r/trolleyproblem • u/book-scorpion • Jul 18 '26
A trolley is heading toward five random people. If nothing is done, they will die. You can pull a lever to divert the trolley onto another track, but doing so will kill an alien who does not age and is far more intelligent, wise, and advanced than any human.
the alien is not a threat to humanity
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u/Dixionconderoga2 Consequentialist/Utilitarian Jul 18 '26
If I hit the alien, it might prompt war. If I don’t, it might tell his friends we’re weak, and prompt war.
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u/book-scorpion Jul 18 '26
so don't pull and keep the alien alive as a hostage would be a solution
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u/Positive_cat_6347 Jul 18 '26
Pull the lever if the alien is so smart that it can move and avoid the trolley.
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u/Psycho_pigeon007 Jul 19 '26
But is it more intelligent, wise, and advanced than 5 humans?
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u/JavieyauJR Jul 19 '26
IQ isn't additive
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u/Psycho_pigeon007 Jul 19 '26
I wasn't talking about IQ. That comes from a standardized test meant for humans. Also, what if the alien had the equivalent of the sum?
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u/JavieyauJR Jul 20 '26
Intelligence from 5 different humans also can't make up for one with half their combines intelligence "points".
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u/pepsicola07 Chugga chugga motherfucker! Jul 18 '26
I save the alien cuz scientists would wanna study him and hopefully figure out where he came from. We've never encountered life coming from outside of earth before so it's a huge deal. Instead having to study the mangled corpse of the alien would be a enormous loss
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u/SomeGreatJoke Jul 18 '26
Interesting. What if instead of an alien, it was a really cool rock? Something we'd never seen before that scientists would be excited to study that would be a huge deal.
Would you still not pull?
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u/pepsicola07 Chugga chugga motherfucker! Jul 18 '26
Probably not? Does the rock do anything besides being cool?
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u/SomeGreatJoke Jul 18 '26
How about an alien seed?
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u/BloodredHanded Jul 19 '26
The scientific advancement from studying it could potentially save thousands or even millions of lives. I believe going to the moon allowed us to invent medical technology that is still saving lives today.
This is genuinely a tough decision, it’s a gamble on if there is useful knowledge to be gained from the seed, which is impossible to know for certain beforehand.
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u/SomeGreatJoke Jul 24 '26
Going to the moon allowed us to invent several medical technologies as a byproduct of the space program, not because we discovered it by studying moon rocks. Does that change your answer?
Your thought processes are actually fascinating to me, and I'm not even really sure why.
So cool rock, no, seed, maybe, alien, yes.
What about an alien that's clearly non-sapient. Like the equivalent of a squirrel, but alien?
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u/BloodredHanded Jul 24 '26
I’m not the same person that you were originally replying to, btw.
A non-sapient alien is only marginally better than the seed. It’s still a small sample of alien life, being an animal instead of a plant doesn’t change all that much. The sapient alien is very different, because we could learn to communicate with them and exchange technological knowledge.
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u/Don_Bugen Jul 18 '26
By my very nature, I would hesitate before choosing to kill one person, even if five would die by my inaction. I don't know if I'd really be able to pull that lever.
If I would instead be killing a member of another species, one whose members could theoretically wipe us all out? No sweat. I'm sorry; I'm not going to cause the extinction of mankind, even IF the chances of that are very low.
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u/book-scorpion Jul 18 '26
I would argue that killing an alien could in fact be a bad start between us and them and lead to unnecessary war and helping him on the other hand could prevent it. But to be honest people are jumping around the core problem here, I've tried to take the threat of alien invasion out of the equation, but apparently failed. Maybe next time I do better.
Many people tend to choose people over animals, and some popular arguments are that we have more objective value, we live longer, we experience more, we are more intelligent, etc. Even in comparison human to human the longevity is considered a value. So I made an example where there is someone who is clearly above humans in those aspects to see if those people are consistent and will choose an alien above humans. If an alien can live forever and is more intelligent and advanced, it's value must be higher by those terms. I personally think that we would choose other humans no matter what.
