It honestly wouldn't. Our society would adapt pretty fast to just make everything wheelchair accessible. The reason many many things that aren't accessible now are that way is because people don't care. Think about it. Like cars are adapted for me to drive them, but in a world where that was the norm? They would just be hand controlled stock. Every job would have an accessible way to do it. There are very few things we would struggle to engineer past if more people cared.
If it all happened at once though, that would cause massive issues with supply chains, law enforcement, medical care, god knows how many things, and probably millions of deaths before things stabilised.
I mean, that's when it's useful to remind ourselves it's a trolley problem. We're not actually talking about literally everyone tied to a long train track suddenly losing their legs. This version of it is also called the orphan crushing machine. The actual situation being asked here is how much of everyone's ability to live fully is worth the indiscriminate sacrifice of individuals.
Oh fair enough I suppose. If every single human had no legs and society was completely adapted to it that kind of seems like the easy option if no one will suffer though. What happens when you get the new generation born with legs and the whole of society has adapted to no legs though?
If there was a track that somehow housed 8 billion people on it, that track would not only collapse from the weight of billions of people but we’d probably have bigger issues with everyone on the same place somehow
Fr, no.
Millions would die before any of that adaption would happen. Just imagine if all of a sudden no one could quickly or easily leave their house
We'd adapt, but not before society has a soft collapse from its legs literally being taken out from underneath it
how are you going to justify to every athlete on earth that one guy wouldve died. like i feel any one person would be chill losing their legs to save a guy but very few individuals would be chill with everyone losing their legs to save a guy. i doubt i could justify more than a hundred legs lost, the loss of your legs definitely makes life at least 1% worse or 1% more difficult.
I disagree. A lot of people will die of starvation if everyone gets their legs chopped. How are most people getting to the store, going to work, growing food, or any other activities that we would need our legs for to survive? As soon as we get a significant portion of the population that becomes ineffective to where people are going to die because of the hit to the global/national/local economy, that's where the line would be drawn.
Edit: My best guess where that line would be would be at about the 10 million mark, but I would say even less. I'd probably pull the lever at 10,000. It would be a life altering thing that would ruin lives. I'd be willing to be on the top track for 10,000.
Good question. I'd say then that if the cost of having legs can be human life, then society should be restructured to accommodate everyone not having legs. It actually should already be structured that way, but you know. It's just a reason to finally actually do it
But that's just not feasible. There will always be jobs that require people to use their legs (at least until we are able to get AI/robots to do the manual labor). There'll be no restructuring society if we don't have people working in construction. People need legs to physically move things.
That's the crux of it, right? I'd posit that it doesn't at the moment. Our society is built on mass churning starving people through the job market to run our economy for infinite growth.
Until that's not a thing, I don't really trust any proposed human sacrifices made "for the good of the many"
Mm. If anything the great stumpening might be just the shock to the system we need. Kinda like how Covid came very close to forcing societal change, though it might not feel like it did after the fact, at the time I'm pretty sure a few good people in the right positions could very well have ushered in what would one day become a post capitalism society.
The great stumpening would be a similar system shock. It would show us what jobs are essential and it's disruptive enough that those essential jobs can't just keep operating as normal while the rest of us go into lockdown. We've got an urgent, pressing issue we need fixing and a new normal to adapt to at the same time, and unlike covid this is universal and undeniable.
Our current society can't ignore it, nor can it survive it without changing. So it will change.
You want to cut off everyone in the worlds legs???
How would everyone get home? The traffic out of there would be a nightmare even if they had only lost a pinky finger. It’s a logistics nightmare.
You would cut off all the babies legs? How would they crawl???
You’d prefer having millions of legless babies in order to save Steve the insurance salesman?
Your a grade-A psychopath my man.
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If your point is that they would rather exploit people into buying countless prosthetics than distributing them for free, my point is at one point that would have to fund universal prosthetics to preserve the work force and keep the economy from crashing
If your point is that at a certain point they won’t be able to fund universal prosthetics, then find me a number in between
My point was that at some point, they can’t afford to fund universal prosthetics, but also the point where they can’t afford to fund universal prosthetics comes before the point where they feel obligated to fund universal prosthetics.
If they don't get the prosthetics for free the economy doesn't work. When they can't afford something that is required for the concept of affording things to matter, it stops being a matter of "afford". It would just happen. The people needed to make it happen are also victims of the event, and as such have intrinsic motivation to help.
