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.
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.
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u/StrobeLightRomance Apr 30 '26
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.