I’m pretty sure it’s a 5/6 chance you’d be on side A, and a 1/6 chance you are on side B, depending on what the villain rolls with the die. But the problem is there’s no way to know which track the trolley is on, or where the real lever sends it. You’d just as easily be killing yourself as you would be yourself and 9 other people.
So there’s a very good chance you’re by yourself on the track (or a small chance you’re with other people), but you have literally no idea what pushing the lever with your foot will do, even if it is the real one, and you have no idea if the trolley is even on your track or not.
There is no solution to this without more information. You can’t be selfish or utilitarian if it comes down to a 50/50 guess.
That said, we can probably assume the trolley will continue down the main track unless the real lever is flipped. So at that point, the questions turn into math problems and probability. There’s a 5/6 chance that pushing the lever will kill yourself. There’s a 1/6 chance that pushing the lever will have a 10% chance of saving you and 9 other people. Mathematically, it simply makes sense not to push the lever.
So, do you push the lever because there’s a 0.017% chance you’re saving 10 people (including yourself), but if you’re wrong you’re killing yourself and saving no one? Or do you avoid pushing it because it’s 83% likely you’d only be killing yourself with no one on the other track, knowing if you’re wrong your inaction will kill 10 people?
It’s not really a trolley problem, because in both scenarios a track is empty, but more of a gamble with math, because you cannot know what pushing the lever will do until it’s done, but mathematically NOT pushing the lever has a 83% chance of killing NO ONE.
Tl;Dr, this REALLY needs reworded, because it’s not a trolley problem, it’s a math problem.
there’s no way to know which track the trolley is on
It’s a standard trolley meme problem, the trolley will keep going on the main track unless the lever is switched 😁. I thought !science_memes would be familiar with trolley problems, but I guess I get to introduce some of you! You might want to start off on some easier trolley memes first, this is advanced level stuff.
where the real lever sends it
There is not usually ambiguity with the lever. If you wish, you can have an announcement in the headphones “main track… side track…” every time you flip the lever. Your only uncertainty is which track you yourself are bound to, given how you’re blindfolded.
I’m pretty sure it’s a 5/6 chance you’d be on side A, and a 1/6 chance you are on side B, depending on what the villain rolls with the die. But the problem is there’s no way to know which track the trolley is on, or where the real lever sends it. You’d just as easily be killing yourself as you would be yourself and 9 other people.
So there’s a very good chance you’re by yourself on the track (or a small chance you’re with other people), but you have literally no idea what pushing the lever with your foot will do, even if it is the real one, and you have no idea if the trolley is even on your track or not.
There is no solution to this without more information. You can’t be selfish or utilitarian if it comes down to a 50/50 guess.
That said, we can probably assume the trolley will continue down the main track unless the real lever is flipped. So at that point, the questions turn into math problems and probability. There’s a 5/6 chance that pushing the lever will kill yourself. There’s a 1/6 chance that pushing the lever will have a 10% chance of saving you and 9 other people. Mathematically, it simply makes sense not to push the lever.
So, do you push the lever because there’s a 0.017% chance you’re saving 10 people (including yourself), but if you’re wrong you’re killing yourself and saving no one? Or do you avoid pushing it because it’s 83% likely you’d only be killing yourself with no one on the other track, knowing if you’re wrong your inaction will kill 10 people?
It’s not really a trolley problem, because in both scenarios a track is empty, but more of a gamble with math, because you cannot know what pushing the lever will do until it’s done, but mathematically NOT pushing the lever has a 83% chance of killing NO ONE.
Tl;Dr, this REALLY needs reworded, because it’s not a trolley problem, it’s a math problem.
It’s a standard trolley meme problem, the trolley will keep going on the main track unless the lever is switched 😁. I thought !science_memes would be familiar with trolley problems, but I guess I get to introduce some of you! You might want to start off on some easier trolley memes first, this is advanced level stuff.
There is not usually ambiguity with the lever. If you wish, you can have an announcement in the headphones “main track… side track…” every time you flip the lever. Your only uncertainty is which track you yourself are bound to, given how you’re blindfolded.
1/6 * 10% = 1/60 = 0.01666… = 1.666…% ~= 1.7%! Careful there!
Everything is a trolley problem.