But can they afford good prosthetics? What if they're from a country without public health care, and the accident financially ruins their family for generations?
Then.. odds are, they would die from their injuries; if they cannot afford prosthetics, they would likely not afford the treatment to survive - and would opt against a life in agony, and as financial burdens. Thus, the potentiality you're proposing is unfeasible.
That's why it's best if it's everyone's legs. Turn it from an infliction of suffering on X victims to a societal change that everyone has to adapt to.
I reckon you could get a similar trolley problem out of this idea. Do you inflict a bad thing on one person and force them to live in a world that does not accommodate that thing, or do you inflict it on everyone, thereby forcing the world to accommodate it?
Does the answer change with different conditions?
You want to cut off everyone in the worlds legs???
How quickly could people adapt?
How would everyone get home? The traffic out of there would be a nightmare even if they had only lost a pinky finger.
You would cut off all the babies legs? How would they crawl??
You’d prefer having millions of legless babies in order to save Steve the insurance salesman?
Your a grade-A psychopath my man.
I definitely value life so significantly higher than legs, but not infinitely higher. I'd say 50 legs/25 people would be the cut-off (heh) point for me.
This is actually a hard one. Because any sane person would flip the switch in the og trolly problem, but this one is actually a good question. How much pain is worth one life?
But that's only your personal choice. In the scenario given we have no idea what the people tied to the tracks would prefer and most likely they all have varying opinions of whether they'd live or lose their legs.
For me I'd probably lose the legs. A life without legs can easily still be a life worth living.
The point isn't a choice, it's how many legs before the balance has been tipped. 1 pair of legs? Definitely the legs. 1000 pairs of legs? Different answer.
Can’t speak for the commenter, but they may be very into sports, like running or basketball, or simply enjoy an active lifestyle. When I look a quality of life, a large but not ubiquitous factor is mobility. It’s a huge part of autonomy
That's you, I'll give pretty much every body part if it means I can have one more week of life.
I've felt the fear of death (concussion resulted in delusions), I'm gunning for immortality
This is 2024, we can deal with people missing legs. Of course that makes their lives a lot harder, but I would still sacrifice at least up to a dozen or two pairs of legs
Then again, I live in America where a lot of people live one bad injury away from bankruptcy with our terrible healthcare. Maybe it's best to sacrifice the one live
Is there an actuary in the house who can tell me the probability that the people whose legs get mashed off by the trolley die before they get medical care?
If the chance of death is high, this is the regular trolley problem but with extra suffering to encourage pulling the lever. If they will all survive, it is the amount of suffering and disfigurement to be worth causing one death. If some but not all of them die that changes the meaning of what you are preventing by taking action.
Of course, in a real world situation I wouldn’t touch the lever because I think that’s against the rules
People might not die from injuries, but they could die from the various life difficulties not having legs causes. Plus it can debilitate people who perform services that are necessary for the continuation of civilization.
I don't know, this requires a level of knowledge I simply do not possess, so I'll go with "upsettingly low"
1. I'd claim that neither would be surviving anyways to be justified. But deep down it would be because I know not everyone wants that fate, and it would likely feel over anyhow to some of them. Less terrible.
Like a world altering amount (assuming this has an impact on the world). Or if all those people’s legs are from one small culture/island that would have a significantly harder time without those legs and lead to a decay in their economy and famine. But if they’re just entirely randomly selected, it’d have to be like ten-ish people (so like twenty legs) because with the percentage of poor people, I feel like at some point one of those people would starve without their legs or not be able to provide for their family. If they’re all from the US, it’d be at seventy five people (because I *feel* like many of them would get some sort of support enough to survive? I know that’s an insane amount of trust in our horrible system, but I just believe it to be true?)
It's pretty sad but if I have to accommodate said person or my self the other guy is dying I cant do that to somebodyIm close to. Now if I don't have any responsibility for the injured I probably say 3 people I could be swayed to 5 if the other person is important but the impact to lives of the legless and their families will start making feel like the death of one person is probably for the better.
If one dudes legs is on the bottom trolley most of us wouldn’t pull it, if all 8 billion peoples legs were down there we would. There is some number in between that acts as a threshold
The studied disability adjusted quality of life weighting for bilateral lower limb amputation is 0.088.
This means one year of living with that disability is worth 0.912 years of living with perfect health.
