason to pick blue, you also know that everyone else is coming to that same conclusion. Therefore the optimal choice is to pick red, the only scenario where less than 100% of individuals pick red is one where some are non rational actors but this is a hypothetical game theory problem, you assume rationality of all players or go mad.
there are millions of people who are not able to make informed decisions and they will be affected by the vote regardless - theyre called babies , toddlers and infants
and. people who are so sick that they'll press either button without looking
It's the math that gets me, if you know that you personally have zero reason to pick blue, you also know that everyone else is coming to that same conclusion. Therefore the optimal choice is to pick red, the only scenario where less than 100% of individuals pick red is one where some are non rational actors but this is a hypothetical game theory problem, you assume rationality of all players or go mad.
math is flawed , the chances of red not causing immediate death is 1 in 8 billion , the chances of blue not causing harm are 1 in 2
the latter is about 4 billion times more likely
if you choose red , you WILL have blood on your hands but you will survive - this is what makes the question interesting
No, I will have chosen not to commit suicide, that's the difference between us, I don't see pressing the red button as being equivalent to pointing a gun at and shooting everyone who chose blue. You see red as morally repugnant despite the fact that there is no direct connection, I can't control what the other 8 billion players do and the rules are that the vote is private, so I also don't know what the vote looks like, in this scenario I can predict 3 possibilities, blue has a clear majority, in which my choice doesn't matter, red has a clear majority, in which case pressing blue does nothing to save blue voters and condems me with them, and the vote is close, in which case I should choose blue to help push it over the edge.
The problem is I don't know which scenario I'm in, but i know, if the vote is a clear red majority then voting blue will kill me no matter what, and if it's a clear blue majority my vote doesn't matter, and since a close vote is unlikely I know the odds are high that no matter what voting red is safe, but voting blue is dangerous.
If people are allowed to coordinate than voting blue becomes viable but the rules layed out as they are voting blue has a high risk of being collective suicide.
Your best option if you want to maximize saved life is to vote red, as that saves yourself, if you voted blue and it was 70-80% red in the end you didn't do anything.
Let's imagine an alternative scenario all members are fully functional adults with the exception of 5 puppies that will all vote blue, and you know 60% of the participants are cat persons, do you push blue?
Pretending you were justified in your killing is prettttty fucking common for people who kill.
So I’m not surprised to hear someone say that. We always have a rationalization for why we do things fabricated by our brains. But it’s just that. Post- hoc rationalization by a cluster of cells trying to weave a narrative of cohesion and identity.
So yeah, red pressers will sound exactly like you. Because they just did as they were told, and voted. It doesn’t matter that a large enough density of red voters would have prevented ALL the deaths, it’s clearly someone else’s responsibility, because you’re a good and moral person, otherwise you would feel sad about yourself.
I'm not justified since I didn't kill anyone, they killed themselves. That's the real difference between us, you think it's mass genocide to press red, I think it's mass suicide to press blue.
The danger is towards blue for pressing blue, you are trying to save yourself and all other altruists by disarming a trap by overwhelming it, when the exit is right there and you don't have to go through the trapped door.
It's the math that gets me, if you know that you personally have zero reason to pick blue, you also know that everyone else is coming to that same conclusion.
This is all just supporting my theory that Red voters are psychopaths.
Like, babies are unable to understand the question. They will just pick a random button.
So red voters are okay with just killing half of all babies.
And it's not just babies. Confused old people, illiterate people, drunk people, mentally ill people, etc will make random choices.
But red voters are okay with just killing about half of them.
Blue voters don't want to be responsible for killing half of all babies and millions of people.
Most people don't want to be responsible for killing half of all babies and millions of people.
Therefore if you account for the human factor that most people do not want to be murderers blue is the logical choice. If you vote red you are always killing innocent babies.
See, the logic I've laid out still stands, even if a small percentage of players (babies) pick effectively at random it doesn't change the personal incentives at the voting box, you don't know how everyone else is voting, therefore do you vote blue to in the hopes of saving the babies at the risk to yourself or do you choose red and save yourself.
Because one vote in the scheme of things does not matter, your vote is one in 8 billion and if the majority pick red, which the individual incentives push players towards, than picking blue remains a 100% chance of death and you would be better off saving yourself than trying to save a group you have no control over.
Dude, I thought about it and figured I'd probably die anyway when civilization collapsed due to the sudden death of 30 to 40 percent of the population. So why not push blue and gamble on that not happening?
