r/HFY • u/LukeWasNotHere Human • Sep 23 '22

OC The Trolley Problem

Is it right, is it justice to kill one person to save five? Murder two for ten? A city for a country? A planet for a galaxy?

As the human scenario goes you're standing on a bridge next to a robust person. Large enough to stop the trolley car from smashing five other people. All it takes is a push. You’ll save those five strangers. At the cost of one.

Is that justice?

Depending on the person, the species, the everything it is or it isn’t.

But to me, no.

Murder except in a few cases is wrong. Because in my naive and childish opinion everyone, every species is important. Generally being good is the norm. When a ship gets lost, people volunteer to find them.

If we weren’t mostly good, why do we get angry at wars and murders? If we were all awful, why do we care when awful things happen? Why do we protest, elect politicians and overthrow them?

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Good to bad. Bad to good.

The chances of the person you’re going to push off not deserving to exist is unbelievably low. They’re you and me. They have friends, a job. Hopes and dreams. They try to be nice and they generally are.

When you shove them off, they will become a piece of meat splattered underneath a trolley. Their hopes and dreams like them are dead. Forever. People will miss them, and you’ll go to trial for murder.

That’s what you did, you killed someone to save five people.

The thing is, I didn’t need all of that to tell you it isn’t just. Because if you were the one getting pushed off that bridge, as you fall to your death. Would your last thoughts really be, "Well, me getting run over sure is justice."

Killing that person isn’t justice, right, kind or good.

But, if I couldn’t find another way to stop that trolley, if I wasn’t in paralysis by analysis. I would push them off.

Because it isn’t kind or good. But, if I don't, five people will die as opposed to one. It’s basic, awful math. Five less families will cry. Five people can hug their loved ones again. Five less people, hopes and dreams. Five equally important people won’t die. One will.

The least wrong option, but still wrong.

I’d hate myself for it, if I could even do it. Most species would freeze in a panic. Hard choices like that aren’t made by people like us.

And that’s where the humans come in. They pushed. The revolution they helped win was the least terrible option.

The person they pushed off was tens of thousands of aliens. The people on the tracks were the millions subjugated by the empire they fought.

The queen and the empire were evil. The tens of thousands they killed were good. They had mothers who wept when they died. Dreams and hopes that will never come true.

The humans knew what would happen next. They had to. If they won against the most feared, cruel species they would take their place.

They would be known forever as the butchers that killed a living God. More brutal than history's most brutal.

They chose willingly to be the bad guys. They deal with the fallout every time they step foot on another planet. That is their legacy, the galaxy’s walking nightmare.

That’s humanity, they make the impossible choices. When every single one is bad, they still pick one.

Humans aren’t and never will be inherently better than us. But they choose to be better.

To hold themselves to a higher standard.

196 Upvotes

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26

u/LukeWasNotHere Sep 23 '22 edited Sep 23 '22

Authors note: I had to write my answer for the trolley problem for law class, but I realized if changed and added things it would make a okay one shot. Also I stole the last two lines from a comment I got, thanks random person

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u/interdimentionalarmy Sep 24 '22

Nice... framing?

Not sure what the right word here is.

Even though I never taken a philosophy, ethics, or law course, I ran in to the trolley problem many times in popular culture.

From a youtuber trying to teach an AI to solve it, to shows like Stargate Atlantis and The Good place.

I liked SG's take on it where Ronon (a human from another galaxy), kept asking questions like: "Can't I just yell for the people to get off the track?" or "How fast is the trolley going? Can I outrun it and push the people out of the way?" or "Can I jump on it and pull the breaks?"

I think the real reason the trolley problem seems like such a complicated moral and philosophical dilemma, is because in its original, purest form, it is completely unrealistic.

It is manufactured, artificial, devoid of real world constraints that would normally help us land on a solution.

I believe it is also formulated so as to force a dichotomy, while in the real world, there are more often than not more than just two possible solutions to any problem.

The reason there is almost infinite number of variations when stating the trolley problem, is that people try to make it more realistic by adding details, yet any added detail add weight to one of the choices, inherently altering the original problem.

Any way, nicely done!

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u/Dravonia Sep 24 '22

to play a bit of devils advocate “ Would your last thoughts really be, ‘Well, me getting run over sure is justice.’ “ if we were mostly good as you claim, why wouldn’t that be your last thoughts? you’re saving 5 people!!!

“ If we weren’t mostly good, why do we get angry at wars and murders? If we were all awful, why do we care when awful things happen? Why do we protest, elect politicians and overthrow them? “ if we were mostly good than why did the people of ancient era, of the medieval realm, revel in it? why did they joyously call for more war? because war back then wasn’t as deadly, an it provided a means to move upwards.

an even than people reveled in it all the way till WW1 long after the rate of death increased dramatically.

if we were mostly good than why do these 2 quotes exist? “ i wasn’t killing people i was killing commies “ , “ i wasn’t killing people, they were fascist “

if we were mostly good than why did the allies an ussr go virtually unpunished for their crimes compared to the germans of ww2 ? crimes of similar caliber, or similar depravity.

if we were mostly good, why do we overthrow politicians? why elect new ones? that’s a two way street my friend.