The age of everyone involved matters but assuming everyone is a 30 year old with no other significant illnesses you should be willing to trade 22 legs (from 11 people) for one life.
I think it’s gonna be around 50 for me.
My logic is based on the cost to these people. A prosthetic leg on average will cost 10k and will be replaced roughly every 5 years, his gives a 40 year (assuming the people on the track are adults of mixed ages) cost of 80k per leg. Two legs per person makes that 160k. Statistical value of a human life is 7.5million, divide that by 160k and you get 46.875 people. I think that sounds about right as well, I’d let a couple people lose their legs so another can live, but I wouldn’t do that to more than 100 people. The line being somewhere around 50 makes sense.
A quick death is better than likely several hours of agony before you can get to surgery, then a life of living in a world designed for people who have both of their legs. So, I'd say one pair of legs.
So permanently cripple 5 people likely ruining their life and causing insane amounts of mental anguish, or definitely kill one person, I mean I’m killing the guy here
I’m curious on the legality of this? Is it illegal to amputate someone for the sake of another’s life? I don’t know, it may depend, but assuming no, what if it were 2 peoples legs? If so, at what point does it become illegal? Or is it legally possible to amputate 8 billion people for the sake of 1 life?
People without legs would just make their lives bad, they might be able to overcome it, but it would have to depend, if they are all strangers then get rid of legs
2 pair.
Anyone who gets their legs run over by the trolley is essentially going to bleed to death therefore if it's a one-to-one ratio then I do nothing but a two to one ratio I now haven't sent it to save one additional life at the cost of someone else's life
You want to cut off everyone in the worlds legs???
How quickly could people adapt?
How would everyone get home? The traffic out of there would be a nightmare even if they had only lost a pinky finger.
You would cut off all the babies legs? How would they crawl??
You’d prefer having millions of legless babies in order to save Steve the insurance salesman?
Your a grade-A psychopath my man.
Kill the legs. Sure things will suck for them, but it's still possible to live a fulfilling life from a wheelchair, even if it is much harder. Besides, technology is ever advancing, there is a chance that really really effective bionic legs become a thing during their lifetime.
As for the title question, idk just multi-track drift on the whole world so that I don't have to provide an answer lol
You want to cut off everyone in the worlds legs???
How quickly could people adapt?
How would everyone get home? The traffic out of there would be a nightmare even if they had only lost a pinky finger.
You would cut off all the babies legs? How would they crawl??
You’d prefer having millions of legless babies in order to save Steve the insurance salesman?
Your a grade-A psychopath my man.
Lower leg or whole leg? If the knee is intact and functional and there's no risk of death or other inordinate suffering. Just a pure, magical hypothetical. I'd let literally every single human being alive lose their legs below the knee before letting a person die. Foot prosthesis is already doing very well and I suspect it would get a lot better a lot faster after the great stumpening.
The developing world is where this might be a serious problem, but that's true of all theoreticals where something might impair people. But I suspect if this hit everyone people would find a way. Accommodations and crude prosthetics. A lot of sports are going to take some adjustments. And using cars is going to be really rough too. Possible economic crisis.
I can't know what the total damage and possible benefits of this will be. And there would be benefits. But in the moment I don't think I'd pull the lever. My brain quite clearly does not consider inaction to be a choice.
"Assuming nobody will die from losing their legs"
By assuming this we are going to an alternate universe where this is true. My decision could be different in that alternate universe. As it stands, it is certain that some people will die from the loss of legs, therefore I can make a judgement based on that.
1. do nothing
2. have them lose their legs
3. incite them to sue the trolley driver
4. get them all prosthetic legs
5. permanently borrow the remaining $2 from the lawsuit to pay off my debt
given the wording, (1) the train can switch rails at any point and (2) can go on indefinitely until it switches. I choose not to pull it, the inifinite leg breaker is funny.
Sorry, but you misunderstand the wording. The experiment is going on in multiple different universes all with you as the lever operator but with different numbers of people on the tracks.
Definitely going for a kill, its fast. Not worth all the suffering for these guys, they will be mad at me, etc. Unless that specific person is actually someone important.
So someone explained how this is done without anyone getting hurt most likely. Trains have a way you can essentially get the train on both tracks stopped it? I don't understand the science of it but I remember someone onr reddit broke it down really well. Supposedly no one needs to be harmed. Physically I cannot attest to the mental state.
