Advanced Trolly Logic
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@Zecc said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
@LaoC said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
That's a weird setup because if I don't pull, it makes no difference whether the other person pulls or not. Assuming I care neither about the strangers nor about the other person's folks, I would only pull if I had a reason to think the likelihood of the other person to pull was less than 1/n-1 with n being the number of my folks in the trolley. Which will usually not be the case.
It would become more of a dilemma if there weren't strangers in the middle but an equal mix of both our folks.What if someone on the tracks has a lever they can pull to save themselves which will doom your loved ones, unless you pull your lever as well in which case it will save your loved ones but doom them?
I'm triggered
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@Zecc said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
@LaoC said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
That's a weird setup because if I don't pull, it makes no difference whether the other person pulls or not. Assuming I care neither about the strangers nor about the other person's folks, I would only pull if I had a reason to think the likelihood of the other person to pull was less than 1/n-1 with n being the number of my folks in the trolley. Which will usually not be the case.
It would become more of a dilemma if there weren't strangers in the middle but an equal mix of both our folks.What if someone on the tracks has a lever they can pull to save themselves which will doom your loved ones, unless you pull your lever as well in which case it will save your loved ones but doom them?
This is why I drive a car instead of taking trains.
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@boomzilla said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
@Zecc said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
@LaoC said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
That's a weird setup because if I don't pull, it makes no difference whether the other person pulls or not. Assuming I care neither about the strangers nor about the other person's folks, I would only pull if I had a reason to think the likelihood of the other person to pull was less than 1/n-1 with n being the number of my folks in the trolley. Which will usually not be the case.
It would become more of a dilemma if there weren't strangers in the middle but an equal mix of both our folks.What if someone on the tracks has a lever they can pull to save themselves which will doom your loved ones, unless you pull your lever as well in which case it will save your loved ones but doom them?
This is why I drive a car instead of taking trains.
What if someone on the road drives a Tesla and your car is painted red? And ... something something make up your own levers.
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@LaoC said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
@error said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
I raise you one Prisoner's Dilemma:
That's a weird setup because if I don't pull, it makes no difference whether the other person pulls or not. Assuming I care neither about the strangers nor about the other person's folks, I would only pull if I had a reason to think the likelihood of the other person to pull was less than 1/n-1 with n being the number of my folks in the trolley. Which will usually not be the case.
It would become more of a dilemma if there weren't strangers in the middle but an equal mix of both our folks.You get the equal mix if both levers are pulled. Replacing the strangers with loved ones from both sides makes it less of a dilemma.
Let's say that the three strangers are replaced by one of your loved ones, and one loved one from the other group. No matter what, at least one of your loved ones will die. Here are the possible scenarios:
- Both sides do nothing. Each side loses one loved one.
- You do nothing, but the other side pulls their lever. You lose two loved ones and they lose one loved one.
- You pull the lever and they do nothing. You lose one loved one and they lose two loved ones.
- Both sides pull the lever. Each side loses six loved ones.
Since the problem does not indicate that you have any reason to want the other side to lose loved ones, your best choice is to do nothing. That gives you a 1:1 odds of losing one loved one versus losing two.
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A friend who lives near Dallas, Texas posted this on FB:
Today’s version of the prisoner’s dilemma: believing there is a probability that the power will cycle off eventually, do I crank up the heat and get the house as warm as possible before that happens, or do I keep the thermostat relatively low and hope that everyone else does the same and we all prevent another shut-off? Remember that you got the idea for your PhD dissertation here and cite accordingly.
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@boomzilla said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
A friend who lives near Dallas, Texas posted this on FB:
Today’s version of the prisoner’s dilemma: believing there is a probability that the power will cycle off eventually, do I crank up the heat and get the house as warm as possible before that happens, or do I keep the thermostat relatively low and hope that everyone else does the same and we all prevent another shut-off? Remember that you got the idea for your PhD dissertation here and cite accordingly.
Given that this is a one-shot dilemma, there can only be one answer.
And a good job, too, 'coz my feet were starting to get chilly.
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@boomzilla said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
A friend who lives near Dallas, Texas posted this on FB:
Today’s version of the prisoner’s dilemma: believing there is a probability that the power will cycle off eventually, do I crank up the heat and get the house as warm as possible before that happens, or do I keep the thermostat relatively low and hope that everyone else does the same and we all prevent another shut-off? Remember that you got the idea for your PhD dissertation here and cite accordingly.