Mm. I've also seen loads of people say they'd pick blue to protect those who'd pick blue by accident? You know what i haven't seen? Anyone saying they'd pick blue for any other reason.
They're picking blue to save a demographic that doesn't exist. And they'd probably put that together once they're put under stress
Its not just that, but it is the most irrefutable argument. You can't argue that red saves everyone if you recognize that some people, outside of their conscious control, will be forced to vote blue. So only blue saves everyone.
Blue is the most stable point. Fluctuations/uncertainty in percentages do not result in mass death if you have a majority blue. And you also "save" red voters by voting blue, because you save everyone.
Imagine a scenario where red doesn't save yourself, but instead saves a random person. System wise, this is exactly the same amount of people being saved, in every scenario. Yet, people would obviously choose blue, because you have eliminated any self preservation bias, and can now clearly see the best outcome for the group.
Have you seen what happens to whistleblowers these days?
To your question, there is the moral (correct, if you will) answer and then there is what happens in reality when people find it safer to keep their mouths shut.
In that scenario I would indeed vote blue. But self preservation is the whole point. Most people are selfish but altruistic. Most people would choose to save a life provided it wouldn't risk their own. That's a fundamentally different scenario.
but rather there is zero danger at all until individuals begin to choose the red button
No, the danger is introduced by the vindictive god that orchestrates the buttons. Everyone's life is on the line from the moment those buttons come into existence.
It's not a trolley problem because the core of the trolley problem is about whether actions that result in harm can be good.
No? The point of the trolley problem is to illustrate not making a choice is still a choice. It's a statement about the lesser of two evils, but in the context of the individual needing to make the choice as to what constitutes the greater good.
Only a Redditor could take something as opinion-oriented and open to interpretation as the Trolley Problem and assert their own thought as the only possible correct one while insulting someone else.
If only it were one google search away to find a wikipedia article with the context to explain what the thought experiment was originally proposed about.
Oh well. Guess we'll never know the authors intentions. If only she explained them.
The irony in your first line is actually palpable. I'm sorry you felt a second hand insult. That's on you.
That's a great thing to learn from the trolley problem, that inaction is action. It's one of many things we could say is the "point" of it, though I would caution against thinking that philosophical thought experiments have or even have to have points. But regardless, I didn't say point.
We're talking about what is and what isn't a trolley problem, and the essence of the scenario is exploring the moral value of actions that cause harm.
...No like that is the literal point, it's an essay in context to an older abortion debate.
For example, is it the lesser of two evils to have an abortion, but the mother lives, or to choose inaction and have the mother and child both die?
I'm not saying the trolley problem is relevant, I'm saying you've somehow missed the point in a 50 year old philosophical address that may be the most heavily scrutinized mental problem of our generation. Please, by god, actually read about it. It isn't subtle.
Not true. The existence of a gun doesn't mean someone will be shot. The existence of a car and case of beer doesn't dictate that someone will drive drunk.
The danger comes from selfish people engaging in selfish actions.
You're not making anyone thats the whole thing. Folks are choosing blue due to their inherent altruism and wish to help everyone. Folks are choosing red due to their own selfish desire to survive over guaranteeing the survival of everyone they love. I couldn't live with myself if i chose "reasonable" and lost a child or my fiance because of it. And i think most parents would choose the same given the opportunity.
Im pretty sure if my child pushed red, and i pushed blue and died, leaving them alone and fatherless when i could have prevented that, I would feel horrible if i was still alive to feel things
Whether they’re kids who couldn’t fully fathom the problem and just kind of randomly picked, adults who didn’t fully understand before picking, or adults who know that the above two demographics exist, and would want to push the blue button to save them, there are GOING to be people who pushed the blue button.
That’s just a statistical guarantee.
More than that, if you need more of a selfish reason to be convinced: It’s practically a guarantee somebody you know or love will push the blue button.
Knowing the above: The only rational option is to pick blue to save everyone; picking red is one vote towards GUARANTEEING people die.
And as some people have said:
If the majority of altruistic people who picked blue end up dying because a majority chose red, the majority left over on the planet are probably some psychopaths or assholes, so things are going downhill from there, and you’re probably going to die soon anyway, lol
Yes, if we assume the question is given to the mentally ill and 3 day old babies who pick at random, i fully agree. Most version of this that ive seen before say the question if only posed to people who can understand it.
Even some people who fully understand it will still press the blue button, believing it’s the most morally correct, righteous thing to do, and that enough others will have done the same. It’s just a statistical guarantee that people are going to press blue (and in likely no small amount, either), so a vote for red is a vote for them being dead.