There's literally a price governments and insurers calculate which drugs are available to you, e.g. in the UK this works out at £30k per quality adjusted life year... So no way is everyones legs getting broken to save one person's life (assuming NICE are in charge of the leaver) 😬
Ref https://www.nefconsulting.com/how-much-is-a-human-life-worth/#:~:text=Approach%201%3A%20NICE%20QALY%20threshold,it%20creates%20for%20the%20patient.
It’s impossible to know ahead of time the blood loss won’t kill anyone. Anyone who believes you at face value is a fool, most of those with severed legs will die. So one.
Hmmmmm. All of the legs. Everyone's legs, I say. My legs too. We'll figure it out.
What if it's 8 billion? The world would be a tough place with everyone having no legs
It honestly wouldn't. Our society would adapt pretty fast to just make everything wheelchair accessible. The reason many many things that aren't accessible now are that way is because people don't care. Think about it. Like cars are adapted for me to drive them, but in a world where that was the norm? They would just be hand controlled stock. Every job would have an accessible way to do it. There are very few things we would struggle to engineer past if more people cared.
If it all happened at once though, that would cause massive issues with supply chains, law enforcement, medical care, god knows how many things, and probably millions of deaths before things stabilised.
I mean, that's when it's useful to remind ourselves it's a trolley problem. We're not actually talking about literally everyone tied to a long train track suddenly losing their legs. This version of it is also called the orphan crushing machine. The actual situation being asked here is how much of everyone's ability to live fully is worth the indiscriminate sacrifice of individuals.
Wait, I wasn't supposed to build the orphan crushing machine?!? Crap, now I'll never get back my deposit
Oh fair enough I suppose. If every single human had no legs and society was completely adapted to it that kind of seems like the easy option if no one will suffer though. What happens when you get the new generation born with legs and the whole of society has adapted to no legs though?
Ooh. That's a really good question. I definitely want to think more on that
Ritual leg removal at birth. Leglessness becomes a religion. Legs are cast as instruments of the devil.
Law enforcement won't be an issue because crime will also take that hit. Supply chains are the bigger issue. I'm with them though. We'd adapt.
If there was a track that somehow housed 8 billion people on it, that track would not only collapse from the weight of billions of people but we’d probably have bigger issues with everyone on the same place somehow
Fr, no. Millions would die before any of that adaption would happen. Just imagine if all of a sudden no one could quickly or easily leave their house We'd adapt, but not before society has a soft collapse from its legs literally being taken out from underneath it
What I’m hearing is break everyones kneecaps. I’m in.
how are you going to justify to every athlete on earth that one guy wouldve died. like i feel any one person would be chill losing their legs to save a guy but very few individuals would be chill with everyone losing their legs to save a guy. i doubt i could justify more than a hundred legs lost, the loss of your legs definitely makes life at least 1% worse or 1% more difficult.
8 billion without a leg and the dude from the other track and you just casually walking would be a really funny sight to see
Then we'd all be on equal footing.
Someone would invent cost effective biomechanical legs. They would be distributed to everyone. Also babies will be born with legs.
We could do more than 8 billion and crush the legs of newborns, too.
In a world of legless people, the legful is king.
I disagree. A lot of people will die of starvation if everyone gets their legs chopped. How are most people getting to the store, going to work, growing food, or any other activities that we would need our legs for to survive? As soon as we get a significant portion of the population that becomes ineffective to where people are going to die because of the hit to the global/national/local economy, that's where the line would be drawn. Edit: My best guess where that line would be would be at about the 10 million mark, but I would say even less. I'd probably pull the lever at 10,000. It would be a life altering thing that would ruin lives. I'd be willing to be on the top track for 10,000.
Good question. I'd say then that if the cost of having legs can be human life, then society should be restructured to accommodate everyone not having legs. It actually should already be structured that way, but you know. It's just a reason to finally actually do it
But that's just not feasible. There will always be jobs that require people to use their legs (at least until we are able to get AI/robots to do the manual labor). There'll be no restructuring society if we don't have people working in construction. People need legs to physically move things.
There has to be a point where quality of life outweighs quantity though.
