r/trolleyproblem

You are driving a trolley, when suddenly you are presented with a horrific view: right in front of you, there's five people tied to the tracks! It's too late to stop, but there's switch leading to another track right before the five, and you could toggle it by pressing a button on the trolley thanks to the RTSMMTDP (Remote Track Switching Mechanism with Multi-Track Drift Prevention).

But as you approach the junction, you notice another thing: Like in every Reddit post about the Trolley Problem you've seen so far, there's another person tied to the other track. If you press the button, one person will die because of your action. But if you don't, five people will die due to your negligence. You will not be judged if you don't press the button, since trolley drivers are not expected to make such a choice, but regulations require you to fill out a 30 page form for each person that gets fatally hit by the trolley you are driving. On the other hand, if you do toggle the switch, the family and friends of the guy on the second track will be mad at you, claiming that you killed him by diverting from the trolley's regular route.

Given these circumstances, would you press the button?

Repost cuz I realized the track looped around in the previous post

Anyway this is inspired by a post question on r/nostupidquestions

Both are tied to the tracks

There was some uh, rousing discussion yesterday on the value of human life, so i decided to see if this situation changed anything. Here is the setup:

TL;DR Should your pet suffer pain and disability, or a stranger

- The human is a stranger to you. He is a well-adjusted but unremarkable member of society. He will never do anything newsworthy, good or bad. He has a family whom he helps support. He is a healthy 25 year old. He is also gagged and cannot communicate with you.

- The bottom track contains one of your pets, whichever is your favorite if you have multiple. If you have no pets, it contains your theoretical pet parrot Polly who has mental capacity roughly equivalent to a 5 year old, and who will live for another 50 happy years as-is.

- both parties are tied such that one of their primary limbs is in the path of the trolley. One of the stranger's legs, and one of Polly's wings in this image, or a leg or fin of your pet.
If the trolley runs over them, they will lose the limb in question in an excruciating manner; painful beyond anything you can imagine.

- The injured party will live and recover to full health, aside from the amputation, but the nature of the injury makes a prosthetic impossible. The missing limb will continue to be somewhat painful for the rest of their life.

- The only influence you have over the situation is the ability to choose to redirect the trolley from it's natural path to your pet, so it runs over the stranger instead.

- Regardless of your choice, you will suffer no tangible consequences from the law or personal reprisal. The stranger will make your choice public.

- You know all of the above supernaturally to be true, and have unlimited time to make your choice.

Do you pull?

An evil alien has kidnapped Michael Jordan and tied him to the tracks. You can pull the lever and switch it to another track, but the alien has tied Lebron James to that one. The alien says if you let the GOAT die, he will kill you.

What do you do?

Would you pull the lever to sacrifice your own savior in order to save the five people?