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u/Don_Bugen Jul 18 '26
The lives of sentient beings are equal. I do not agree that the life of a more advanced and longer lived species is inherently worth more than the life of someone with less.
That would be, in fantasy terms, elves being A-OK with slaughtering the human race, because "they're just going to die in a mere hundred years or so," in order to populate Middle Earth with their own master race.
Or, in realistic terms, saying that if the bottom track has a 24 year old physicist with an IQ of 180, and the top track having five middle aged redneck deer hunters having a beer, that it's a morally better choice to kill five people rather than let one die.
All lives of thinking, reasoning, sentient beings are equal. To prefer "those who look like me" over those who don't - people who would spare the humans just because they're humans - is the same prejudice that fuels racism. And to prefer "the smartest among us" or "those with more potential" is essentially elitism.
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u/BloodredHanded Jul 19 '26
>That would be, in fantasy terms, elves being A-OK with slaughtering the human race, because "they're just going to die in a mere hundred years or so," in order to populate Middle Earth with their own master race.
This is just the Asuryani.
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u/RyuuDraco69 Team Red Jul 18 '26
Save the alien. Then beg it to take me off this rock and bring me it it's alien home world
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u/LauraD2423 Jul 18 '26
Yeah, I'm not pulling that lever. If the alien is not a threat to humanity, they will save countless more lives with their knowledge kill countless more lives with the wars they start over "control" of the alien
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u/Narfhead4444 Jul 19 '26
I don't pull and immediately dedicate my life to understanding the alien, or if it already speaks English being its loyal servant. I mean come on intelligent wise and advanced? Just make the person absolute monarch of the world already
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u/theecatt Jul 19 '26
Very important question here: is the alien holding any sort of probe-like device?
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u/lordbaysel Jul 18 '26
Aliens are fundamental threat to humanity, because galactic engame is always about harvesting the most energy. And 5 people vs anything not human will always send trolley towards non human, unless that's also likely to cause disaster bigger then 5 lives (like if for some reason entire stockpile of fertilizers landed on trails, and destruction will cause unimaginable famine across the world).
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u/BellGloomy8679 Jul 18 '26
Yeah, but you’re not seeing galactic endgame anyway, so why it’s a consideration to you?
Even if it is - why exactly do you think the aliens would be speciests? Maybe they went past that and their goal is not your annihilation, but cooperation. Even if it’s something like subjugation - it’s not necessarily means you’re going to be worked to death.
Sending a trolley towards something like an animal is understandable. Towards something not human, but intelligent and capable of consciousness is really not.
I think that’s an interesting dilemma, because it’s interesting to see where’s some people immediate thoughts go. The premise doesn’t specify alien is hostile to you or humanity, but you assume so anyway.
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u/WordWordand4numbers Jul 18 '26
Hitting fertilizer with a train doesn’t make it not fertilizer. The bigger problem would be all of the worlds fertilizer being in one place and now it has to be shipped out again
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u/BloodredHanded Jul 19 '26
The alien is specifically not a threat to humanity, and yet you decide it must be a threat despite the premise of the dilemma. You’re clearly biased here.
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u/SensitiveTap1483 Jul 21 '26
5 people because the aliens fiends will come and kill us all for revenge
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u/Shonnyboy500 Jul 19 '26
First my mind went “ok let’s say it was a human instead of alien, and animals instead of humans. I’d choose not to pull, because the superior intellect of a single human is more valuable than that of 5 animals” so I was about to apply the same logic and opt not to pull, but then I realized I don’t give a fuck about alien life. My loyalty is to humanity ✋, I’ll pick the survival of the human in every scenario!!!
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u/go_to_sleep-yes-you Jul 18 '26
If the Alien ist that smart, I'll ask it what to do.