Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

I just wish people would shut the fuck up about trolleys already.

The Middle East understanders have logged on to social media, I see.

That reminds me of that one "cold calculus" science fiction story where a space trucker (basically) has to decide whether to throw a stowaway girl out of his ship or lose a shipment of medicine for sick colonists, or something. And the article/thinkpiece I read on it raised the same question about that choice - stowaway or colonists - as gets overlooked for most "hard choices" trolley-problem sorts. The real problem there isn't "who can make the hard choices", it's "how were things allowed to get to this point" (in-universe. Out of universe, it's more accurately a question of "what did the author contrive this specific scenario in order to push?")

I think people who think that Take a Third Option will always exist and that everything can always work out is evil storytelling. In real life, there are a massive number of situations where people with power have to decide on the least shitty option. Yes, that ideology is something that has been used to justify a lot of evil but it's absolutely real.

"Who do we help" vs. "Who do we hurt least" is not a fake dilemma.

That's true, sure. But I rarely see the trolley problem being used as a cipher for anything specific, rather than just as a general thought exercise or so on. It's true that there are times when things come down to a binary choice, though not often - but I still think it's important to look at the bigger picture as well, like who's tying people to metaphorical train tracks in the first place.

That can be usefull but is also a minor detail as to how to the deal the problem as it is now rather than blow up later.

Anyone has actually see the meme? If anything its a deconstruction of the entire trolley problem because the joke is "We can destroy the train and save everyone, but somehow even this would be criticized"

Edited by KazuyaProta on Mar 6th 2021 at 10:22:25 AM

All I can think of when thinking of the Trolley Problem meme is that one video of a small child being presented with a toy version of the trolley problem, and promptly smashing the train against BOTH sides for good measure.

Ah yes, Multi Track Drifting, OR the Kill Em All option

Honestly, my response whenever somebody tries to bring the damn thing up to me is "What kinda psychopath is tying people to train tracks?"

The trolley problem is inherently silly, and people using it as a legitimate moral dilemma are weird.

I think that one episode of The Good Place where they did the experiment in real time and Chidi kept running over that one guy is just taking the problem to its logical extreme.

The Dastardly kind of course

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Mar 6th 2021 at 8:29:50 AM

Academic here and former assistant for Psych 101 and Philosophy.

Chidi actually demonstrates what everyone FORGETS about the Trolley Problem because they are distracted from the humanity of what is SUPPOSED to be at the heart of it. Which is, "Can you willingly kill someone by intervening in a situation to save more people."

Chidi doesn't have to do ANYTHING and 4 people will die but if he does something then 1 person will die and it's his fault. Chidi freaks the fuck out because he doesn't want anyone to die and is traumatized by it.

I think people get caught up in the particulars.

There's many variants that get the general gist of it:

Note: I created these because people were sick of the fucking Trolley problem and used them in the class.

1. The Hunger Problem': You are a group of 100 people and you find a family of 4 sitting on a bunch of food that will feed 100 people for the rest of the Winter. The family won't share. You can rob them and feed 100 people but not 104, even if you share. Do you rob them? What is the more ethical?

2. The Batman Problem: You have two ships that are both rigged to explode by the Joker. You have time to disable one. The first ship is full of 100 prisoners and the second ship is full of 75 innocent tourists. Which do you save?

3. The Drone Strike Problem: You have a group of terrorists in a house with a little girl outside of it and you think they're going to do an attack on a bunch of US soldiers the next day. Do you take the shot?

Notable fact: The Drone strike one is pretty much the basis of a movie with Alan Rickman (I came up with mine independently) and when it happened in RL very recently, Joseph Biden did NOT take the shot.

The whole point is just to get you thinking about the parameters of who you save and how.

The thing is that Take a Third Option is often discouraged but the fact that you TRY TO is actually as valuable an insight into your morality as the idea of cold equations because, "I try it even if it doesn't work" is as much an answer as "I save the criminals or the tourists."

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Mar 6th 2021 at 9:06:30 AM

Yeah, my issue with the trolly problem is that it’s to abstract for many people in modern times. Something more realistic like the ones Charles mentioned are going to be more easily understood.

Thing is, in my opinion, choosing not to act, is as much of a choice as choosing to flip the switch. I didn't watch the show, but I'm gonna assume he flipped the switch. Chances are, he would have been just as traumatized if he and felt just as guilty if he didn't act.

With Necessary Evils, I'd argue that the thing to keep in mind is that inaction is still a choice that has moral implications. If you choose not to commit the necessary evil, then you're morally culpable in whatever happens as a result of that.

For example, in the Drone Strike dilemma that Charles mentions, if you don't take the shot, you're in some way culpable in what the terrorists do, in the same way that Peter Parker is culpable in his Uncle getting shot. In fact, I've actually used that as a metaphor for US Interventionism along the lines "if we don't stop the bad guys now, they'll get stronger and eventually it'll more directly become our problem".

While "Necessary Evils" have been used to justify atrocities, I'd argue that's not necessarily a great argument against the principle for a few reasons. In particular: I'd argue atrocities don't need to be justified that way, and you can justify atrocities using any number of methods.

@Charles Phipps Yeah, I like your dilemmas quite a bit. The Trolley Problem is a bit abstract and contrived. Indeed, if you ran into it in real life the best conclusion would be to assume that you're up against someone like The Joker and The Joker probably booby-trapped the switch.

