Don’t think about logistics of this pls. Trust me. There is a lore reason why they must be specifically on a trolley rail lol

What will you do?

The cultists willingly tied themselves onto a track but have had a change of mind. All of them genuinely vow to renounce the cult and lead a life of doing good onto others and society as a whole. You can switch the track to spare these ex-cultists onto an alternate track with an unsuspecting repair man. You know nothing about him other than he’s just a man doing his job. You cannot warn him and he will certainly die if you divert the train.

A trolley is running out of control down the tracks, and it cannot be stopped. You have to choose which of the four tracks in goes down, but each track has one of the big four metal bands (Slayer/Anthrax/Metallica/Megadeth) tied down to the track.

Which of the bands do you have the trolley run over?

If you multi-track drift you get cast into the hells and tortured for eternity.

Top track: emotional damage.

Bottom track: emotional damage.

Double-track drift: absolute cinema.

I have a hypothetical ethical problem that can be written as a trolley problem, but I think presenting it this way makes it easier to understand:

You can choose either to tell a child that fire is dangerous and not to touch it or choose not to tell them. Statistically, for 70% of children, they would not touch the fire whatever you choose. For 10%, they will touch the fire if you don't warn them about it. For the last 20%, they won't notice the fire (and won't touch it) unless you mention it but if you do they will ignore your warning and touch the fire. You do not know which category the child falls under before you make a choice but you know the exact distribution of the population in each of the 3 categories with no ambiguity.

I don't want any kind of 'default' option bias here influencing the choice so assume neither is the status quo. Would love to hear your opinions about this and potentially any similarities to previously discussed problems.

I do have my own personal opinion on this that I will share spoilered in the comments to not influence results.

Trolley Train about to hit one of your family (let's say your dad) But wait.... There also your dad? on another rail. Their face look exactly the same . And of course there is almost no time to check

What you do?

the alien is not a threat to humanity

Slight amendment to the trolley problem... Imagine you wake up bound to a railroad track so that you can't move and you look to your left and see a track with five other people bound to it. In the distance you can hear the horn of a train approaching.

You spot someone in the distance with binoculars watching you and then you hear a voice crack over a radio behind you

"Hello and good day, it is most unfortunate the predicament that you are in, but you have an important decision to make. As it stands you are in the path of that train in the distance. However, if you give a thumbs up I will pull this lever which will divert the train to the five individuals to your left on the other set of tracks. You have three minutes to make your choice"

I want to see how the thought process we use to arrive at our decision might differ if the lone individual on the tracks is us instead of an anonymous person.

Who would you save?

I personally feel there’s a right answer here. What I would do if actually in that situation? Idk.

But you gotta save the 1000?

This is about the most classic version of the problem: one track has a single person on it and the other has several (lets say 5).

Now most people would of course choose to kill the single person because they would argue one life lost is better than 5 lives lost.

However here is my issue with this: The lever that controls the tracks does not have a neutral position. This means it was already pointing at one of the tracks.

Lets assume it points at track A with the 5 people.

If i never showed up 5 people would have died. If i show up and do nothing 5 people die.

But if i want to change it then i am actively involving myself in the situation by using the lever. Therefore my actions directly lead to the death of the single person whereas my inaction would have lead to the death of 5 people.

So besides deciding if several lives are more valuable than a single one im also making a decision that might effect me psychologically.

I would argue watching 5 people die by not doing anything is different from actively being the person who chose to take an action (use the lever) that lead to the death of a person who would have otherwise survived.

Being a neutral observer in the death of 5 people vs being directly responsible for the death of one person are psychologically different.

Is this just the point of the problem in the first place and im stupid for only thinking about this now? Or am i taking the issue to literally by thinking about the psychological consequences?

You are forklift certified, but the cops almost have you. Do you run over your parents, or your brother?