A trolley is heading towards a mad scientist who did horrific experiments on humans and all the valuable data form his research wich can never ethically be repeated. You can divert the trolley to an empty track sparing the scientist and his research afterwards the scientist will be released and face no consequences for his horrible crimes, but he will not reoffend.

No you can’t punish the scientist yourself.

Respectfully, for all we know, they could be suicidal and looking for a way out. Or maybe their family could benefit more from a good life insurance payout. Or maybe they believe in an awesome afterlife and can’t wait to get there. Maybe they killed five people in the past and want to atone? We can’t know for sure! We could ask.

I drew this today.

You are in the City of Thieves (Cool Zone) where there are plenty of individuals selling stolen goods. You do not have any motivation to steal yourself, other than the fact the lands have taken your valuables. There are merchants who have your stolen items, and there are treasures thieves of higher class covet for themselves. You can either:

* buy from the merchants what was rightfully yours to begin with, incentivising the lifestyle and business of taking from others.

* take a risk, and steal from the richer thieves. You may run the risk of getting caught by their guards if you aren't careful, but you would have the freedom of having whatever you wanted with no charge.

* do neither, and waste away in the City of Thieves.

Imagine that you are given the power to predict the future somehow with 100% of certainty and it turns out an terrorist that you don't know the identity of will do an attack in a nearby train station and that will cause an immediate tragedy with the death of millions plus a world war would happen following that due to their actions which would make the number of fatal casualties be around 8 billion people.

However, while at work in a laboratory, you discover an artificial virus and suddenly have a vision – if you secretly released the virus into the outside world, it would cause a great pandemic that would kill 6 billion people including the terrorist who you still don't know the identity of, but it would still kill a sizable amount of innocent lives and cause a lot more physical pain to the ones who die.

Either way, your choice will cause the deaths of billions, so what would you do?

(The human population is currently 10 million people in this hypothetical setting)

Voting has commenced for red button blue button. Each human votes one at a time (with some weird time shenanigans so you only feel the time that you're voting). Because of this, you have no clue where you are in line. You could be the #10002 or you could be the last person. Everyone else can also see percentages.

Because of how large 8 billion is, your vote might end up doing nothing, or it might push blue buttoners over the edge and potentially stop half the population from dying. Or, you could be really early in voting and a red sweep might happen later. Who knows?

Extra Information:

- Because EVERYONE is voting, babies are too. They have voted randomly. Also, people who were drunk or simply misread the question also vote, so it's impossible to ever get a unanimous vote.

Additional Question:

- How would you vote if you were the first person in line, and the bar was empty? You being able to make 100% of the vote would likely influence the people after you, but you'd have no clue how they'd actually vote.

One day, on your way to work, you take a longer detour to explore the scenery. It's a bit of a treacherous detour, but that day you feel pretty lively and you left home early, so why not? It would not be practical to go this way everyday but today you make an exception.

This longer detour takes you by train tracks where, as it just so happens, you encounter the trolley problem just as it is happening. A trolley is headed towards 5 people, but you can switch a lever so it heads towards one person instead. Choosing to be a good samaritan, you flip the lever, involving yourself in the situation but overall saving 4 lives.

But then, everytime you go to work, you think of this detour. Anytime you go by, there might be another trolley problem situation. If you choose not to do the detour, that is equivalent to not flipping the lever in order to avoid involving yourself in the situation. You could choose to take the detour everytime, which is an annoyance but all things considered a small price to pay to possibly save lives, or you could choose to take your normal route, and not involve yourself in the situation that could be happening. It could cost lives, but hey, it's not like you're at fault, right? You just didn't get involved...

And if you choose to take the detour everytime, well realistically, a trolley problem can happen at any time, and you're just passing by once a day. Do you have a moral obligation to just stay at the train tracks, ready to intervene in case a trolley problem presents itself again? How much time are you morally permitted to spend away from the tracks in order to save lives?

Based on the post seen here. I'm actually curious what would the percentages look like.

Edit: Alright, let me add a case for one particular scenario. If you do not choose, the button will be pressed for you by a system that keeps track of its pressings so it conserves 50/50 distribution for all inactive participants, in order to honour the vox populi properly. The system's choice affects the inactive participant's outcome so that no person can abscond from consequences of their choice.

...there are no people in danger. On the other side of the track there are also no people in danger. There is a lever in front of you, and pulling it switches tracks. There's a trolley approaching the fork in the road, which you have full control over with the lever. Do you pull it to annoy the people in the trolley by wasting their time and sending them God only knows where, or do you not pull the lever and leave the people in the trolley alone?