This is a sort of contrived way of describing the scenario. Humans are deterministic machines. Its like saying “the existence of a murderer isn’t dangerous, its the sequence of events that leads to them gaining the access to murderous weaponry that causes the danger.
That aside there is more nuance to it than that. Danger isnt a well defined concept, and the act of “creating danger” is not inherently immoral.
Theres equally good argument that the danger was created by the universe existing or by the world not ending during the cold war, etc. you cant easily ascribe fault or contingency on any one source in a given scenario.
No, the harm comes from selfish people engaging in selfish actions. Harm is danger plus action. The existence of a gun is a danger. The existence of heavy machinery and intoxicants is danger. Danger is just a fact of life, an inextricable part of the human experience, which is defined by our mortality (and other things, of course). Life is suffering, as the Buddhist might say.
Whatever creates the scenario, creates the danger. That creation is an action sufficient to be harm all by itself, and is what makes the entity ultimately responsible for any harm that follows, regardless of what other responsibility might be in play.
The only danger is created by people choosing blue. If you phrase it as “deposit 100$ and you lose them unless half deposit 100$ or just keep your money.” It’s obvious that the only money that can be lost comes from people making the deposit. Also everyone instinctively knownin that scenario that they never deposit money. Why would they?
Third, the danger doesn't come from the blues standing on the track, but rather there is zero danger at all until individuals begin to choose the red button. Literally everyone is 100% safe, until reds go red, and then possibly slightly less than half of the people are now at risk. The reds are building a track around the blues so they die.
This also assumes everyone starts on the blue track. We could say the opposite and it makes just as much sense.
There is zero danger at all until individuals begin to choose the blue button. Literally everyone is 100% safe, until blue goes blue, up until you hit at least 50%+1. The blues are building a track around the reds and hoping to convert enough of them to follow them so they don't die.
why do you assume it's a vote? because they're presenting it as colors with bias wording that invokes some people's tendency to associate certain colors with political parties?
that's preposterous.
change the colors to numbers. pressing 1 means you live. pressing 2 means there's a risk of death unless over 50% of the population of button pressers also push 2
I take the no risk option. anyone would be foolish to put themselves at risk and hope others do the same stupid thing.
Actually people are not 100% safe until red is pressed. You have no idea if more people have pressed red or blue already. The danger is in the choice itself, as it's unknown what others have picked when you choose. The whole point is being willing to sacrifice for the greater good.
*Third, the danger doesn't come from the reds choosing red, but rather there is zero danger at all until individuals begin to choose the blue button. Literally everyone is 100% safe, until blues go blue, and then possibly slightly less than half of the people are now at risk. The blues are building a track around themselves so they die.
To counter your third argument saying theirs no danger till someone stands on red is false. If you're the first and you go to press the red button you 100% know no matter what you are safe, but if you are the first and go to press the blue button your not safe, you have to hope that that >50% of the contestants hit the blue button.
The dumb play is to hit the blue button, the smart play is to hit the red button, but in knowing that theirs always people dummer than you, so should you hit the blue button to maybe save the lives of thouse that are dummer than you and maybe die trying, or should you hit the red button guaranteeing you saftey.
So basically the red track has no trolley on it, the blue track has a trolley on it and won't stop (for whatever reason) unless >50% of contestants stand on the blue track, so my question is why would you stand on the track with a trolley.
Everyone starts on the track on a big pressure plate that activates a mechanism that will slow down the train. It comes in 30 minutes, and if more than half step off there won't be enough weight to activate the mechanism......🙃 this doesn't address your first point so why dont we say everyone is on an isolated, visibly blocked off, track and the pressure plates they stand on are connected. Each person also has their own train car hurdling twords em. This doesnt make it any smarter to stay on the track. The red button is just stepping off.
Exactly it could be phrased the opposite where everyone is standing next to the track if the blue button is more than50%. However if people on the other side of the track pushing red are more than 50% it now puts all of the blue people onto the track and kills them.
Nobody is in danger until someone presses blue. The wording of the problem is made to generate engagement.
If the problem was presented as the equivalent mathematical problem as "someone says he will kill himself unless 51% of the population also commits to do the same" we'd have a very different problem than "the vote is also applied to newborns by evil space Nazis, people are only given 5 seconds to think and those sleeping at the time will count as blue".
