Trolley problem is a bullshit in the first place, just as your "what if" nonsense. Millions of innocent children are dying and being tortured already by the capitalism, which is also main cause of global warming.
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2025
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Ok, why is the trolley problem bullshit? Seriously.
Because it implies utilitarianism is the best option by oversimplifying the problem. For example in your example you gave zero details on the situation.
It's what we call an abstraction. This particular abstraction highlights a moral point.
Not bullshit. Useful and interesting.
Typically, an abstraction maintains the essence of the original. Asking "what if , but it costs " isn't an abstraction.
I'm not aware of a proposed solution to climate change that involves mass torture or murder.
The question feels more like one of those terrible parlor games where you have to pick a few cards and then argue some randomly generated point.
Thanks man. You really got to the heart of it there
Okay let me try another abstraction. Should we cure cancer but kill a bunch of people?
That's the same riddle. You get that, right?
And so we find ourselves without an easy answer. And so we are forced to inspect the riddle more closely. To uncover hidden assumptions and such. We might even do that in conversation, on a forum like lemmy.
The core of the riddle is that it is an ultimatum.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimatum
Ultimatums have been debated historically, in great detail. For example, in the old testament of the bible.
https://www.bibleoutlines.com/isaiah-361-377-dont-make-a-deal-with-the-devil/
Even if one is not religious or cares not for reading biblical stuff, it is simplified effectively as such:
If given only 2 choices, it is never fair. Find another choice.
I think that's a different thing.
You are right, it's not the same thing. I had an English teacher who tossed out her vocabulary lesson one day and instead went off on a very energetic rant about critical thinking, ultimatums, game theory, dilemma, paradox and so on. I've always wanted to recreate her lesson but never get it right.
I do think my final line still applies for this scenario. There's always another way. I think War Games does the same idea I was trying to convey but I've never seen it, I've only seen enough references to it, to vagely know what it's about..
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Jesse, what the fuck are you talking about???
Not sure, but definitely made a lot of people think
Yeah like "wtf is op on?"
OP, whatever you are on, don't use it ever again. There is no reason to think that torturing and killing kids will solve global warming. In short, it is a useless hypothetical that adds nothing to the discussion about solving the problem. Meaning it useless, while you get to pretend that you are somehow smart. Newsflash: you are not.
It's insight like that. Thanks
we're already torturing and murdering millions of innocent children in gaza, africa and southeast asia and we're actively enabling climate change to maintain american dominance; is that okay?
Which is ironically undermining American dominance
only because of gaza and even then only because of tiktok. after all: we've been murdering millions of across the entire world to maintain our comfort and none of it got anywhere near as much attention as it does now because of social media platforms that were not controlled by our oligarchy. ie tiktok.
emphasis is "were not controlled" because tiktok is very much under control now.
I have only tortured children as a passenger in an automobile, using flatulance and automatic window locks. I have not murdered anyone. I have never used ticktalk.
It irritates me a lot when people use 'we' and 'our' in contexts that include me, when they do not apply to me.
So to rephrase your first comment in this chain:
The american government, via israeli and other proxy and puppet armies they have created, are already torturing and murdering millions of innocent children in gaza, africa and southeast asia and unchecked capitalist corporations, both american and international, are actively enabling climate change to maintain american military dominance to serve as their shield from the people who resist; is that okay?
The answer is: No.
I have not been comfortable for a long time, figuratively and literally, long before I ever heard about gaza, since before I was considered an adult, a few weeks prior to 9/11.
I have protested in many ways since then, with several years incarcerated because of it.
I have lived an impoverished life by american standards, although not the same level of poverty as other places, by several orders of magnitude for some places.
It is the billionaire kleptocracy that is controlling the country I am trapped in, that is causing climate change. Not me, with my lack of using fossil fuels whenever I had the choice, eating locally grown as much as available, avoiding supporting the worst companies such as big oil and the process and/or fast food complex.
Sorry for the rant. Like I said, I really hate when people say 'we' and it includes me.
You and me have zero control of the trolley. In fact, statistically we are among the "billions who must die". Stop wasting your time with philosophical distractions when our lives and futures are at stake now. Let's kill the billionaires reaping obscene profits from destroying the planet first, and see how that goes. After that, if you still feel that the unwashed masses need thinning, I suggest you lead by example.
We donβt need to. We just need to stop letting business interests direct economic priority.
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Were you on drugs? Of course that's not okay.
It's the trolly problem. So yr spending 100 to save a million
What if we had to torture and murder you to solve global warming? Would that be ok?
If there is absolutely no other option, yes. Even dropping nukes over the whole earth is okay if that solves a massive long term problem.
Yeah I guess that's the ultimate math of it. I'm new to chewing this riddle. I think the most popular answer is to shout that the riddle doesn't exist. I'm still chewing on it.
I will gladly torture some puppies if it means that no more dogs are killed after that. The end result is more important than short term βissuesβ.
I used to have an ethical dilemma about animal testing in medicine but then realised that the animals would have been killed anyways and would have had a shitty life before that, in farms or something. Now, at least their suffering is not in vain.
Ideally, there would be no suffering of any organism, but if push comes to shove, you have to make sacrifices.
Yeah the logic is clear. But consider the lesson of War Games.
The riddle can also be a mindfucking trap. The first, implicit, assertion of these kinds of riddles is that you must solve the riddle because the riddle is important (because it accurately represents reality or something)
But that might not be so.
So if we're gonna cut through the riddle then that might be our access point.
I know what you are trying to say but I assume that there is no other option to solve the problem, what the post implied.
Well yes, that's my point. For the purposes of our game of riddle-solving the assumption is valid. But for the purposes of "reality" it isn't.
So there's something going on with perspective there.
Are we witnessing the DNC forming their 2028 presidential platform here in real time? I can't wait to have a bunch of right-wing liberals tell me why murdering millions of kids is absolutely necessary and that I'm obviously a conservative Russian plant for not supporting it.
It's the trolly problem. A classic.
What do you think is the use of trolley problems?