Third option: Hope the local big box store still has power and still has sweatshirts in stock
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@boomzilla said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
A friend who lives near Dallas, Texas posted this on FB:
Today’s version of the prisoner’s dilemma: believing there is a probability that the power will cycle off eventually, do I crank up the heat and get the house as warm as possible before that happens, or do I keep the thermostat relatively low and hope that everyone else does the same and we all prevent another shut-off? Remember that you got the idea for your PhD dissertation here and cite accordingly.
The last time this happened to me, the answer was to heat the house.
But that's because the power went out due to branches/trees falling on lines, not due to overuse of electricity. (We had freezing rain in a temperate rainforest. There's trees all over the electric grid.)
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@PotatoEngineer said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
@boomzilla said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
A friend who lives near Dallas, Texas posted this on FB:
Today’s version of the prisoner’s dilemma: believing there is a probability that the power will cycle off eventually, do I crank up the heat and get the house as warm as possible before that happens, or do I keep the thermostat relatively low and hope that everyone else does the same and we all prevent another shut-off? Remember that you got the idea for your PhD dissertation here and cite accordingly.
The last time this happened to me, the answer was to heat the house.
But that's because the power went out due to branches/trees falling on lines, not due to overuse of electricity. (We had freezing rain in a temperate rainforest. There's trees all over the electric grid.)
Upstate NY had an ice storm during the 1990/1991 winter, many places lost power for more than a week. Up until September 1990 I have always lived in Upstate NY. I had never even heard of an ice storm.
I was in NYC for my Freshman year of college. I didn't call home much, but when no one answered for days on end, I was concerned.
Eventually I found out no one was dead and I wasn't cutoff.
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@kazitor but why am I holding a toilet plunger? that was the Item of Extirpation?
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@error_bot said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
That's wrong anyway.
People already steal stopsigns.
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You're armed with a gun and only one bullet, and you enter a gas station.
You see a man with a knife threatening another man. They're both behind the counter and claim to be the owner.
If you do nothing, the armed man will kill the unarmed man. If the surviving man was the criminal, they will also steal from the store, then attack you, and you shoot them. Either the criminal dies, or 2 people die but you survive.
You can also shoot and kill one of the men. If you shoot the armed man, but the unarmed man was the criminal, they will grab the knife and attack you, and you're now unarmed. Either you and the store owner survive, or only the criminal survives.
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@xaade Simply leave for a different gas station and shoot anyone who follows.
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@xaade said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
You're armed with a gun and only one bullet, and you enter a gas station.
Is it a heavy gun?
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I tell them both to hold their positions while I call the police. I'll shoot whoever moves.
or
I shoot the knife out of the armed man's hand.
or
I threaten them both and steal from the store.
or
I shoot the guy not wearing a gas station uniform.
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@xaade I'd quit the Mayberry sheriff's department.
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@xaade said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
You're armed with a gun and only one bullet
If you do nothing, the armed man will kill the unarmed man.
A very good modern interpretation of the trolley problem. Just like the original, it relies completely on an absolutely implausible situation that requires a zillion coincidences to occur at the same time. This one is especially interesting because it requires the criminal to be psychic and know there are no more bullets.
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@Gąska It also makes the presumption that the bullet is loaded correctly and will absolutely be the next to fire if the trigger is pulled and not, say, a weird form of Russian Roulette.
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@Gąska said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
@xaade said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
You're armed with a gun and only one bullet
If you do nothing, the armed man will kill the unarmed man.
A very good modern interpretation of the trolley problem. Just like the original, it relies completely on an absolutely implausible situation that requires a zillion coincidences to occur at the same time. This one is especially interesting because it requires the criminal to be psychic and know there are no more bullets.
They're models, really.
Not of their described scenarios, but of real life scenarios.
These choices are made all the time.
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@xaade said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
These choices are made all the time.
Only on the broadest most abstract sense analoguously.
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@xaade said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
You're armed with a gun and only one bullet,
I know ammunition is expensive these days, but that's silly.
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@HardwareGeek said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
@xaade said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
You're armed with a gun and only one bullet,
I know ammunition is expensive these days, but that's silly.
You already fired the gun killing all the zombies between your car and the store.
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@dcon then I shoot the guy without a knife because the other one can fight and that's infinitely more useful for my party!