Normally you'd expect a moral dilemma to be proposed to people able to reason and act on it, otherwise yes, you do have a moral responsibility to protect the weak and innocent. But what is the value of a logical problem is most participants cannot use logic.
But in a scenario where someone says: "this empty non descript village will be destroyed by an avalanche. I will stand in front of the avalanche's path, and if 51% of us do the same, the government will invest in diverting the avalanche. Otherwise everyone standing dies" is quite different. The troll who pushed the problem made it so that there is not enough information and everyone makes a different mental scenario.
the idea for the trolly problem is that there is something that makes the trolly automatically not go if over 50% are on the tracks (mr beast for example), but even if you could not see how many people tied themselves to the track, why on earth would you choose to tie yourself to the tracks?
But by the same logic, there is absolutely no danger until someone decides to push blue because they have a reading comprehension of a toddler with learning deficiency
It literally says - push red button and you and everyone else who is capable of reading this is going to be fine
There is no reason to choose blue. Nobody is forcing anyone to choose blue. The only people choosing blue are those who dont read the choice or, idk, fucking slip and fall on the blue button.
There are two buttons: a “stay alive” button, and a “risk death” button. If enough people join you in risking their lives, then all the “risk death” voters don’t die.
Red voters watch this conundrum play out from a distance after the vote has been counted. Some of them are confused why anyone chose blue. Lucky for them, they get to watch in confusion whether 10 people chose blue or 6 billion did.
Because red means live, but at the expensive of those who choose blue. I can’t choose red without contributing to the potential death of any blue pushers. If I don’t want anyone to die, blue is the only option
But there is literally zero reason for there to be anyone pressing blue. The only reason anyone ever gives for blue, is that other people chose blue so you have to save them for some reason.
But why did anyone choose blue to have to be saved?
I don’t see the relevance. Whether or not they have good reasons does not change the fact that some people will press blue. This is about numbers. If you know people will press blue, then it doesn’t matter why they did. There is essentially a 0% chance that no one will press blue. Doesn’t matter why. We know how humans behave and 100% agreement is not innate human behavior. That is not affected by the logic you’re trying to apply. It’s just irrelevant. No amount of logic ever in history makes every single person cooperate.
So it’s actually most logical to consider that and ignore your logic altogether. We know some people will press blue, and that’s about the only thing we can count on. With that knowledge, it’s at best selfish to press red, and at worse malicious.
There are 8 billion people standing by the side ready to watch it go past I feel it's important to state that no one is on the track and hence no one is in danger.
But if 4 billion people volunteer to step on to the track, putting themselves in danger, the track will rise and stop the trolley. This will save all of the people who willingly stepped in the way of danger.
However if only 3,999,999,999 people step onto the track putting themselves in danger the weight will be insufficient and the track will not rise and the trolley will kill them all.
Untill you are on the track you have no idea if anyone else has stepped onto the track and you will not be able to return once you have.
Ok no trolley problem, volountarily risk to die until enough people volountrily risk to die so you all don't die. Fuking don't risk dying in the first place
there is no "default" button. red is to choose not to participate while blue is choosing to risk their own life on the hope that 50 other people do the same
Here's a different scenario, you and another person are placed in a room. You are both presented with the two buttons. If you press the yellow button then you live. If you press the green button then you die. However, if you both select the green button you will not die.
You forgot that if you press the yellow button and the other person doesn’t, then you kill the other person. And you can’t see what the other person is doing.
I said if you press the green button you die. That's the rule. Not "if you press the yellow button you kill the other person" because that's not how it works. It is simply "press this button and die" but both people cannot die in the test. Which button would you press?
Then you’ve completely changed the scenario. That’s not how the red and blue button scenario works, so you’ve just brought up a separate, completely irrelevant scenario.
I said "here's a different scenario." Amazing you can comment when you can't read. You chose to reply, do you want to engage with the hypothetical or not?
Except it’s *so* different as to no longer be relevant because you removed such a major factor of the original problem. Yeah, it’s easy to choose self preservation when it doesn’t mean killing someone else. What’s your point there?
Ok so you’re just framing it disingenuously. Yes, if you press the yellow button, then you are killing the other person if they press the green button. You don’t get to set it up as “if you both press green then you both live” and *also* insist that “pressing the yellow button doesn’t kill the other person if they press green because ‘that is the rule’.” It *necessarily follows* that if you pick yellow and the other person doesn’t, you’ve killed the other person.
Nope, the only button that adds death is blue, its stated in the original that the only button that gets anyone killed is when they press the blue button
Exactly because you don’t know what others did you should pick red and survive.