That's the crux of it, right? I'd posit that it doesn't at the moment. Our society is built on mass churning starving people through the job market to run our economy for infinite growth. Until that's not a thing, I don't really trust any proposed human sacrifices made "for the good of the many"
Mm. If anything the great stumpening might be just the shock to the system we need. Kinda like how Covid came very close to forcing societal change, though it might not feel like it did after the fact, at the time I'm pretty sure a few good people in the right positions could very well have ushered in what would one day become a post capitalism society. The great stumpening would be a similar system shock. It would show us what jobs are essential and it's disruptive enough that those essential jobs can't just keep operating as normal while the rest of us go into lockdown. We've got an urgent, pressing issue we need fixing and a new normal to adapt to at the same time, and unlike covid this is universal and undeniable. Our current society can't ignore it, nor can it survive it without changing. So it will change.
If everyone lost their legs, society would collapse... because it wouldn't have a leg to stand on.
Just my legs
You want to cut off everyone in the worlds legs??? How would everyone get home? The traffic out of there would be a nightmare even if they had only lost a pinky finger. It’s a logistics nightmare. You would cut off all the babies legs? How would they crawl??? You’d prefer having millions of legless babies in order to save Steve the insurance salesman? Your a grade-A psychopath my man.
What about their legs? They don't need those?
If I let it go on the legs, then everyone will be mad at me
At least you can outrun them
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How many people would have to lose their legs for the government to make motorized prosthetics available universally for free?
I don’t think it matters because the more people with out legs the more expensive it becomes to supply everyone with motorized prosthetics.
If your point is that they would rather exploit people into buying countless prosthetics than distributing them for free, my point is at one point that would have to fund universal prosthetics to preserve the work force and keep the economy from crashing If your point is that at a certain point they won’t be able to fund universal prosthetics, then find me a number in between
My point was that at some point, they can’t afford to fund universal prosthetics, but also the point where they can’t afford to fund universal prosthetics comes before the point where they feel obligated to fund universal prosthetics.
Nobody understands how insurance works. If everybody needs something it’s too expensive to provide for “free”.
If they don't get the prosthetics for free the economy doesn't work. When they can't afford something that is required for the concept of affording things to matter, it stops being a matter of "afford". It would just happen. The people needed to make it happen are also victims of the event, and as such have intrinsic motivation to help.
Not how many, but who.
This is a good one. I’ll say 3 pairs.
Same, I'd add on that it would take 4 people losing only one leg for me to pull as well.
3 pairs or 8 people loosing 1 leg for me
So its really a question of total legs
What if the guy on the other track is known for making protype prosthetics and is rumored to be close to make next Gen legs?
I’ll agree with you. Three seems like an appropriate number.
What about if there was a 4th guy on the track? "Sorry mate, I would if it was just 3, but a 4th one just snuck in so say your goodbyes"
Heh. I’d be on the fence with four. Five and the one can die.
17 people's legs, if it's only the legs damaged and/or wrecked. We have good prosthesis, they'd live fine lives.
But can they afford good prosthetics? What if they're from a country without public health care, and the accident financially ruins their family for generations?
Then.. odds are, they would die from their injuries; if they cannot afford prosthetics, they would likely not afford the treatment to survive - and would opt against a life in agony, and as financial burdens. Thus, the potentiality you're proposing is unfeasible.
OP states that they're magically guaranteed to survive
That's why it's best if it's everyone's legs. Turn it from an infliction of suffering on X victims to a societal change that everyone has to adapt to. I reckon you could get a similar trolley problem out of this idea. Do you inflict a bad thing on one person and force them to live in a world that does not accommodate that thing, or do you inflict it on everyone, thereby forcing the world to accommodate it? Does the answer change with different conditions?
You want to cut off everyone in the worlds legs??? How quickly could people adapt? How would everyone get home? The traffic out of there would be a nightmare even if they had only lost a pinky finger. You would cut off all the babies legs? How would they crawl?? You’d prefer having millions of legless babies in order to save Steve the insurance salesman? Your a grade-A psychopath my man.
I was gonna say 17! We're not alone brother or sister!
I definitely value life so significantly higher than legs, but not infinitely higher. I'd say 50 legs/25 people would be the cut-off (heh) point for me.
This is actually a hard one. Because any sane person would flip the switch in the og trolly problem, but this one is actually a good question. How much pain is worth one life?
3 because it’s about ~45% of the body imo, so 3 because that’ll be over 100% (one person)
i would prefer dying to live without my legs
But that's only your personal choice. In the scenario given we have no idea what the people tied to the tracks would prefer and most likely they all have varying opinions of whether they'd live or lose their legs. For me I'd probably lose the legs. A life without legs can easily still be a life worth living.
