The lever is powered by AI
That comic isn’t the trolly problem though. For it to be a problem you need to give a shit about both tracks. This is just an image of the real world. :(
For it to be a problem you need to give a shit about both tracks.
For it to be the trolley problem, you have to make a value judgement between action (hitting the lever) and inaction (letting the trolley roll past).
The original conceit of the problem (trolley hits five people or you move the switch and it hits one person) is about the culpability inherent in personal agency. Mathematically killing one person is better than killing five people. But by switching the trolley, the singular death becomes your fault rather than just some event that’s happening beyond your control.
This is the real moral dilemma. All the iterations on the trolley problem - questioning which track has a higher value/need - are a divergence from the original psychological problem of assuming culpability for an existing problem by altering it.
Something I never got about the “tied up on train tracks” trope is that the victim is never tied to anything. Can’t they just wiggle out of the way?
I always thought they were tied *to* the tracks
How would you even do that? Train tracks are typically flat against the ground. If you can find a picture of a person being depicted as tied to traditional tracks rather than just being tied up and laying on the tracks, I’d like to see it. I didn’t find one from a quick search.
You know you’ve got a point…
I’m very good at wiggling
It’s to the wooden whatchamacallits orthogonal to the rails
Ties. Those are called railroad ties.
The ones flat against the ground that have been packed down by trains driving over them? I don’t think you can usually get under those.
Because for the pacing of the scene, “wrapped with ropes” is movie shorthand for “immobilized.” Most of the time, most of the audience doesn’t really care about the details of the knots.
I think it’s also because tying someone up that way is wildly impractical. The fact that nobody wants to show it the proper way is evidence of that.
A bit more practical would be looping the rope under the track itself between the ties; especially if you found a viaduct or something where there is no ballast you could just loop the rope right under.
No, they’re attached to sleepers, and the whole lot sits on a bed of ballast (stones). You could easily move some stones aside and thread the rope through the gap.
Even if that’s so, people are never shown tied up that way. They’re always just laid onto the tracks.
You don’t see all the rope so there could be a loop around the line behind them.
Honestly, I usually saw this alongside Wile E. Coyote style antics performed by someone literally twirling a mustache, so I was never looking for consistency!
And less charitably, the character tied rarely seemed to do more than protest delicately even when she wasn’t tied…
Accurate
except the trolley takes 75ish years to kill you.
The lever be slackin. Let’s get this over and done with
That’s ok, guy at the lever and the rest of his buddies are working to accelerate that process
If you’re lucky! Many die young from the prioritization of profit over public safety.
Not really.
Not if we get rid of regulations and vaccines.
Not always. How many people died digging the Panama canal, or building the Hoover dam? How many ships just fucking sink with all hands each year because the company doesn’t give the first two half-flaccid thrusts of an obligatory marital fuck about safety?
have you considered poetry? this was beautiful and picturesque
This is a depiction of John Rawl’s “Veil of Ignorance” concept. Where to properly considered whether a society is just, you must consider that may be placed in any part of it.
I love this tool so much. It stops so much bad pop philosophy dead in its tracks.
Good one
