this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2026
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Okay this is like an actually good and interesting philosophical question I think lmao
I think objectively pulling the lever is morally neutral. The people are going to die regardless, you might as well take the money.
But, like the image says, I wouldn't be able to in good conscience give up my "bystandership" for $100 even if the ultimate outcome doesn't change. If it was a truly life-changing amount of money - $5,000, maybe? - I might pull the lever.
It's not morally neutral the people will die, and you can choose to profit off of it or not which leaves a mark on you. The profit will be meaningless in the end because there will be no one to share it with, and nothing to spend it on. You just pulled it because you wanted a worthless piece of paper which you used to define your self worth you did it entirely for yourself nobody else. In this world there are no shops people or anything to spend the money on. Just you a pile of corpses and a piece of paper which you could have left on the floor because who cares about it other than you.
Yeah, from the problem description, that lever might as well be attached to a slot machine with the message "Play NOW to win $100". But because it interacts with the rails, you might appear on surveillance camera footage or fingerprints or whatever, and now you gotta explain yourself.
Totally worth it, if you could save their lives. But if it's clear right away that you can't, then that is not worth $100.
could they charge you with deaths that would happen anyway?
My thinking was rather that they might suspect you to have tied the people to the tracks. If they don't find evidence of anyone else on-site, you do become the prime suspect. Obviously, you should never be sentenced, unless they can actually prove that you did the crime. But that's assuming a functioning judicial system.
Especially minorities, that may get discriminated against, generally share the wisdom to not be seen anywhere near a crime scene...
if there's surveillance footage it shouldn't matter, right?
They might not have surveillance footage of the rails, or the criminal might have worn a mask and similar clothes to you. Or maybe they think, you helped the person that tied them to the rails.
There's just a lot of things that can go wrong, which you can't control. And discriminated folks have reason to not be optimistic here...