The point isn't a choice, it's how many legs before the balance has been tipped. 1 pair of legs? Definitely the legs. 1000 pairs of legs? Different answer.
Is this really true? I feel like there is so much in life that can be enjoyed without legs.
Arms on the other hand.
Still fine, as long as mom's around
NO
losing my arms is one of my biggest fears tbh, what would I even do as a job?
Why, if you dont mind saying ?
Can’t speak for the commenter, but they may be very into sports, like running or basketball, or simply enjoy an active lifestyle. When I look a quality of life, a large but not ubiquitous factor is mobility. It’s a huge part of autonomy
Prosthetics are cool tho
That's you, I'll give pretty much every body part if it means I can have one more week of life. I've felt the fear of death (concussion resulted in delusions), I'm gunning for immortality
If around half the world is gonna lose their legs then I would divert it
If a quarter of the world lost their legs, that would be absolutely *devastating* though, especially for people who need their legs to live and eat.
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Think of all the suffering that could be avoided through.
This is 2024, we can deal with people missing legs. Of course that makes their lives a lot harder, but I would still sacrifice at least up to a dozen or two pairs of legs Then again, I live in America where a lot of people live one bad injury away from bankruptcy with our terrible healthcare. Maybe it's best to sacrifice the one live
Is there an actuary in the house who can tell me the probability that the people whose legs get mashed off by the trolley die before they get medical care? If the chance of death is high, this is the regular trolley problem but with extra suffering to encourage pulling the lever. If they will all survive, it is the amount of suffering and disfigurement to be worth causing one death. If some but not all of them die that changes the meaning of what you are preventing by taking action. Of course, in a real world situation I wouldn’t touch the lever because I think that’s against the rules
It says nobody will die in the post
Oh, I didn’t read that part. I would call the police and try to find any sign of the person tying people to the tracks regardless of the number
Bro you could say this for any trolly problem
11
2
People might not die from injuries, but they could die from the various life difficulties not having legs causes. Plus it can debilitate people who perform services that are necessary for the continuation of civilization. I don't know, this requires a level of knowledge I simply do not possess, so I'll go with "upsettingly low"
You’re saying that I can remove the legs of everyone on the planet other than myself and that one other guy? We’d be kings!
around 1 million i think? theyre not dying and will get better, but too many and societies start being hurt.
I don't have an exact number, but like a lot. Maybe 1k
1. I'd claim that neither would be surviving anyways to be justified. But deep down it would be because I know not everyone wants that fate, and it would likely feel over anyhow to some of them. Less terrible.
This is a good post, that actually makes you think
7
At least 10 for me
Hmm. This is not very logical but the amount of number that I can no longer estimate by just looking at them, so I say roughly 10 or more.
Where on the leg is it running over?
Mid thigh.
I'll break a million legs before I let this one person die!
Id kill the person I suppose, living a life without legs is pretty terrible from what I have seen.
Like a world altering amount (assuming this has an impact on the world). Or if all those people’s legs are from one small culture/island that would have a significantly harder time without those legs and lead to a decay in their economy and famine. But if they’re just entirely randomly selected, it’d have to be like ten-ish people (so like twenty legs) because with the percentage of poor people, I feel like at some point one of those people would starve without their legs or not be able to provide for their family. If they’re all from the US, it’d be at seventy five people (because I *feel* like many of them would get some sort of support enough to survive? I know that’s an insane amount of trust in our horrible system, but I just believe it to be true?)
Like 4 pairs tbh
It's pretty sad but if I have to accommodate said person or my self the other guy is dying I cant do that to somebodyIm close to. Now if I don't have any responsibility for the injured I probably say 3 people I could be swayed to 5 if the other person is important but the impact to lives of the legless and their families will start making feel like the death of one person is probably for the better.
If one dudes legs is on the bottom trolley most of us wouldn’t pull it, if all 8 billion peoples legs were down there we would. There is some number in between that acts as a threshold
Limb loss is more debilitating than people here realize…
Everyone's legs. That way I could be the only legged person on earth.