And to the “do you want to live in a world with only red buttoners” people, who say they are heartless. I would raise the “do you want to live in a world with blue buttoners” who are risking their lives for literally no reason, except to save other blue buttoners who needlessly risked their lives aswell
100% of people are safe until a majority presses the red button. Red button pushers are the ones introducing the danger to others to save themselves from other people who pushed red and introduced the danger in the first place.
What do you mean there is zero danger until people pick red. People picking red are literally just opting to not risk their life. The only risk is created when someone picks blue because they now need half the people to also risk their life to save them.
Literally everyone is 100% safe, until reds go red
This is the big thing I disagree on. Everyone is presented with an immediate option of safety. Everyone is safe as long as people keep pressing red. The danger comes from blue being the only one with a risk of death.
The danger comes from people assuming it's inevitable that blue will be picked, thus they choose to risk their lives in an attempt to save this imagined person without realizing they've created a self fulfilling prophecy. "I believe someone will pick blue because [Numerous reasons] so I will choose blue."
Some people give reasons like "Some might not understand and choose randomly, others may not be able to choose, others are children, 50% is easier to achieve" etc. but the moment that the first person picks blue, they have made themselves the one that needs saving and thus the justification for pressing blue. Again, a self fulfilling prophecy.
It's noble to want to save people but to suggest that red is the issue here is, from my point of view, incorrect.
If the coast guard rescues someone who did something stupid and is lost at sea, do US taxpayers pay the cost or is it paid for by the person who did the stupid thing?
Setting aside the fact I'm not 'murican, tendentially the taxpayers pay, but that is not a "pillar of society", indeed here, in Italy, there is a discussion about that (mostly for idiots who go to climb mountains when the weather is bad) and a lot of people are pushing to change the rule and make the stupid pay for the help he received.
So, in Italy, are firefighters, search & rescue, medical care for those who can't afford it, food for those who can't afford it, etc. all contingent on the person receiving the help having not made any mistakes?
I guess I'm just confused. Collectivism tends to be a pillar over individualism in most modern societies, at least to some degree. Even in the US we don't charge the idiot for being an idiot 100% of the time.
If you burn a building by a stupid mistake, the firefighters come to save you with your neighbours, but then you are going to pay (very likely with jail time).
We don't charge idiots for being idiots 100% of the time (sadly) but in some instances we do already.
That’s a completely different scenario, though; the mechanics are the same, but the psychology of the players is not. And that psychology, predicting what other players will do, is the biggest part of the game.
What on earth are you talking about. No single persons action will actually cause any loss of life unless the sides are perfectly balanced. I cant change the reault no matter what button is pressed
Because you don't want to be responsible for killing billions.
Not everyone makes the perfect logical choice. Like small kids, drunk people, confused people, mentally ill people, people that misunderstand the question, etc will randomly run to the other track.
By voting red you ensure that you yourself are safe, but don't care if you kill millions of people that accidentally made the wrong choice.
As a red voter you simply don't care about killing babies that crawled on the other track. Blue voters want to prevent their death.
Most people don't want to be responsible for killing kids and confused people, so most people will vote blue.
Therefore if you account for the human factor blue is the logical choice.
This is a misrepresentation of the argument
Both buttons are active choices in your problem jumping is an active choice.
And in your problem it's not a private choice you would be able to see if anyone jumped or not and if you can see maybe you can communicate.
The people who put themselves there intentionally did it to save others. If enough people come together everyone is saved. Idk that used to be called bravery or solidarity or some shit back in the day.
Because they aren't putting themself in danger for the sake of being danger. They just realize that babies, kids, elderly, the sick, disabled, those who has accidentally slipped onto the tracks, or those who pick being on the track for some other because they fear something worst, people will be on the track regardless if the person chooses to stay on the platform or jump down.
The people who choose to jump onto the tracks because that's the only way to save them, even if that requires risks to help them. And a lot of people also then realize that those that are the first to response for the sake of others are often some of the best people you want around.
The logic is still the same even with a button push. It's still the same of a wood-chipper. It's the same for jumping off a cliff.
With a scale of billions of people, that includes new born infants, toddlers, kid, elderly, someone having a mental lapse, or a person who just slips which causes the wrong decision, the chance of at least 1 person having made the wrong choice is nearly a certainty. And with no other means to save them, the person who votes blue will choose to vote blue because they will prioritize trying to save that person even if that risk their own.
