ooooggll

It showed a bunch of people standing next to a track that a trolley was barreling down, with the caption: "if 50% of humanity ties themselves to the track, the trolley will stop without hitting anyone. If it is less than 50%, the people who tied themselves will get run over by the trolley and die. Do you tie yourself to the track?"

So I think the intention was for it to be the same problem in a different context. But this change makes it a very different problem. Basically everyone has already pressed the red button by default - framing the red button as inaction. This means there's no reason to take action. Everyone is already safe, and tying yourself to the track is essentially killing yourself unless a ton of other people decide to do it too. If the red button is inaction, then inaction is the obvious choice.

But I think red button pushers view it as the same problem because of how obvious it seems to them that the red button is the correct choice, even the "default" one.

So I came up with another version of it that frames the blue button as inaction. "All of humanity is standing on the track, but luckily there is no trolley heading toward them so everybody is safe. However, if at least 50% of humanity steps off the track, a trolley will drive toward the people remaining on the track, killing the remainder. Do you step off the track?"

And yeah. Now the obvious choice is to stay on the track. Sure, stepping off the track guarantees your personal safety, but everybody is already safe. Stepping off is directly contributing to murdering people with a trolley.

If you really wanted to represent the same problem as a trolley problem, you might do it like this: "You must either tie yourself to the track or get in the trolley. If you're in the trolley you are safe, but if at least 50% of people get into the trolley, then it will drive toward whoever is on the track and kill them."

Anyway. I just thought it was interesting that if you represent either button as inaction, then inaction seems to become the obvious choice.

rocky (in the dormitory): HOW TAUMOEBA BREEDER TANKS DOING, QUESTION?

grace (in the lab): sorry what was that? you're gonna have to speak up.