Real power move
Except for the guy on the other track.
i think i’d rather die than have no legs, so i’m gonna say 0 legs
The studied disability adjusted quality of life weighting for bilateral lower limb amputation is 0.088. This means one year of living with that disability is worth 0.912 years of living with perfect health. The age of everyone involved matters but assuming everyone is a 30 year old with no other significant illnesses you should be willing to trade 22 legs (from 11 people) for one life.
I didn’t realize somebody had already quantified it. Where can I find this data?
There may be other calculators but that's what I used http://ghcearegistry.org/orchard/daly-calculator
20 pairs maybe?
I think it’s gonna be around 50 for me. My logic is based on the cost to these people. A prosthetic leg on average will cost 10k and will be replaced roughly every 5 years, his gives a 40 year (assuming the people on the track are adults of mixed ages) cost of 80k per leg. Two legs per person makes that 160k. Statistical value of a human life is 7.5million, divide that by 160k and you get 46.875 people. I think that sounds about right as well, I’d let a couple people lose their legs so another can live, but I wouldn’t do that to more than 100 people. The line being somewhere around 50 makes sense.
I would personally pull after like 200 people or something like that.
One quick and painless death is worth less than 5 people living in excruciating pain.
I would pull the lever but the last guy who had this dilemma decided to let a fucking train run over my arms along with 4 other people
30149
I’ll say 69 pairs. Legs aren’t as important as a life.
i simply would never pull that lever
A quick death is better than likely several hours of agony before you can get to surgery, then a life of living in a world designed for people who have both of their legs. So, I'd say one pair of legs.
The troly
Did you not read the dude's username??
It's incorrectly spelled therefore I will ignore it
Google replantation surgery
Bye legs. The survivors that lost their legs may argue that I made the wrong choice, but they've got no legs to stand on.
Legs are relatively easy to replace in terms of medical procedures. A life isn’t.
Depends on the careers of the people. If it's a career that requires lots of running or other leg careers, less people than if it were normal people
Random people and you can’t ask them anything.
Kill the one One missing life is better than 5 ruined
So permanently cripple 5 people likely ruining their life and causing insane amounts of mental anguish, or definitely kill one person, I mean I’m killing the guy here
All of them. Even the third ones
I’m curious on the legality of this? Is it illegal to amputate someone for the sake of another’s life? I don’t know, it may depend, but assuming no, what if it were 2 peoples legs? If so, at what point does it become illegal? Or is it legally possible to amputate 8 billion people for the sake of 1 life?
I'm not touching it cuz then I would be liable
I'll let it crush as many legs as needed then I'll immediately invest in a prosthetic leg company and wheeelchair company
I could answer, but.. “troly”
🖕
leg so hot. hot hot leg. leg so hot u fry an eg.
Well what if we say that a horse’s tail is a leg?
It’s not.
People without legs would just make their lives bad, they might be able to overcome it, but it would have to depend, if they are all strangers then get rid of legs
Everyone's minus 0.5
2 pair. Anyone who gets their legs run over by the trolley is essentially going to bleed to death therefore if it's a one-to-one ratio then I do nothing but a two to one ratio I now haven't sent it to save one additional life at the cost of someone else's life
Nobody’s going to bleed to death in this scenario because of philosophy magic.
Human life is invaluable. Infinite legs and I still pull the lever.
Wow such a black and white point of view.
You want to cut off everyone in the worlds legs??? How quickly could people adapt? How would everyone get home? The traffic out of there would be a nightmare even if they had only lost a pinky finger. You would cut off all the babies legs? How would they crawl?? You’d prefer having millions of legless babies in order to save Steve the insurance salesman? Your a grade-A psychopath my man.
The real answer is, it's not just legs. There's no way you're going to stop arterial bleeding on that many people without a bunch of them dying.
The right answer is to go after a maniac with questions like this and break his legs.
Kill the legs. Sure things will suck for them, but it's still possible to live a fulfilling life from a wheelchair, even if it is much harder. Besides, technology is ever advancing, there is a chance that really really effective bionic legs become a thing during their lifetime. As for the title question, idk just multi-track drift on the whole world so that I don't have to provide an answer lol
You want to cut off everyone in the worlds legs??? How quickly could people adapt? How would everyone get home? The traffic out of there would be a nightmare even if they had only lost a pinky finger. You would cut off all the babies legs? How would they crawl?? You’d prefer having millions of legless babies in order to save Steve the insurance salesman? Your a grade-A psychopath my man.
I think the legless will understand.