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@Gąska said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
@xaade said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
You're armed with a gun and only one bullet
If you do nothing, the armed man will kill the unarmed man.
A very good modern interpretation of the trolley problem. Just like the original, it relies completely on an absolutely implausible situation that requires a zillion coincidences to occur at the same time. This one is especially interesting because it requires the criminal to be psychic and know there are no more bullets.
The original trolly problem is an abstraction of real scenarios though.
An incident in sweeden: https://www.sust.admin.ch/de/dokumentation/medienmitteilungen/detailansicht?msg_id=13789&cHash=87a6b5f37aa5e7e3ced1c0701f510278
Where various options were discussed and eventually they let it run into other cars, as the safest option, 3 people were killed.
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@Dragoon said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
An incident in sweeden: https://www.sust.admin.ch/de/dokumentation/medienmitteilungen/detailansicht?msg_id=13789&cHash=87a6b5f37aa5e7e3ced1c0701f510278
Where various options were discussed and eventually they let it run into other cars, as the safest option, 3 people were killed.
It was in Switzerland (One can also tell by the
.chTLD).
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@Dragoon 3 people aboard the train. Nobody was run over. Not even the guy who was standing on the tracks until the last moment. And that situation certainly qualifies as zillion coincidences - nobody would die if another train didn't break down at the same time blocking the only available main track.
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Wait, those are different countries?
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@xaade said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
You're armed with a gun and only one bullet, and you enter a gas station.
You see a man with a knife threatening another man. They're both behind the counter and claim to be the owner.
If you do nothing, the armed man will kill the unarmed man. If the surviving man was the criminal, they will also steal from the store, then attack you, and you shoot them. Either the criminal dies, or 2 people die but you survive.
You can also shoot and kill one of the men. If you shoot the armed man, but the unarmed man was the criminal, they will grab the knife and attack you, and you're now unarmed. Either you and the store owner survive, or only the criminal survives.
I can't even.
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@xaade
you choose whatever option gives you the hot babe!
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@xaade said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
You're armed with a gun and only one bullet, and you enter a gas station.
You see a man with a knife threatening another man. They're both behind the counter and claim to be the owner.
If you do nothing, the armed man will kill the unarmed man. If the surviving man was the criminal, they will also steal from the store, then attack you, and you shoot them. Either the criminal dies, or 2 people die but you survive.
You can also shoot and kill one of the men. If you shoot the armed man, but the unarmed man was the criminal, they will grab the knife and attack you, and you're now unarmed. Either you and the store owner survive, or only the criminal survives.
Oh, I see, it's a Hollywood version of the dilemma.
The answer is obvious: I shoot the gasoline tank, which immediately explodes in a huge fireball. As long as I am the protagonist, I survive by jumping out riding the fireball, while the honest owner of the establishment is saved by an ambulance, praising my heroic skills. In the case I am the antagonist, I survive and ride my (or stolen) car with evil grin. If I am neither, everyone dies and it's up to the real hero to revenge us.
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@Kamil-Podlesak said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
As long as I am the protagonist, I survive
Are you wearing sunglasses right now?
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@Karla said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
Upstate NY had an ice storm during the 1990/1991 winter, many places lost power for more than a week.
I know this is a bit of a necro, but I'm responding anyway, so nyah.
Can confirm. March of '91. I grew up (and my parents still live there) not that far from where you did, on the edge of the 'burbs at the time. We had no power for at least four days. Mom was bailing the sump pump by hand every so often to keep it from flooding the basement. Dad was a higher-up in the county's public works agency, so for at least a week, he was working extra hours coordinating efforts between his crews, various cities and towns, utilities... It was tough. But hey, we kids kept occupied - and we didn't have school, either!
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@Zecc said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
Are you wearing sunglasses right now?
The stupid joke phrase has been said, so yes.
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@xaade said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
If you do nothing, the armed man will kill the unarmed man. If the surviving man was the criminal, they will also steal from the store, then attack you, and you shoot them. Either the criminal dies, or 2 people die but you survive.
You can also shoot and kill one of the men. If you shoot the armed man, but the unarmed man was the criminal, they will grab the knife and attack you, and you're now unarmed. Either you and the store owner survive, or only the criminal survives.Since everyone else is just making fun of the scenario, let's have a look at it:
Option 1:
Either the criminal dies, or 2 people die but you survive.
