even if it's technically your fault the 5 people died, you'll get more hate from the media for switching than you would for just pretending you couldn't do anything. plus, i don't really feel like 5 people are more valuable than one person. is a school shooting ok just because at least it's not a war?
or how about this - take a manga where the protag will keep everybody alive because they are young and bright eyed and murder is bad, or a protag who will kill the villain to prevent future deaths. there are different opinions on that too, but it's a similar question imo. being active saves more, while being passive saves your conscience but lets strangers die. hey, make that the next poll.

Ah, hate questions like these where you do not have the full information and the choices are no choices at all.

It would make the answer change depending on so many things - do you know the tied up people, how did they get tied up there, is there truly no way to stop the trolley, how did you even end up there and so forth.

And making it even worse is the fact that both choices are equally bad - doing nothing and killing 5 people or doing something and saving 5, but actively choosing to kill 1.
That is not a choice, merely picking the lesser evil, so to say.

Oh, well, since it's presented as seemingly must pick one or the other with both choices having equally unknown people - of course I'd pick killing 1 instead of 5.
Still cruel and not right, but 1 instead of 5 is better in this case.
That poor 1 dude/dudette 😕

But let's imagine that the adrenaline gives me super strength and while the trolley goes for the 1 person I jump off the trolley, run to the person, untie him/her and voila - nobody dies 😛 😁
'cuz untying 1 person is a way better chance than untying 5, ya know? 😉

Last edited by Rouzmary at 4:44 pm, Nov 8 2020

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One could say that one was too shocked/afraid to act, or stuck in a quandary as to what to do (until it was too late) or something like that, which could easily happen, so naturally you wouldn't get any hate (and due to those possibilities, you shouldn't be punished for your inaction) …unless you admit that you chose not to act.

WTF?

No, but how is that relevant?
A school shooting isn't as bad, certainly …but you'd never be in a situation where you could allow one to happen, because it would prevent a war from happening.

The former is idealistic and naive. Great if you can pull it off (and one should certainly try to do so, if and when possible) …but you can't always do so. Not unless you're an omnipotent god.
(I quite like how Break Blade illustrated this, quite clearly. In chapters 8-11, to be precise)

As for killing a villain for future deaths…
Are we talking immediate future? Like, say, if he is about to kill someone? (having a gun to their head, or in the process of moving the gun there …or swinging their sword towards them. Something like that) Or they have a set and decided plan to kill a bunch of people, that they are going to implement/finish, unless you stop them?
If so, it's kinda like the trolley "dilemma", only much simpler: Of course you should kill him/her! (unless you have a safe and guaranteed way to stop him/her, without killing. You don't want to gamble with the life of the potential victim)

If it's to stop the deaths that (s)he will no doubt cause, because they are the kind of villain they are…
Yeah, that'd be more of a debatable thing.

That is pretty much what this poll is. (though, actually, you still have lives on your conscience, if you chose to let strangers die, because of your inaction… Not weighing as hard on your conscience, as it is harder [both in the moment, and later], psychologically, to kill someone by your action, than your inaction)

Yes, well: That's life.

@hahhah42: How could the predictor always predict correctly? That's unrealistic.

There's enough doubt about the opaque box that even knowing there could be five people in it, I would still continue on to it. At least in that scenario, there would be a slight chance that the predictor would have predicted wrong, and there would be no people in the box. If there's even a 1% chance of having nobody die, I'd take it.

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Maybe it read the post you just made. But if you insist on realistic quandaries in your trolley problems, then I guess this one will have to do.

A bunch of strangers: kill one to save the few.

Someone I know: sorry peoples, y'all gonna die for my bestie/family/someone I'm in love with even if they don't know I exist.

Group of people I know: it depends, do I like this group of people?

Group of people I know + that one asshole I can't stand: hmm....

Group of people I don't know + that one asshole I hate: well...

i would choose to stay right killing multiple people but i could also go left killing one person, i could either kill 1 person or multiple people either way i would be killing someone, whether its 1 or 1 million if i’m killing random people i could not care less about circumstances it could go either way

Reminds me of this from awhile back: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/106 😂

This.

Fair answer, but if you're able to recognize the people you're about to hit, then you're not going at a speed that's gonna kill them lol.

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The early bird may have caught the early worm, but the late worm survived!!

Not my choice, really. I don't know how to steer a trolley.

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The early bird may have caught the early worm, but the late worm survived!!

The question isn't "What do we do?", but rather "How did we get here?". Sometimes you have to step back and realise that the system itself is broken. It's so broken in fact that it has shrunk your problem-solving space from a huge "I have all the tools, resources and time necessary to fix the problem" to "I have only two decisions to make right now, and both are horrible".

The best solution is to prevent the situation from ever occurring in the first place.

For example, why is there a runaway trolley?
It shouldn't be underway. Who forgot to lock it down, or forgot to secure the keys to the train?
Was there any maintenance on the brakes or the controls or the fail-safe mechanisms? Wait, you're telling me that they don't exist?
Why are there people tied down onto the tracks--did law and order break down? Did common decency break down? Are the tracks monitored for criminal activity?
Who designed such a faulty railway system anyway, and approved and built it to this specification? Who taught and qualified them, and why did they hire them?
Why are you on the trolley anyway, and what have you been doing up until this moment to get here? Did you see it coming? And if you did, could you have done anything to prevent this situation from happening in the first place?

This problem gets illustrated in stories from time to time in different forms, like saving one special child at the cost of a hundred other innocent lives, but such stories never really address how it got to that moment and how to actually prevent it. Otherwise there'd be no story.

God help you if you ever find yourself in that situation though, because it's never pretty.

Last edited by Erazen at 5:11 am, Nov 11 2020

Considering I don't know any of them, I'd do nothing. Life and death aren't just a matter of numbers, you know. Also, letting someone die - or even a group of people - is not the same as actively causing someone's death, even if the problem kinda muddles these concepts.

I believe this problem is only an adequate measure of someone's morality if there's some kind of information about the people on the track.
For example, considering you'd choose to move the trolley: What if one of the 5 people on the right track were a horrible criminal, say, a rapist or a serial killer?
Or if you wouldn't move it: What if the 5 people were children?

These kinds of twists make it much more interesting IMO.
(I'd choose not to move it in either case btw).

I feel like I read this story before. You choose to sacrifice the 1 for the many, then it turns out, the 1 person you chose to sacrifice was your (insert family member/best friend/partner here).

DUN DUN DUUUUN!!!