people's deaths will be delayed by a few moments, and i get to have a couple of extra bucks. not one but two slightly lesser evils at the same time for the small cost of touching it.
this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2026
43 points (97.8% liked)
shitposting
2556 readers
45 users here now
Rules •1. No Doxxing •2. No TikTok reposts •3. No Harassing •4. Post Gore at your own discretion, Depends if its funny or just gore to be an edgelord.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
The number of comments on this post dodging the question is frustrating. From a Utilitarian standpoint, pulling the lever is good. It doesn't decrease the collective good but at least one person (you) benefits. I'm not too firm on Kantian ethics, but I can't see how either action would consider the victims as a means or a goal in this constructed scenario. Accordingly, by Kantian ethics, it should be ethically neutral for you to pull the lever, though someone certainly is to blame for setting up this situation. However, I could also see a Kantian argument that one should never benefit from human suffering, even if one is not the cause of that suffering (based on the maxime of the action). Someone with a better understanding of Kant will have to resolve that one.
Just walk away.
Walk away, fuck it.
The trolley would need to slow to get around that tight curve, if it could even do it without derailing. It has no space to get up any sort of speed on the other side. The low front bumper and tiny wheels means the trolley would catch on the first person, either pushing them all or simply stopping. Likely three or four of the people would survive. Pulling the lever is the right choice, money or no money.
The picture is not to scale and it has been stated they will all die. This question implies some kind of predetermined outcome.
Trolley goes over the bill, duh. It isn't a lawn mower.
But it gets swayed into the coming gore pile so you have to touch the ick which means you are a desecrating the dead
"there are 2 RAM sticks of 64gb on the tracks..."
The lever has been pulled so hard by altman, it has snapped.
altman was actually the one who pulled the lever into climate apocalypse, after the oil barons.
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...
As long as you donate the $100 you’ve actually done a net service (the people were slated to die anyway). For rescuing the money you receive a Certified Good Person certificate. —Some ethical altruist probably
It's like the end of wargames when the computer plays out all the possible scenarios in a global thermonuclear war and concludes the only move is not to play
That's just to much for some people.
Can you actually be certain your understanding of the circumstance is correct? In any analogous real world scenario, the idea that your involvement or non-involvement has no actual effect on how much harm is done is going to be a lot more subject to error.
If you boycott Walmart, the suffering continues. The only way to end the suffering is to build a movement large enough to dismantle the rails.
If you boycott a local conservative business, the business will feel it, and the suffering may end (for a few people).
Even as drawn, pulling the lever might slow or even derail the trolley.
Hmmm… the original trolley problem but, contrary to your expectations, pulling the lever causes multi-track drifting that kills everyone. Are you responsible for all of the deaths, or only some?
Disassemble the tracks so it doesn't happen again. Determine who orchestrated this and consult others on their punishment. It's not really complicated.
Don't commit evil, it's a pretty simple concept
you are not committing any evil though. the trolley would run over the people anyway.
Not to some, after all there is money to be made.