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On a viewing platform above the station, you see 5 people in harms way of an oncoming train. You note that by pushing a large object onto the track, the train will stop short of the 5 people.

Coincidentally there is an old, rather tall, rotund fellow just next to you - merely by 'bumping' into him, seemingly by accident, he is sure to fall right on the track, and the 5 people will be saved, while he would die. In fact, it would appear on security cameras that he jumped, and would likely be hailed as a hero.

Do you bump him, or not?

This is the second of three polls in this series.

-Adam

Nope. Same as last time. 5 > 1.

This time I'd have popcorn for the show though.

Shegokigo said:

Nope. Same as last time. 5 > 1.

Click to expand...

And here I was expecting you to say, "Bump him just after the train hits the 5."

Always keeping me guessing, aren't you?

-Adam

Again, not an option.

You want poll answers, or would you like my imagination to fly free?

Again the same answer. People should stop walking on train tracks.

stienman said:

On a viewing platform above the station, you see 5 people in harms way of an oncoming train. You note that by pushing a large object onto the track, the train will stop short of the 5 people.

Coincidentally there is an old, rather tall, rotund fellow just next to you - merely by 'bumping' into him, seemingly by accident, he is sure to fall right on the track, and the 5 people will be saved, while he would die. In fact, it would appear on security cameras that he jumped, and would likely be hailed as a hero.

Do you bump him, or not?

This is the second of three polls in this series.

-Adam

Click to expand...

question: are there any external remedies that you need to worry about?

by pushing an object on to the track, it could cause the train to break too quick (depending on object or by mean of pushing.. manual? mechanical?) this could derail the train and guess what? all will die and it will be your fault.

If there are people ON the track, why would an object force the train to stop instead of "seeing" people and not stopping? the conductor is the one committing the murder here.

Shegokigo said:

Click to expand...

heh well.. these questions are really bogus really (IMO) I mean, nothing is truly black and white and people have to consider the consequences of their action (or inaction). I wish it was as simple as the polls.

Of course there are always alternative options like yours which is go for chaos and mayhem.

Question: What is to stop me from jumping onto the track?

Assuming my only possible options are the ones given, I could still save the lives of 4 people by pushing the old man.

My problem with this one (and always has been) is there is a third viable option. Jump myself. This way I have saved 5 lives and didn't kill anyone else to do it.

Chibibar;262568][quote=stienman said:

On a viewing platform above the station, you see 5 people in harms way of an oncoming train. You note that by pushing a large object onto the track, the train will stop short of the 5 people.

Coincidentally there is an old, rather tall, rotund fellow just next to you - merely by 'bumping' into him, seemingly by accident, he is sure to fall right on the track, and the 5 people will be saved, while he would die. In fact, it would appear on security cameras that he jumped, and would likely be hailed as a hero.

Do you bump him, or not?

This is the second of three polls in this series.

-Adam

Click to expand...

question: are there any external remedies that you need to worry about?

by pushing an object on to the track, it could cause the train to break too quick (depending on object or by mean of pushing.. manual? mechanical?) this could derail the train and guess what? all will die and it will be your fault.

If there are people ON the track, why would an object force the train to stop instead of "seeing" people and not stopping? the conductor is the one committing the murder here.[/QUOTE]

Presumably the train is already braking as it enters the station, but it won't break quickly enough unless the train engineer hits something on the track a bit sooner than the 5 that are already there.

Due to haze the engineer is relying on signals to slow down, and the operator in the station who would normally be checking the track for problems is instead watching the rugby match on the little 5" black and white telly.

-Adam

---------- Post added at 04:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:10 PM ----------

Covar said:

Question: What is to stop me from jumping onto the track?

Click to expand...

Krisken said:

My problem with this one (and always has been) is there is a third viable option. Jump myself. This way I have saved 5 lives and didn't kill anyone else to do it.

Click to expand...

You are not large enough. It's the rotund man, or nothing.

-Adam

If there's enough time for the body of a rotund man to stop a train, there's enough time to warn people to move.

I couldn't kill someone even to save 5 other people.

Piotyr said:

If there's enough time for the body of a rotund man to stop a train, there's enough time to warn people to move.

Click to expand...

For the purpose of the question, assume that your statement was not true. Your only choices are to either kill him, or allow the other 5 to die. Your choice will with 100% certainty predict the outcome of the entire situation.

-Adam

stienman;262615][quote=Piotyr said:

If there's enough time for the body of a rotund man to stop a train, there's enough time to warn people to move.

Click to expand...

For the purpose of the question, assume that your statement was not true. Your only choices are to either kill him, or allow the other 5 to die. Your choice will with 100% certainty predict the outcome of the entire situation.

