this post was submitted on 25 May 2026
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1.00 • 1 death = 1 death Vs. 0.25 • 5 deaths = 1.25 deaths
On average you're better off not pulling the lever.
Look at it selfishly:
Pulling the level is the only way to have a shot at not being saddled with the guilt of killing someone. Sure, killing 5 people is worse than killing 1, but avoiding that personal impact entirely is a desirable goal in and of itself.
This was my thought too, initially, but then I remembered that the first possibility happens through inaction. So I guess it depends on whether or not the person sees that as them killing someone
I can't say what is objectively true, but I can say that if I were in that situation, I absolutely would feel responsible for the outcome if I could have reasonably affected it.
Should you feel bad for risking it, even if you get lucky? If when you cause something by accident you don't feel as bad, you're going partly by intentions, not actual outcomes.
If I could have done something to prevent it, but chose not to, and someone died, I would feel just as bad as if I pulled the lever and killed someone.
Yeah, same.
On the other side, the law doesn't work that way - almost killing someone and actually killing someone are treated very differently. That might partly be down to how hard it would be to prove a 1/4 expected manslaughter, though.
Found the risk manager.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2320
Implying you'll be running this multiple times?
The number of attempts is not mathematically affecting the outcome of a single attempts - statistics don't "owe you" any specific outcomes, just based on previous outcomes. It will be the same formula for each
Statistics also won't help you with the guilt when the tram runs over 5 people and now it's just you and the one guy you saved now trauma bonded.
I'm not the idiot who tues people to train tracks. I won't be feeling much guilt
What if, by taking some seemingly benign action, followed by a series of unforeseeable events, you have caused the people to be on the train tracks?
Hey I'm not an idiot.
Actually, in this case, unless they are... refilling... the hostages each run, the results of previous runs do affect each additional run. Unless you feel that running someone over the second time kills them a second time.
"aww damn, 5 people are double dead"
I am not sure this is technically true if the probabilities have any dependence.
I didn't need math to know that the only way I see a guy beheaded is if I don't pull the lever, so we got to the same answer.
If you don't, you will, look at the post again
Implying I haven't already
We have to to be sure. /s
These are not independent probabilities and we can't disregard the initial mathematical data (unless I'm wrong, not a stat major).