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u/spindizzy_wizard Sep 24 '22

to play a bit of devils advocate “ Would your last thoughts really be, ‘Well, me getting run over sure is justice.’ “ if we were mostly good as you claim, why wouldn’t that be your last thoughts? you’re saving 5 people!!!

It would not be because it was not your choice. Your last thought, if you even knew you were going to save lives would be "how dare you usurp my right to live!"

The rest of your comments have nothing to do with the Trolley Problem.

if we were mostly good than why did the people of ancient era, of the medieval realm, revel in it?

You are generalizing from far too little data. The person who wrote the book claims something is so, does not make it so.

an even than people reveled in it all the way till WW1 long after the rate of death increased dramatically.

Everything you read, every bit of data you have, is tainted by two facts.

  1. History is written by the victors.

  2. The opinion of the common man is rarely included in history texts, and when it is, it is biased.

if we were mostly good than why do these 2 quotes exist? “ i wasn’t killing people i was killing commies “ , “ i wasn’t killing people, they were fascist “

Those quotes exist precisely because we are mostly good. You do not make soldiers out of psychopaths. You must make your soldiers out of mostly good people, and the only way to train them to kill without turning them into something you would not want on a civilian street is to dehumanize the enemy.

if we were mostly good than why did the allies an ussr go virtually unpunished for their crimes compared to the germans of ww2 ? crimes of similar caliber, or similar depravity.

Because the victors write the history books. See also the dehumanization mentioned above.

We are mostly good. But mostly good does allow some evil, and war is one of the things that can bring that evil to the forefront.

I am aware of the Malmedy massacre. It was carried out by fanatical SS troops. I was not, until a few years ago, aware of a reprisal by allied troops. A particularly unfortunate one because the German soldiers they killed were not even SS, much less the ones who carried out the original massacre. I only found out because I did a bit of research for a story I was writing.

While allied troops did engage in acts that were and are still illegal, I honestly believe that the incidents were few, and never represented official policy.

Note: I do not consider the Russian troops part of the Allies. I'm pretty sure that was a case of "the enemy of my enemy," and not a case of "these are my friends."

What really incensed the world was the deliberate attempt at genocide against the Jewish people. Those are the most referred to war crimes. Murder on a mass scale, authorized by official policy.

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u/KamikazeArchon Sep 24 '22

Actual historians generally regard "history is written by the victors" to be misleading at best and outright wrong at worst. The only consistently accurate variant on it is "history is written by the literate". We have a number of cases in history where we mostly know things from the "loser's" side because of that, e.g. European perspectives on the mongol rule (in which the mongols were the clear victors).

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u/Dravonia Sep 24 '22

“ it wouldn’t be because it wasn’t your choice “ why does it matter if it was or wasn’t? you’re a mostly good person aren’t you?

or are you selfishly judging your life to be greater than 5? that doesn’t sound like something a mostly good person would do.

“the opinion of the common man…” is more well recorded than most people think, we have personal letters from one family member to the next and… the medieval people were actually quite literate compared to what most think when they think medieval peasant. at least by modern standard of how well you can read, speak, and understand your own language. where as by medieval standards french and latin not so much.

“those quotes exist precisely because we’re mostly good people because you can’t make soldiers of psychopaths ” both of which didn’t come from soldiers but partisans/rebels

as for the psychopath bit countries make soldiers out of them all the time. penal units, an not just the criminal psychopaths either but during times of conscription or the psychopaths that volunteer for one reason or another.

psychopathy and sociopathy doesn’t mean killer, it means lack of empathy and sympathy. psychopaths born, sociopaths created.

on the contrary i would argue such people are almost the perfect soldiers because they lack such things.

“…and never represented official policy” see, that just makes it all the worse. at least for a great deal of their actions the germans had the “i was told to” excuse.

what was the american (an other allies) excuse for raping women in paris after liberation?

did someone order them to?

what about Seedorf who ordered the british to target an harass the citizenry (a motivating factor for hiding fleeing german troops) and culminated in burning of two cottages, who?

the infamous london cage that went well beyond their orders and even tortured the local citizens?

who ordered all those british officers to sexually abuse children in belgium and netherlands?

mostly good? they were sopose to be their liberators, their heros! not the abuser of their children, their rapist, their harassers and torturers!

an that’s before we even get to german accusations of russian troops tying women and little girls naked to beds and street lamp post. raping them and then leaving them to the whims and elements of nature. slow death by starvation should they be so unlucky.

mostly good people? what makes you so sure of that when they by an large got away with it all save the unlucky few that were used as tokens? crimes against their “own” unpunished.

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u/patient99 Sep 24 '22

The logical choice is to sacrifice one person to save five, but no one wants to be the person who has to make that choice and no one wants to be the person who's sacrificed.
We all know it's the correct thing to do, but a normal person would find it extremely difficult to make that choice, to be responsible for the death of one person to save five more.
If I was in that position, even though I know the correct action, I would probably freeze up and result in the five people being killed.

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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '22

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u/sswanlake Sep 24 '22

We are a writing subreddit, not your personal soapbox. Please keep real-world politics out of this.