-Adam[/QUOTE]

That is the part that confuse me, if a single man could stop the train (via you pushing him) then you would have enough time to yell at people to get off the train.

Being the operator of levers, I'm sure there is a comm system somewhere or radio nearby.

but hey, these are hypothetical.

stienman;262615][quote=Piotyr said:

If there's enough time for the body of a rotund man to stop a train, there's enough time to warn people to move.

Click to expand...

For the purpose of the question, assume that your statement was not true. Your only choices are to either kill him, or allow the other 5 to die. Your choice will with 100% certainty predict the outcome of the entire situation.[/QUOTE]

Sorry stienman, I gotta side with Piotyr here. If the train can be physically stopped by the body of one fat person, there is more than enough time for people to get out of the way because the train will simply not be going that quickly.

In fact, the train will likely be going so slowly that the people will be able to easily get away regardless of what I do.

If the train is not going slowly, I could only conclude that you want me to kill the old man regardless, because his body will not be sufficient to stop a speeding train from not hitting the other 5 people.

Unless the old man is the Blob.



In which case, I'd throw a chicken nugget on the tracks.

TeKeo said:

Sorry stienman, I gotta side with Piotyr here. If the train can be physically stopped by the body of one fat person, there is more than enough time for people to get out of the way because the train will simply not be going that quickly.

Click to expand...

Obviously you have a difficult time with thought experiments.

In this case the train is a quantum train approaching the station at or near C. It can stop nearly instantaneously, but only at the command of the engineer. The rotund fellow will be vaporized, but the bumper sensors on the train will detect him, and the train will stop just as it vaporized him.

You don't actually see the train approaching, but know it is on its way due to excellent time tables and an atomic clock on your wrist. In fact you know this express train will arrive here just a few seconds before it departs it origin.

There is no time to warn anyone, and you must make the decision instantly as the man does need .93 seconds to fall far enough for the bumper sensor to hit him.

-Adam

I push the man into the 5 people, knocking all clear. If he's big enough to stop an express train, he's big enough to knock 5 people clear of tracks.

stienman;262632][quote=TeKeo said:

Sorry stienman, I gotta side with Piotyr here. If the train can be physically stopped by the body of one fat person, there is more than enough time for people to get out of the way because the train will simply not be going that quickly.

Click to expand...

Obviously you have a difficult time with thought experiments.

In this case the train is a quantum train approaching the station at or near C. It can stop nearly instantaneously, but only at the command of the engineer. The rotund fellow will be vaporized, but the bumper sensors on the train will detect him, and the train will stop just as it vaporized him.

You don't actually see the train approaching, but know it is on its way due to excellent time tables and an atomic clock on your wrist. In fact you know this express train will arrive here just a few seconds before it departs it origin.

There is no time to warn anyone, and you must make the decision instantly as the man does need .93 seconds to fall far enough for the bumper sensor to hit him.

-Adam[/QUOTE]

Heh.. if that was the case, I'll throw a forcefield around the people or levitate them off the track

stienman said:

In this case the train is a quantum train approaching the station at or near C. It can stop nearly instantaneously, but only at the command of the engineer. The rotund fellow will be vaporized, but the bumper sensors on the train will detect him, and the train will stop just as it vaporized him.

You don't actually see the train approaching, but know it is on its way due to excellent time tables and an atomic clock on your wrist. In fact you know this express train will arrive here just a few seconds before it departs it origin.

There is no time to warn anyone, and you must make the decision instantly as the man does need .93 seconds to fall far enough for the bumper sensor to hit him.

Click to expand...

Considering that your example requires that not only does the train not have any safety workers to detect the presence of 5 people already on the track, no emergency stop system within easy access in a station, no station personnel, no possibility of throwing a large nonliving object on the tracks, requires both the engineer and the conductor to be AWOL, and assumes that no one with any form of systemic control is watching the security cameras which almost certainly show the 5 people on the track, I'm fairly sure that I wouldn't realize that those 5 people required such an intervention on my part until it was far too late to save them.

Foreknowledge of those factors requires that I either want to kill the 5 or the old man, and get away with it. Otherwise, I would be most likely to prevent those 5 people from entering the track at that time, before the conditions which you describe could occur.

You do realize that I'm just messing around to be difficult because it amuses me, right?

If you're actually trying to use the poll data, I apologize, and I'll stop.

If I were given godlike sentience to predict outcomes and presented with only the following options, I'd save the 5. However, in almost any real situation, I wouldn't be able to predict with enough certainty that the fat man would save them.