Now admittedly part of the problem is how self-contained the scenarios are. Part of why the Trolley Problem almost-works is because it's pretty "self-contained".

To use an example, with the Drone Strike dilemma: you could make an argument that not taking the shot might actually save more lives in the long run. If you take the shot, that's probably going to be terrible for optics. Locals might become less cooperative, you might lose support for the war, and the terrorists win.

By contrast, if you let the terrorists get away, you might look compassionate or at least won't look as evil. Then, when the terrorists kill people, take pictures of the corpses and use that for propaganda.

Actually, Chidi doesn't because his problem is indecisiveness and that's actually what is his greatest moral flaw. It's the least objectionable one of the characters but Chidi finds out that his inability to commit to any moral choice (why he became a philosophy professor - ba dum ching) means that he has no real morality to speak of.

His Warrior Therapist uses a literal version of the Trolley Problem to demonstrate that Chidi being unable to do it even in a simulation makes him a bad(ish) person who his friends can't rely on.

He doesn't even choose NOT to intervene so much as can't figure out whether not intervening is the best choice.

Yeah and the thing is there isn't actually a wrong answer. The Trolley Problem is actually a roleplaying exercise like Mass Effects Renegade vs. Paragon choice. The most simplistic version seems like its endorsing cold equations but that's not the idea, the idea is to get you to ask yourself how you make informed ethical choices.

Something like Mass Effects, "Do I stop the terrorist or save the colonists?" is another example because its asking how you prioritize the greater good.

Varys in Game of Thrones actually gave another good example, "You have a rich man, a priest, and a nobleman and can save one." Tyrion nails it, "It's about who is doing the choosing."

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Mar 6th 2021 at 10:48:22 AM

Can't I just... Let them all die?

That is also an option.

Another thing about the Trolley Problem is that and this my last bit on it, you're SUPPOSED to continue from the initial premise. Basically after presenting, "save four people at the expense of 1", you then mix up the variables.

• It's four senior citizens vs. one little girl
• It's four Nazis vs. one Rabbi
• It's four college age girls and four frat boys

Basically just to ask how you judge the value of people and what to do.

Without the second half of it, it seems like a stupid scenario. But adding the variables I think is the point.

Well, with that information, I'm saving the little girl, a rabbi, and... If you wanted the third option to be more complicated, you shouldn't have made them frat boys.

Exactly.

It's all about basically teaching moral calculus and examining how you do yours.

Another thing is also how "involved" the actions required to save the larger number of people are.

For example, there's a variation of it where there's only one track, but there's a fat person on a bridge near it. If you push that fat guy in front of the train, he'll derail it and save the rest of the people.

While most people choose to save more people most of the time, most people choose to not push the fat guy in front of the trolley. This is because with the 'standard' Trolley Problem, the one guy is already tied to the tracks and killing him involves just flipping a switch. In this variant, the person is already on the tracks.

Indeed, I'd say the core of the dilemma is essentially about how much you care about direct harm vs indirect and passive harm.

For example, the Drone Strike problem: you can directly kill one child, or you can indirectly and passively allow a higher number of people to be killed.

I realized that while the "Wojak" memes are generally used in pretty harmless ways, they have a special popularity among reactionaries, who reach a level that a friend called "Genuinely believing Wojaks are real life".

Which in the far-right, it makes all the sense. The meme is basically the narrative of "STRONK MEN", "WEAK MEN", "WHORISH WOMAN", "PURE WIFE" and other stock characters without the ability of having traits of the other (ie. A guy being strong but also a cowardly crybaby, a guy being pretty passive and guillible, but also fairly capable of following orders are personalities pretty incompatible with a mindset that is based on Hard Cathegorizations of Human Personalities that don't allow for nuances)

Its honestly worse that Rageface because ragefaces actually allowed people that change and shown many traits. Wojaks essentially are locking the characters into fixed cathegories, where change would mean completely abandoning their past identity.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Mar 6th 2021 at 3:09:55 PM

See this one opens up another out of the box solution, which is for yourself to jump, saving both the fat guy and the people tied to the tracks. Also there’s the option of asking the fat guy to jump, making it a noble sacrifice by him instead of murder by you.

Based on what Charles has said about Trolly Problem done right there should be space for a “and then I...” answer, where a person answers that they pick say the option of pulling the lever by then go hunt down whatever crazy asshole is tying people to tracks.

I mean, why does the Fat guy have to jump?

If his body can be used to stop the train and save the person tied to the tracks and the people on it, can't you just toss out something of equal girth and weight to do the same?

Of course, it's entirely possible that I'm missing the point.

Also, has there ever been a scenario where despite one side having more people, both the one tied to the tracks and the larger number have equal value for other reasons.

Like, one is a genius doctor who's the only one who can cure a terminal disease, and the others are a team of genius computer experts who're needed to say...fix the bugs in a some super important computer that's also needed to save people.

Cause then, it's not just about the immediate deaths, but the future lives that could be saved if either side survives.

I'd also argue that in any situation, taking the option that reduces the chance of death over straight up choosing to kill someone else is the choice that makes the most sense. Like, there's a reason most hostage negotiators still try to avoid even killing the hostage takers.

......feel free to let me know if I totally missed the point.