u/2wicky

A runaway trolley is hurtling down one of two tracks that sit side by side. You know there is a person tied to one of those tracks, but from your vantage point, you can't see which one. If you pull the lever, you'll activate multi-track drift, guaranteeing with 100% certainty that the person on the tracks will be run over.

One tiny little caveat: the moment you pull the lever, you doom yourself to being the next person tied to the tracks. That said, death is not guaranteed, so long as the next person who comes along doesn't choose multi-track drift as well, and the next runaway trolley ends up on the set of tracks you are not tied to.

Do you pull the lever?

A lightning strike powers your vintage 1985 DeOedipus DMC trolley to 88mph. It's your only chance to return to the present and reclaim your life.

At that exact moment, your awkward father stumbles onto the tracks before he has had a chance to lose his virginity to your mother.

Do you abort the mission, saving him but becoming stranded in the past as a temporally stateless person with no legal existence, while risking your mere presence, prevents your parents from ever getting together anyway?

Or do you continue, killing your father while trusting the multiverse theory is real and won’t trigger a catastrophic grandfather paradox?