Thought Experiment

WorkerDrone83
WorkerDrone83 Posts: 3,195 Member
edited November 25 in Chit-Chat
It's Friday and I'm bored. Anyone care to throw some input into this old thought experiment?

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Replies

  • tirowow12385
    tirowow12385 Posts: 697 Member
    3. Not my business, walk off into sunset.
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  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    edited February 2018
    s62v5uthn34e.jpg

    ssnft9n09m66.gif

  • WorkerDrone83
    WorkerDrone83 Posts: 3,195 Member
    SabotageinStilettos wrote: »
    Couldn’t I scream to get their attention and save them all?

    It's been a while since I've heard this, but I think it was important to remove as many variables as possible. So you only have those two options and you have no knowledge about the people (gender, age, etc.)
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  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    Its too early for moral delimas like this. I need a little more coffee.
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
    WorkerDrone83 wrote: »
    SabotageinStilettos wrote: »
    Couldn’t I scream to get their attention and save them all?

    It's been a while since I've heard this, but I think it was important to remove as many variables as possible. So you only have those two options and you have no knowledge about the people (gender, age, etc.)

    and what would you do OP?
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    I'd save the most people but I would think about it because if they are all stupid enough to get tied to a track these days....
  • empresssue
    empresssue Posts: 2,978 Member
    This is too reminiscent of high school algebra problems: 2 trains are on the same track; one leaves from St. Louis at 4:00 & the other from NY at 1:00; when will they meet.

    I didn't like my options in algebra & I don't like them now :anguished:
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    edited February 2018
    SabotageinStilettos wrote: »
    WorkerDrone83 wrote: »
    SabotageinStilettos wrote: »
    Couldn’t I scream to get their attention and save them all?

    It's been a while since I've heard this, but I think it was important to remove as many variables as possible. So you only have those two options and you have no knowledge about the people (gender, age, etc.)

    This is tough. I’d like to think that I would spring into action doing the appropriate tasks to save the majority of the workers but what’s more likely to happen is I will freeze in panic and watch them all get maimed due to my inaction and be consumed by crippling guilt for the rest of my life.

    The other variation is,

    0c76kodyi1un.jpg

    So if you don't take any action you kill more people, but if you do take action and switch it to track B then you still kill someone, but not as many. However, if you don't do anything then it's not your fault all those people died because that was going to happen with or without you. But, you also have the choice to save the people so...
  • WorkerDrone83
    WorkerDrone83 Posts: 3,195 Member
    TavistockToad wrote: »
    WorkerDrone83 wrote: »
    SabotageinStilettos wrote: »
    Couldn’t I scream to get their attention and save them all?

    It's been a while since I've heard this, but I think it was important to remove as many variables as possible. So you only have those two options and you have no knowledge about the people (gender, age, etc.)

    and what would you do OP?

    I'd pull the switch and push the guy, for (at least what appears to be) the greater good.
  • cee134
    cee134 Posts: 33,711 Member
    And if you want to get really deep on a Friday:

    cxvu2s7rfbu9.png
  • empresssue
    empresssue Posts: 2,978 Member
    cee134 wrote: »
    And if you want to get really deep on a Friday:

    cxvu2s7rfbu9.png

    You gotta do the loop-da-loop.
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  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
    kill the one to save the multiples

    In life I try to just do the best I can and get over the rest.
  • urloved33
    urloved33 Posts: 3,323 Member
    SabotageinStilettos wrote: »
    WorkerDrone83 wrote: »
    SabotageinStilettos wrote: »
    Couldn’t I scream to get their attention and save them all?

    It's been a while since I've heard this, but I think it was important to remove as many variables as possible. So you only have those two options and you have no knowledge about the people (gender, age, etc.)

    This is tough. I’d like to think that I would spring into action doing the appropriate tasks to save the majority of the workers but what’s more likely to happen is I will freeze in panic and watch them all get maimed due to my inaction and be consumed by crippling guilt for the rest of my life.

    this

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  • andreascjonsson
    andreascjonsson Posts: 433 Member
    edited February 2018
    The dude from Vsouce actually did a live test with this. They tried with 7 people and 5 frooze or waited for someone else to take responsibility (even when there were noone else around), while 2 people actually took action and saved all but 1. Mind field S2E1
    Its free to watch on youtube
  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
    Wait, is freezing an option. He said there were no alternatives. That was the rules, I can't handle a world with no rules!
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  • 4legsRbetterthan2
    4legsRbetterthan2 Posts: 19,590 MFP Moderator
    edited February 2018
    dnm1207 wrote: »
    4legsRbetterthan2 wrote: »
    Wait, is freezing an option. He said there were no alternatives. That was the rules, I can't handle a world with no rules!

    yes. if you do nothing, several people die. if you take action, 1 person dies, but that person dies by your action.

    Humm, I read it as more of a choosing to not take action because you don't want to be responsible. If you do nothing its just fate, not your fault right? So I guess freezing has the same result, but I didn't consider it because it's not so much a choice as lack of one.
  • WorkerDrone83
    WorkerDrone83 Posts: 3,195 Member
    dnm1207 wrote: »
    I don't see how this is even a difficult choice, GIVEN the conditions of the question. Kill one person, or kill many people. What decent person would choose to kill many instead of one?

    It's not so much that you're killing them as you're just not saving them. I can understand how it would be a difficult decision. The next graduation of the problem involves you being a surgeon and having to choose whether or not you intentionally kill a healthy patient so you can use their organs to save three recipients. Same basic principle, but seems much worse.
  • tirowow12385
    tirowow12385 Posts: 697 Member
    edited February 2018
    The first scenario never stated that doing nothing will cause death, just that you did nothing. What we do know is the train can't go on either track unless the switch is activated. So you possibly committed a murder when no death was going to occur.

    Second scenario, the correct bleeding heart answer is volunteering yourself and jump, if you didn't save anyone, at least you tried, you'll have a special place in whatever heaven you subscribe to.

    Don't sacrifice someone else.
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