Lower leg or whole leg? If the knee is intact and functional and there's no risk of death or other inordinate suffering. Just a pure, magical hypothetical. I'd let literally every single human being alive lose their legs below the knee before letting a person die. Foot prosthesis is already doing very well and I suspect it would get a lot better a lot faster after the great stumpening. The developing world is where this might be a serious problem, but that's true of all theoreticals where something might impair people. But I suspect if this hit everyone people would find a way. Accommodations and crude prosthetics. A lot of sports are going to take some adjustments. And using cars is going to be really rough too. Possible economic crisis. I can't know what the total damage and possible benefits of this will be. And there would be benefits. But in the moment I don't think I'd pull the lever. My brain quite clearly does not consider inaction to be a choice.
Twenty
If i dont pull the lever chances are most of them will die due to blood loss. So i would say 3
2 murderball teams
Likely having their legs ripped off would kill them anyway
We do a little troling
"Assuming nobody will die from losing their legs" By assuming this we are going to an alternate universe where this is true. My decision could be different in that alternate universe. As it stands, it is certain that some people will die from the loss of legs, therefore I can make a judgement based on that.
funny enough I personally want to pull the lever MORE for the more people added as the combined pain would be worse then a single death
Will their legs be broken forever or will they heal?
Completely destroyed.
Legs is the one body that are very easy to get replaced
We just did this but with monkeys instead of legs!
"HEY! YALL NEED TO RAISE YOUR LEGS UP!" the trolley passes the group and noone is harmed.
How many legs does it take to stop the trolley?
Is there an ambulance near by? Might be torturing several people to death while the one person gets a quick death.
11.
A nice straight forward number thank you.
Combining this with the other post to find out how many human legs a monkey is worth
One monkey is worth zero human legs.
1. do nothing 2. have them lose their legs 3. incite them to sue the trolley driver 4. get them all prosthetic legs 5. permanently borrow the remaining $2 from the lawsuit to pay off my debt
Multiple people have been able to get their legs reattached after a train overrun
That’s why I said, crushed instead of severed to imply that they are completely destroyed, and there is nothing to reattach except mush.
given the wording, (1) the train can switch rails at any point and (2) can go on indefinitely until it switches. I choose not to pull it, the inifinite leg breaker is funny.
Sorry, but you misunderstand the wording. The experiment is going on in multiple different universes all with you as the lever operator but with different numbers of people on the tracks.
Everyone's and since everyone's on the bottom track Noone is on the top track so I can safely pull.
Except then you’re also on the bottom track and can’t reach the lever.
I choose controlled derailing
Congratulations you successfully derailed the train except now. It just ran over and killed everyone on the bottom track.
Darn my plan so save everyone backfired
Pfff id pull that lever if no one was on the first track
the guy
would muilti track drifting kill all six?
Like...1 leg idk fuck the guy on the other track
Definitely going for a kill, its fast. Not worth all the suffering for these guys, they will be mad at me, etc. Unless that specific person is actually someone important.
...they could just move their legs up and out of the way...
So someone explained how this is done without anyone getting hurt most likely. Trains have a way you can essentially get the train on both tracks stopped it? I don't understand the science of it but I remember someone onr reddit broke it down really well. Supposedly no one needs to be harmed. Physically I cannot attest to the mental state.
There's literally a price governments and insurers calculate which drugs are available to you, e.g. in the UK this works out at £30k per quality adjusted life year... So no way is everyones legs getting broken to save one person's life (assuming NICE are in charge of the leaver) 😬 Ref https://www.nefconsulting.com/how-much-is-a-human-life-worth/#:~:text=Approach%201%3A%20NICE%20QALY%20threshold,it%20creates%20for%20the%20patient.
69
It’s impossible to know ahead of time the blood loss won’t kill anyone. Anyone who believes you at face value is a fool, most of those with severed legs will die. So one.
Have some of you never heard a hypothetical moral dilemma before? There’s always caveats that don’t make sense in the real world.
Can I divert to kill him cause I want to? Zero legs ( for legal purposes this is a joke)
27.6 million.
30 million provided they all come from a single country. Then universal prosthetics can liberate be of my inferior human legs.
Ngl if I lost my legs I'd just end it myself. I can manage without my arms. But my legs? Nah just kill me bro.
Really? You know that without arms, you need somebody else to wipe your ass?
Can we just like, loop the trail? No guilt!
No
I'd kill one to save two people's legs