Option 2:
Either you and the store owner survive, or only the criminal survives.
That only looks confusing because the options are phrased differently. Considering "the criminal dies" in option 1 is the same as "you and the store owner survive" in option 2, let's rephrase option 1:
Either you and the store owner survive, or only you survive
So one of the possible outcomes is the same for both options, the second possible outcome differs between you surviving and the criminal surviving. Obviously option 1 is preferable.
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@Arantor said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
@xaade said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
These choices are made all the time.
Only on the broadest most abstract sense analoguously.
But isn't that the point of these philosophical scenarios? To make you aware that these patterns exist at all, and really question the morality of them.
An immediately obvious one is a soldier is stuck somewhere. Do you send a team knowing they'll likely mostly die with a small chance of rescuing the trapped soldier? The immediate reaction you'll see (in Hollywood) is yes (mostly because there'd be no story otherwise, but they also know it'll pull heartstrings). No one left behind.
But is that really the moral choice?
A lot of the context is lost on us because of our instincts. We don't think about the loss of morale when the military's soldiers realize no one will be sent for rescue. How much does that compare to the loss of more soldiers compromised?
The point of parables like these is that some people can't see past their emotional instincts, so you create an emotional story with the smallest elements possible to engage that person.
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@xaade the problem is that people inevitably fixate on the philosophy and argue ad nauseum about things that don’t actually matter.
It may be the “point” of such things but I argue it’s a flawed point because just like design patterns vs their implementation in the real world, trying to apply these patterns of thinking to the real world have the fundamental problem that the real world is simply untidy as fuck.
Sometimes you just have to make a decision with what you have in front of you and trust that it’s the right decision.
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@Arantor said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
he fundamental problem that the real world is simply untidy as fuck.
Sure, but usually it makes things even more difficult to decide, not easier.
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@Zerosquare that’s my point. Reducing the problem to something almost arbitrarily simple is fine for a thought experiment but if anything even remotely close came along, it’s guaranteed to be infinitely more complex just because reality is more untidy.
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@Arantor said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
Sometimes you just have to make a decision with what you have in front of you and trust that it’s the right decision.
Exactly. We humans get into the most trouble when we "look beyond the mark" and look for complexity. Usually, picking a direction and starting, knowing you might have to adjust course on the fly, is the best course of action. Even if you don't have a perfect solution.
Which is why, of course, I'm really really bad about getting started, always dithering and waiting for a perfect solution to drop into my lap...
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@Arantor said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
I argue it’s a flawed point because just like design patterns vs their implementation in the real world, trying to apply these patterns of thinking to the real world have the fundamental problem that the real world is simply untidy as fuck.
Real solutions are often messy. Design patterns are just ways to codify and name certain general shapes of mess, usually ones that come up more often. They let you say “it's this but with these tweaks” instead of having to describe the whole thing out in full, which takes forever.
Named moral dilemmas are analogous to design patterns, yes, in that they're omitting real details, but are meant to help having to recreate the whole problem from scratch every time. The trolley problem though, that's particularly ridiculous; it's set up to already be a morally losing scenario.
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@lolwhat said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
But hey, we kids kept occupied - and we didn't have school, either!
No power? No video games? Impossible!!!1!1!
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@Benjamin-Hall said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
Which is why, of course, I'm really really bad about getting started, always dithering and waiting for a perfect solution to drop into my lap...
I am in this post, and I do not like it.
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@Arantor said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
Reducing the problem to something almost arbitrarily simple is fine for a thought experiment but if anything even remotely close came along, it’s guaranteed to be infinitely more complex just because reality is more untidy.
The thing is, even within the ideal conditions of a thought experiment, it's not arbitrarily simple.
Do you choose the best option based on:
- the number of total deaths?
- the number of people affected?
- the amount of uncertainty about the likely result?
- some people being more important to save than others?
- a combination of the above? If so, how much importance should each criteria have?
Some people have never really thought about this. To them, the thought experiment is an eye-opener. Then you can tell them that in practice, it's even more complicated than that.
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@Zerosquare I suppose, but then again I am used to having to do all the thinking of all the hard stuff for everyone else so...
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@Arantor said in Advanced Trolly Logic:
I am used to having to do all the thinking of all the hard stuff for everyone else so...
Aren't we all.
Runaway train - Wikipedia