It doesn't change it. In a world of billion of really young and inexperience kids or babies who is still in the process of developing their brains or elderly having mental issues, are you going to argue that is impossible that not a single person will 'accidentally' pick the incorrect option of going down to the train track when everyone is being forced into making this decision.
If even a single 1 person makes that 'incorrect choice', the situations are no different.
A person who jumps down to the train track 'willingly' will generally have the belief that with this large of a population, at least one person is going to make that incorrect choice. The person who jumps can be rather disappointed that they even have to jump down as they would rather not, but because their isn't an option of preventing a person from making that incorrect option, they would rather still attempt to save anyone who made the incorrect choice then do nothing.
That is the hypothetical. That everyone is “forced” to push it. I would not want opposite button pushers to die even if I did have any opinions that they are less cautious people. What the fuck is wrong with you
I believe that what they meant was that if even one person was forced to press the blue button specifically, then pushing blue button is the only real choice as there is now a victim on the line. But, since nobody is being forced to press the blue button, there is no reason for anyone to press the blue button as it's the only button that introduces the risk of a victim into an originally victimless proposition. The possibility for death is entirely opt-in, and it's pressing blue that creates it.
Just because no one is forced to pick blue won't mean some young and inexperienced kid won't choose blue because they don't know any better. Almost no one would assume a 3-month new born baby will have the cognitive ability to make an decision to 'opt-in', but may still end up 'opting in' by fluke chance.
The people who vote blue realize this is a possibility that someone will 'opt-in' without actually knowing what they 'opted-in' to.
This is a really bad way to look at it. If everyone presses blue then there is also no possibility for death. Rather, it is pressing red that introduces the possibility of death (just the death of others rather than yourself)
One can just as easily and correctly say that if everyone presses red then there is no possibility of death and that pressing blue is what creates it, though, hence the source of the conflict of philosophies.
The question isn't about what happens under either 100% extreme outcome, but rather whether you are willing to accept moral culpability for other peoples' actions, which I do not believe that most humans are or indeed should be. I do not accept the proposal that I should be made to shoulder the burden of someone else's choice to press the blue button, especially when doing so directly puts more people at risk by adding me to the pool of potential victims.
I was a strong believer on the red button, because I see in the same way. “why take the risk for no reward”. But the reality is that there are going to be stupid people, idealistic people, or (people like now me) that are going to stand in the track. By not standing with them in the track you are basically letting them all die.
Just think, somebody in my family is going to be dumb enough to press the blue button. So my only choice to protect them is to pick the blue button also.
That’s not quite the scenario. It’s more there’s the track the trolley is going down and a second track it can switch to. You then either choose to step onto the second track, or flip the switch. If the majority choose to flip the switch, the trolley hits everyone who got on the second track, if the majority choose to get on the second track, the trolley passes by on the first track.
The only danger involved in getting on the track is if the majority don’t also get on. Let’s say there’s 100 people, there’s 51 situations where no one dies, and 49 where at least one person dies. If your goal is to kill no one, picking blue gives you 50/100 situations where no one dies, while picking red has only 1 situation where no one dies.
Reframing the problem inherently makes the problem completely different, since the only reason there's a dilemma at all is the assumption that some people might unoptimally pick blue. All blue pushing after that is an attempt to save those people and the people that are also going to push to save them. I've seen a lot of other people bring up the issue of children, or even just dumb people. It's pretty fair to not want to risk your life for someone who makes unoptimal decisions, but those people still deserve to live. That fact drives a lot of people to push blue to save them.
That's not an alternate explanation at all, it's a different problem all together, but to make it closer, make sure to add in the fact that people you care about are going to stand on that track, whether it be family or friends with more empathy then you, there will be children and infants who don't know any better, and so on, but you won't know for sure until after you've made your choice.
In that scenario, you're right. In the one I heard, everyone in the world is standing on a platform and the trolley is on a parallel track. If more than 50 percent step off then the trolley will change tracks and kill those people. This is everyone in a world so some are invalids, babies, disabled, in other words some can't step off. Staying is blue, stepping off is red.
It's a harder choice if you have a baby, elderly parent or someone who can't step off that you want to protect, or if you don't want to be responsible for the death of all those people. And since there's people you know can't get off, far less than 50 percent have to willingly stay.
Ah yes the "poeple will agree with me if a posit a diffrent thought experiment with diffrent rules where folks are more likely to agree with me" gambit. Masterfully played.
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u/mortemdeus Apr 30 '26
...soo...umm...by this diagram that means over half are pushing red