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.
I see what you’re trying to do and you’re not necessarily wrong, but you’re kinda perpetuating the attitude that inspired someone to make this meme in the first place
I’m not sure I follow. Should this meme’s creator not have been inspired?
I ban trolleys. Everyone walks.
How much did I like that one guy really.
Are the 5 people on the opposong trolley worthy of death? Will killing them outweigh losing my loved ones?
Or is the one loved one ill save my really hot 1st cousin?
Because with the rest of the family dead, we can live happily ever after without any annoying incest complaints.
ಠ_ಠ
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.
Tit. For. Tat.
pull my gun, kill the other person and move the lever, as far i can know that person is the one this whole thing upfamily up
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.
SHUT UP. THE RIGHT CHOICE IS TO DROP A NUKE ON EVERYONE.
that right, I’d masturbate on the tracks and on the people tied to the tracks so they are slipery and can slide or bounce to safety. And before you judge me, its the only thing I’m really good at and we should make the most of what we have in life.
Failing that for whatever reason (or maybe in addition to that), I’d asses which of the prospects are lefties and make sure those people in particular live. Sorry centrists and republicans, but we need the votes and some people have to die, but I’m focussed on doing the least harm here.
But then your loved one (mom, dad, sister,child) dies.
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.
you find some third way thats not the bad outcomes that are suggested. Theres always possibilities in life and people who say there are not are generally trying to coerce you.
Yell “Jump!”
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!
You need to watch more shows. Don’t get me wrong, I like The Good Place and what they were trying to do with it, but yeah no there’s a lot of other shows that are just as educational and well written that don’t have to do a show-wide reset to start every season
Lmao what. Sure it covers philosophy 101, but not as smart as say, Dark, Mr Robot, Better Call Saul, Watchmen etc.
Those shows are a good way to dip your toes into the subject before you start Rick and Morty.
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.
Yeah that’s a good point. Maybe I should amend my statement to say something like:
If this seems like an absurd hypothetical, consider reframing it. Multiply all the numbers by a factor of between 1,000 to 1,000,000 and make them “our soldiers”, “bystanders” and “enemy soldiers” respectively.
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?!?
Your simulation seems to only punish selfish actors when that’s not always the case. Doesn’t include natural monopolies, lacks clandestine exploitation, and there’s likely no market capture or saturation. In such a case the only play is to cooperate.
For those interested, Veritasium has a very good video on this. It also sort of tells what strategy is optimal to “win”.
That page is very well done and interesting, thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing the link. That webpage is amazing!
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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.
