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How much did I like that one guy really.
This is only superficially a prisoner’s dilemma. In a true one, you cannot get a better result for yourself no matter what the other person does, but here if you assume the other person pulled the lever, there is no reason to pull the lever yourself.
To fix this, you can have 4 relatives on the trolley, and 5 of the opposite faction way back on the middle track. Both do nothing, 1 relative of each is killed. One guy switches the lever, their relatives are all fine, other guy loses 5. Both switch, crash with all 8 relatives on the trolley dead.
Well obviously you should pull the lever once the front wheels past the split but before the rear wheels cross it, so that trolley gets off the rails. This way everybody has the chance to survive and you have defensible position during inevitable court hearing.
Yell “Jump!”
If you think about this for any length of time and actually imagine this scenario, you realise you don’t pull the lever and it’s not even close.
Wrong. You pick the obviously wrong moral stance and then aggressively yell about it on the internet. The more obvious it becomes that you are wrong, the louder you yell. This protects your ego from introspection.
You realize this is your family watching you make the decision to have their vehicle run over a loved one? There’s a possibility they all live if you pull it.
Or if you pull it, then they see you make the decision to risk their lives to kill three other people.
What is better, three lives lost or one life lost?
ok but what if the 3 in the middle were avg US swing state voters.
The other side would deal with them then.
But then your loved one (mom, dad, sister,child) dies.
Have these folks seen The Good Place? Or are they just approaching the same conclusion by accident?
By far the smartest show ever written and it’s not even close!
Lmao what. Sure it covers philosophy 101, but not as smart as say, Dark, Mr Robot, Better Call Saul, Watchmen etc.
Idk … Andor has a really good message.
For a second there, I really thought you meant
The meaning behind the trolly problem has been entirely eroded at this point.
mercifully pulling both levers.
But then how do you kill the remaining two people?
Survivor’s guilt
I think these scenarios might be easier to analyze if we made them a bit more realistic.
This an analogy for military intervention. If we empower our military to be proactive, we can save one "good guy"TM by killing 3 bystanders. But if NATO’s adversaries are participating too we lose 3 of our "good guy"TM
I think the abstract nature is one of the strengths. If you ask someone a question about military intervention, their pre-existing views towards military intervention will heavily bias their answer.
its also a good metaphor for climate change
Look at the actual Cuban Missile Crisis.
for the longest time, i did know that game theory did not have anything to do with “games” and that it is somehow connected to the prisoners dilemma, but the concept as such wasn’t very clear to me. If you are like my former me, take 30 minutes out of your day and visit https://ncase.me/trust/ to learn and play around with game theory; it’s a great webpage and it’s pretty good fun all around.
I did a few game theory simulations in college and they were always real interesting. In one of them for example, it was a multiplayer game, with multiple interactions. I think it was to simulate global trade basically: you could cooperate with as many players as you want and each time you cooperate you both get a point. If you defect then you get two and they get none. However, all the players could see what the other players are doing, so if you defected they would know and probably would play (trade) with you. The best way to win was to form as many connections as possible and fully cooperate the whole time.
I formed maybe like 20-30 connections with other players and didn’t defect. Each point was worth a few cents or something. So I walked out with a check for like $20-$50 or something. Many players walked out with nothing because they cheated too many people too many times and nobody wanted to trade with them.
Therefore, clearly, the best economic policy is protectionism, tariffs, trade wars, and fucking over both allies and enemies, right? Right?!?
For those interested, Veritasium has a very good video on this. It also sort of tells what strategy is optimal to “win”.
Thank you for sharing the link. That webpage is amazing!
That page is very well done and interesting, thanks for sharing!
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Theoretically, will a collision cause a breach of the radioactive material that’s in the box with my cat? Asking for a friend.
Yes and no.
If cat can witness the event, then Yes or No but not both.
The outcome from both levers pulled is so steep that it really makes no sense to pull the lever
That’s why they won’t pull the lever, and that’s why you should.
Not really. This would all happen so fast and be emotionally, not logically, driven.
They’ll be thinking the same thing tho and if there is a greater than 20% chance of them pulling the lever it’d be worse in terms of losing family members than not pulling at all.
But in terms of overall death, not pulling the lever is 1 or 4, and pulling the lever is 4 or 13
Do nothing that way you don’t get to jail for murder. All the pressure goes to the other guy. Sue the railway company, guy who pulled the lever and the creator. Another is find a way not to reach to that point.
I feel like you’re not internalizing that this is a thought experiment.
This is the dumbest thought experiment I’ve ever seen.
I envy you then
Or so you think
Also, it’s too late to pull the lever, you’ll just provoke a crush.
They’ve already both chosen not to pull the lever at this point. Guess they didn’t want to make a wider picture.
This isn’t philosophy anymore, it’s just game theory
Not even. Game Theory is supposed to take a lot of stuff into account. Boiling it down to this is insulting and a way to paint situations like proxy wars as immoral.
it’s interdisciplinary.
por qué no los dos
holy prisoner dilemma!
Unlike the classic prisoners dilemma, this isn’t a nash equilibrium. When I know that the other person pulls their switch, I’d improve my outcome by not pulling mine. Compare to the prisoners dilemma, where not snitching when the other side snitches earns you five years in prison.