I'd also note that I DO see a real difference between this an the previous question, precisely for that reason: in real life, people aren't presented with arbitrary criteria that they know with 100% certainty the outcome of. On top of that, in real life, there is value to feeling safe that the person next to you isn't going to push you into a movie train to save 5 random people you don't know. Given those two facts, we should extrapolate: what would happen if EVERYONE were always attempting to do the greatest good for the greatest number, even at the expense of random fat people standing near trains (and similar situations)?

I think it would make for a rather unsafe feeling world. Also, most people are not hypersentient, and a lot of mistakes would made contributing to the feeling of unsafeness that I suspect would outweigh the benefits to the people who get saved.

I would push everyone onto the tracks.

Just to be sure.

TeKeo said:

You do realize that I'm just messing around to be difficult because it amuses me, right?

Click to expand...

I know, otherwise I wouldn't spend time coming up with implausible, but overly elaborate reasons why your hair splitting doesn't help you make a decision.

-Adam

Raemon777 said:

If I were given godlike sentience to predict outcomes and presented with only the following options, I'd save the 5. However, in almost any real situation, I wouldn't be able to predict with enough certainty that the fat man would save them.

I'd also note that I DO see a real difference between this an the previous question, precisely for that reason: in real life, people aren't presented with arbitrary criteria that they know with 100% certainty the outcome of. On top of that, in real life, there is value to feeling safe that the person next to you isn't going to push you into a movie train to save 5 random people you don't know. Given those two facts, we should extrapolate: what would happen if EVERYONE were always attempting to do the greatest good for the greatest number, even at the expense of random fat people standing near trains (and similar situations)?

I think it would make for a rather unsafe feeling world. Also, most people are not hypersentient, and a lot of mistakes would made contributing to the feeling of unsafeness that I suspect would outweigh the benefits to the people who get saved.

Click to expand...

I guess the moral of the question (if there is any) is that while in our mind, we may want to do the "greatest good" with some sacrifice, then comes to the question... how much sacrifice?

So in this case it is a fat man, what if this fat man is your best friend? (some might) what if this fat man is your brother? father? grandfather? would a person value the relationship with the person being sacrifice differently? what if it is a newborn baby?

Chibibar said:

what if it is a newborn baby?

Click to expand...

This is probably due to my whimsical mood, but I just had a horrible image of Shego, as her avatar, derailing the train and saving the people via high-speed pelting of babies at the engineer's window.

While laughing sardonically.

The reason the question works is because all 6 victims are anonymous and you have a split second to make the decision. There are values to friendship, family, love and social contracts wherein people do not off each other for immediate payoff that would make the question far more complicated if you had more time to learn who the people were or impact the situation in a more flexible manner.

I probably would not push the man off no matter what, for reasons that have nothing to do with what is right or logical, and everything to do with me being ruled by shortsighted emotions and the knowledge that I'd feel terrible either way. I don't think I'm a brave enough person to make that kind of decision, period. But I'd be more certain about NOT pushing them off if they were someone I knew and respected, because at least then I know the 1 person I'm saving is a decent person, where I don't know who the other 5 people are (it'd suck royally to kill you friend only to learn you just saved a bunch of rapists).

By the way, my general rule of thumb when saving anonymous people (if forced to choose by ludicrously narrow thought experiments)

Young Healthy Person (approx. age 7 - 40ish) > Baby > Older Person. The death of a baby is sad because of their utter innocence, but ultimately they haven't had time to make connections that would cause the extra devastation that a slightly older person would. People from 7 to 40 years old (I'm assuming Middle Class American life expectancy, this changes dramatically in different parts of the world/economic-ladder) each have things going for them, and I think they pretty much equal out unless you know all sorts of specific information.

After 40, unless you have enormous responsibilities that cannot be filled by other people, I think you've had enough of a life that if forced to I'd choose a younger person who's got more life ahead of them.

Don't want to be a fat man
People would think that I was just good fun
Would rather be a thin man
I am so glad to go on being one

Too much to carry around with you
No chance of finding a woman, who
Will love you in the morning and all the nighttime too

Don't want to be a fat man
Have not the patience to ignore all that
Hate to admit to myself
I thought my problems came from being fat

Won't waste my time feeling sorry for him
I've seen the other side to being thin
Roll us both down a mountain and I'm sure the fat man wins

TeKeo;262665][quote=Chibibar said:

what if it is a newborn baby?

Click to expand...

This is probably due to my whimsical mood, but I just had a horrible image of Shego, as her avatar, derailing the train and saving the people via high-speed pelting of babies at the engineer's window.

While laughing sardonically.[/QUOTE]

I spit water all over my desktop at "high speed pelting".

