If we keep doubling, will I eventually be a person on the tracks? There are a finite number of people, so eventually I would be, right? So, passing the buck would be equivalent to handing my fate to a stranger.
OTOH, if there are an infinite number of people, then this thought experiment is creating people out of thin air. Do these imaginary people’s rhetorical lives even matter?
Either way, it seems better to kill 1 person at the start.
I don’t have to be a soldier on anyone’s ethical recursion war, so since the default position is set to kill 1 person, that gets done by the problem itself and the whole thing is solved without me having to do anything.
As a further bonus, now the lever people on the next branches are free to get out of the levels and go release the other prisoners.
I’ve been thinking about this. I estimate a few people per 1000 would do an atrocity for no reason if they were guaranteed no consequences, and the deaths if the switch is pulled are 2^(n-1) for the nth switch. The expected deaths will cross 1 somewhere in the high single-digits, then (since it’s outcome*chance), so the death minimising strategy is actually to pull yours if the chain is at least that long.
Edit: This assumes the length of the chain is variable but finite, and the trolley stops afterwards. If it’s infinite obviously you pull the switch.
Could you elaborate what you are analysing here? If I dont misinterpret the model, the option where you dont double the victims minimizes deaths every time.
Ah, but then you’re giving the opportunity to the next guy to kill even more, if he wants. Most people obviously won’t want to do that, but a rare few will, and the body count gets so big so fast that it only takes a few switches before that’s a bad risk.
I was expecting a bigger number of switches, but I guess that’s just another example of humans being bad at tracking the consequences of large quantities.
But if you assume that such a person exists, then it is inevitable that someone will pull the switch. The very best case is that such a person is immediately after you. Therefore, the only minimizing choice is to kill however many people you have.
Oh, I see. Yes, the context here was that we assume all possible chain lengths. If it’s infinite the death-minimising strategy is obviously to pull it, and if your switch is the only one you obviously don’t. The question was where it changes from one to the other.
Makes me wonder what happens when the number of people tied to the tracks exceeds rhe number of people currently alive. Should be around the 33rd lever.
Half-pull the lever so that the points get stuck midway between the two tracks. That should derail the trolley. Someone could conceivably still get hurt, but it improves everyone’s chances.
(What? You mean it isn’t a literal trolley that has to obey the laws of physics? Damn.)
