... This is just the prisoner's dilemma, with extra steps.
this post was submitted on 10 May 2026
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[deleted]
It's an abstraction over many real world scenarios.
Example: You are one of two people in the hospital waiting for an organ transplant. One becomes available, and it's basically guaranteed that there won't be another arriving in time to help both of you. You can exert influence to get that transplant, and so can the other person. Do you do it?
Who put you into this situation and what crimes should they be charged with?
[deleted]
Not to call anyone out but trying to be literal, contextualize and overanalyze abstract though experiments is one of the neurodivergent test questions
And this is no way means to be assigning value, more of an awareness notion
[deleted]
I do and have seen what you're trying to mean (and I tried to frame in a way that'd alleviate the known problematics.)
But we're also going into the overthinking direction.
It isn't a different scenario.
The point is that it is a hypothetical situation where you have to decide whether you want to influence an other persons death if it might save yours or not. The context does not matter at all.
You don't get other options, you have to choose. And based on your answer, you will reveal your morality.
You put these in the same context, like a trolley problem, so you can easily compare them to other problems.
If you think the context doesn't matter, then you've failed the class outright.
Wow, I had no idea there was such opposition to (as you said) silly things on a meme community. I also don't understand how your assertions invalidate the core premise. It seems to me that by focusing on the meta-context of someone hypothesizing a contrived scenario you may be avoiding the question being posed, which is "if you or someone else is going to die, and you both have control over who does, is it morally defensible for you to allow the other person to die so you can live?"
You could create a different hypothetical scenario, such as "you are on a plane that is crashing with someone else and there is only one parachute. Is it wrong for you to take it and jump?" I think that could be an interesting question to grapple with, but according to my understanding of your argument the answer would just be, "blame the guy that didn't pack two parachutes." Fair enough, but that does nothing to address what is trying to be asked.
You could come up with specific scenarios to ask specific questions, but making it a trolley problem meme instead does a couple things. First, it puts the question in a common framework that many people are already familiar with. If you understand and accept the premise of the basic trolley problem, posing other questions as one should make it easier for you to understand. Second, it's a lot easier to create trolley problem memes. If someone wanted to make a meme of the parachute scenario above, they would have to draw or find art assets to put it together. Making a trolley meme requires three images; person with the lever, tracks, and the trolley itself. It would be really easy for someone with even the most basic photo editing skills to put something together, which makes asking these questions (in a silly format no less) far more accessible to more people, and I think that's a good thing.
Now, being more accessible does mean that it's easier for those who aren't able to articulate themselves to make these memes. Looking at the original meme again you're right that it isn't written well. But the very first thing I learned studying philosophy was the principle of charity, which has two parts. First, assume the other person has something worth saying. Second and more relevant here is that questions of meaning come before questions of truth. When I read the text as written in this meme the truth is obviously "no you won't be charged with murder." But when I consider the typo, the run on sentence, and just take in the scenario as shown in the picture, I have to wonder if the creator is actually concerned with the legal ramifications, or moral and maybe emotional ramifications they feel a need to express through legal questioning.
I don't know, I guess I just wrote a short essay basically saying I feel like I understand the meme better than I understand the mentality you've expressed here. I'm interested to hear your thoughts.
[deleted]
Alright, I guess I'll just post the purely humorous ones then.
I don't know man I think it was a good post. If you didn't like how this convo went you could always just fall back to "sir this is a wendys" in the future
The post was fine. People who get angry at the concept of a thought experiment are just admitting that they're uncomfortable with thinking.
It's be one thing if it was some thinly vieled "gotcha", but it isn't.
I think people who are unable to engage in a thought experiment in good faith, but choose to engage anyways, are the most tedious people on the internet.
[deleted]
Appealing against the validity of the scenario isn't engaging in good faith. Dragging additional moral agents into the scenario isn't engaging in good faith.
It's the same as if someone says "what ice cream flavor do you prefer, chocolate or vanilla" and you answer "strawberry"... and then start saying the question was stupid. And then say that, actually, pie is better than ice cream.
Everything you've said might be correct, but since you've completely bailed on the original question, you're just monologuing at that point.
The point of any thought experiment is to reduce complexity to provide conceptual focus. Insisting on re-expanding that complexity is the antithesis of the entire exercise.
You can have a preference. You can dislike these types of thought experiments. Many people dislike them, I don't begrudge you on that. But I enjoy hearing someone boldly explaining why the premise is dumb as much as a soccer fan would enjoy me saying the players are stupid for not just picking up the ball. The rules provide a structure that makes the exercise compelling, exactly like a sport. You don't have to like soccer either, but weigh the value of your commentary.
Edit:
And please don't take any of this personally. I think it ultimately comes down to my eyes roll back into my head when I hear people say what you say exactly in the same way that yours do when you see a trolly problem. We're both out here just exasperated. This is a meme community. You wanna say "I hate these dumbass memes" then I'm totally cool with that. It's the "actually the solution is simple IF you disregard the constraints of the question" that gets my goat.
Whoever is behind all this railway based murder has to be the same person in old timey movies who was tying maidens to railway tracks.
Could you rephrase it to be correct please?
Both these people could let go of the lever and walk away.
Shoe glue.
Take off your shoe
Self-defense isn't when you have to kill somebody else to live. It's defending yourself against another person trying to kill you.
Sure, but, if that person pulls the lever, they're killing you, so...