AND WHERE THE FUCK IS THAT ASSHOLE TYING PEOPLE TO THE TRACKS IN THE FIRST PLACE WHY IS THAT GUY NOT EVEN IN THE GODDAMNED PICTURE

I imagine it must be a special kind of frustrating-bordering-on-maddening to try to create a larger framework to enlighten people… only to be best known for a question, innocent in and of itself (and useful under sharply-limited circumstances), that's being amplified out of its context to fuel a false dichotomy of how to view society.

absolutely

and problems require solutions

so we push back on jered saying "avoiding the problem is not a solution to the problem"

it is a solution to the problem

that doesn't mean trolley problems are always avoidable and won't keep coming up

but it means that when they do pop up, we apply matt's solution to that particular flavor of trolley problem for future scenarios of that kind

if you're *in* the trolley problem you already fucked up and need to take the L

Neither. We put almost of all of that money back into the social safety net it was stolen from, and stop creating desperate people making bad choices (out of a limited set, or sometimes none at all).

No engineer, no matter their brilliance, can foresee an ultimate failure. Shit happens. We learn from that and build better (hopefully).

It's that "shit happens" phase where trolly problem solving applies. All your redundant backup systems have failed, and you're forced to choose where to crash-land to minimize loss of life. It's a reasonable thought experiment.

also, throw the switch when the front wheels are past it.
https://www.tumblr.com/josh-thoughtlost/806101943319658496/reblogging-again-just-because-this-is-the-hopepunk?source=share
take that, TROLLEY FUCKERS
@mattdm
(Edited for typo)

Even if you put a system in place to avoid it, say automated speed control for the area, it can still fail and you're back to square one.

@mattdm

Supposedly "just asking questions", for the purpose of skewing people's perspective.

If zero-sum were how civilization really works (instead of synergy), we'd still be back in prehistory…
with patriarchal bandit clans stealing the food from farming villages, murdering the men and children, then dragging the women off to impregnate them with their own.

the trolley problem is simply an analogy, and all analogies are imprecise

but the point matt is making still stands: morality requires action, not sitting there ruminating about how to be perfect in an imperfect situation

such that matt's response to the trolley problem, framed as engineered solutions that avoid the problem in the first place, abiding by the framing of the analogy but in no way invalidating the solutions, works as an answer to the more abstract moral conundrum

You can't engineer your way out of abstract philosophical discussions (although you can, perhaps, gnaw off your own leg to escape them). 2/2

The "Trolley problem" (and related examples) are specifically thought experiments for the discussion or moral philosophy, e.g. an exploration of utilitarianism. Anyone who is trying to apply this to empirical engineering challenges is, er, already off the rails.
1/2

As an example: if a car is barreling towards a group of children and the driver can hit the children and save the occupants of the vehicle or can swerve off a cliff, killing the occupants to save the children, the original mistake was traveling at an unsafe velocity in a place where this scenario could occur.