Shegokigo;262711][quote=TeKeo;262665][quote=Chibibar said:

what if it is a newborn baby?

Click to expand...

This is probably due to my whimsical mood, but I just had a horrible image of Shego, as her avatar, derailing the train and saving the people via high-speed pelting of babies at the engineer's window.

While laughing sardonically.[/quote]

I spit water all over my desktop at "high speed pelting". [/QUOTE]

Here you go, sweetie:



-Adam

Almost perfect, except they explode instead of making a juicy splatter!

I do not push him off.

Jesus Christ folks, just answer the question yes or no. No one is blown away by your out of the box bullshit or nitpicking over semantics. Nothing pisses me off more than assholes picking answers outside of the choices in a simple thought experiment.

The idea is to pick what you would do and then rationalize why you made that choice.

I largely agree with Chaz, although I must note that I probably COULD think of a lot of things more annoying than people coming up with "solutions" to intentionally unsolvable problems and then acting smug.

Raemon777 said:

I largely agree with Chaz, although I must note that I probably COULD think of a lot of things more annoying than people coming up with "solutions" to intentionally unsolvable problems and then acting smug.

Click to expand...

Pop quiz hot shot...

The point is, this is a bullshit scenario and problem. There is zero chance anyone would ever have to make a decision anywhere remotely like this aside from perhaps the leader of a nation, and in most cases where you would even come close to having to choose one life over another, there's almost always a better way that doesn't involve such a choice.

So, what would I do? Find a better way.

I bump the fat man. I tend to view everything and triage it whether I want to or not, so do the greatest good for the greatest amount of people.

Only one man can win a "no-win" simulation and you all, are no James Tiberius Kirks!

Piotyr said:

The point is, this is a bullshit scenario and problem. There is zero chance anyone would ever have to make a decision anywhere remotely like this aside from perhaps the leader of a nation, and in most cases where you would even come close to having to choose one life over another, there's almost always a better way that doesn't involve such a choice.

So, what would I do? Find a better way.

Click to expand...

If you can do this then you would rule modern medicine on the battlefield. Some times there is no better way.

Piotyr said:

The point is, this is a bullshit scenario and problem. There is zero chance anyone would ever have to make a decision anywhere remotely like this aside from perhaps the leader of a nation, and in most cases where you would even come close to having to choose one life over another, there's almost always a better way that doesn't involve such a choice.

So, what would I do? Find a better way.

Click to expand...

If you wholly reject the thought experiment, then why bother wasting your time explaining why you reject it?

I always suspect that those who refuse to participate do so because they have a hard time coming to grips with what their answer would be if they truly were faced with this decision, and they knew there was simply no better way.

Regardless, I'm sorry if the question offends or upsets you. It is nothing more than a few words strung together, and they have little meaning beyond what you decide them to mean.

I have not filled out the poll either - I dislike these questions perhaps as much as you.

Which, I suppose, is why I enjoy putting them to other people - to watch them squirm, perhaps, as I avoid looking at myself.

In all three cases I would do nothing, allowing the 5 to die.

-Adam

The question doesn't upset me specifically, just that if such an impossible scenario arose, I likely would try to find a better way than causing the death of the 1. If after such analysis there was no possibility (again, in an impossible scenario that really happened), then I suppose that means I'd let the 5 die. Which is what I answered.

What I am trying to convey is my actual thought process if put in such a situation, in an effort to justify my decision (or lack thereof).

stienman said:

In this case the train is a quantum train approaching the station at or near C. It can stop nearly instantaneously, but only at the command of the engineer. The rotund fellow will be vaporized, but the bumper sensors on the train will detect him, and the train will stop just as it vaporized him.

Click to expand...

but then i wouldn't be saving 5 people as the train would stop after hitting the first one... 2 at most, unless it's some freakishly wide train track...

@Li3n;262909][quote=stienman said:

In this case the train is a quantum train approaching the station at or near C. It can stop nearly instantaneously, but only at the command of the engineer. The rotund fellow will be vaporized, but the bumper sensors on the train will detect him, and the train will stop just as it vaporized him.

Click to expand...

but then i wouldn't be saving 5 people as the train would stop after hitting the first one... 2 at most, unless it's some freakishly wide train track...[/QUOTE]

The 5 people are very small - in fact you can't tell whether they are midgets or children, and they are huddled together on the track in the same amount of space that the rotund man would take up.

-Adam

stienman said:

they are midgets or children,

Click to expand...

I let them die... kids and midgets freak me out more then fat people...

huddled together on the track in the same amount of space that the rotund man would take up.

Click to expand...

they'd have to be in a line perpendicular to the train, if they're huddled like that some will still get hit before the others...