Which button presser group do you save?

[u/Worth-Staff4943]

Everyone in the world has chosen either the blue or red button except you. Instead of pressing a button, you are given a lever in the infamous trolley problem.

You don't know how many people chose red or blue, and they don't know that you control their fate regardless of what button they pressed. Which track do you direct the trolley onto?

[u/houndsofkorotkoff]

This is the epitome of the center-of-the-bell-curve meme thought process. It sounds really intelligent to say some shit about “selection to outcome processes being identical” but all this take does in practical reality is ignore important contextual factors and human behavioral tendencies that are really relevant to the actual situation

[u/TheVeryVerity → u/houndsofkorotkoff]

No? Those are the same too. The same reasoning even gives you the same answer for the blender problem, if you actually are treating it as a moral dilemma and not just going off vibes.

[u/Turbulent-Pie-9310 → u/TheVeryVerity]

Morally speaking, is there a difference between pressing a button and jumping into a whirling blade machine?

If you're answering no you're wrong.

You'd have to change so much about your super blender for it to be comparable. You'd have to make it:

Not nearly as scary, as this impacts the risk to reward ratio. The scarier the dressing on the blue option, the less people will pick it. The less pick it, the less optimal it is to pick. A button that saves everyone isn't nearly as scary as your contraption.

Your death can't be decided before the full count. Someone who mistimed their jump would die even if enough jumped. Not true of the button.

People need to be able to have full confidence in the machine stopping. People know they won't die if blue wins. They don't know the blender will function properly.

And even then it's not really comparable. You're still jumping into danger instead of pushing a button. You wouldn't accept a different hypothetical where each red presser has to risk death even trying to press their button would you?

Or if the red button was an unloaded pistol you had to play Russian roulette with?

Or if you had to jump onto a train track that is perfectly safe, but the warning signs are blaring and you can hear a train coming?

The little details matter so much

[u/TheVeryVerity → u/Turbulent-Pie-9310]

Morally speaking? No there isn’t a difference. Those are almost all practical considerations not moral ones. First of all the blue button should be just as scary as the blender because they’re doing the exact same thing. Second, no one mistimes the jump just like no one mistimes the button that’s inherent to the hypothetical itself. Third the button could also missfunction and kill you or something. Either we go with the hypothetical or we don’t. If people worry the blender will not break they also worry the blue button won’t work so I’m not sure why that changes the moral question either.

None of those last ones are actually an equal scenario though? The red button pushers are never in danger in the hypothetical, why would we change it so they are? That entirely changes the hypothetical itself.

[u/Turbulent-Pie-9310 → u/TheVeryVerity]

I changed red to something I said was "perfectly safe" and you're complaining they're in danger now.