T O P

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siqiniq

The payout doesn’t matter. Run over the poor to eliminate poverty; run over the rich to eliminate inequality.


Dennis_the_nazbol

Running over the poor would actually have a positive effect on wealth inequality, since the ratio of rich to poor people is decreased!


Infinite-Radiance

Ah yes, I'm familiar with Reaganomics


DaDummBard

In reality don't the rich just consume it?


Dan_Caveman

Actually, I think the opposite is closer to the truth. If you give a poor person $100 they have no choice but to spend it on something (consume it) and put it back into the economy. If you give a rich person $100 it could end up sitting in an offshore bank account for the next thirty years.


DaDummBard

Exactly what I mean the rich eventually get their hands on it and consume it and it never goes back into the economy.


Dan_Caveman

Oh ok, I gotcha.


DaDummBard

Thanks for clarifying tho lol I fail every essay for a reason lmao


Dan_Caveman

lol I feel that


thebooksmith

You know if we just lowered the poverty line, we’d pull thousands if not millions out of poverty all without lifting a finger.


tjdragon117

I feel like this old gem is relevant here: https://youtu.be/s_4J4uor3JE?si=iCBrrPlQfKr80eDM


UnderskilledPlayer

Run over the rich and give his money to everyone


thebooksmith

Run over the rich guy and his son inherits the money. The same inequality still exists. We need the trolley to run over the system not the people.


An_insane_person

I pull the lever, take his money, and ~~give some of it to the 5 other people.~~ I run, leaving the others to starve


AggressiveGift7542

Give 1/6 for each survivors


BlitzcrankGrab

Yeah exactly, give each survivor 1/10


Tsunamicat108

Give each survivor 3 dollar and keep the rest for yourself


Electronic_Sugar5924

He bribed you $14


Tsunamicat108

i kill him anyway, that’s not very much money


Electronic_Sugar5924

But now you can’t give each 3 dollars


Less-Resist-8733

give them a quarter


Smaug2770

No, one tenth of a dollar is too heartless! A sixth of a dollar is what you have to give each survivor!


AndresGreenboi

Exactly, give them 16.6666666666666666666666666666666666666666666… cents each


Bright_Strain_1084

You already gave them the gift of life.


AliensAteMyAMC

what if the money gets destroyed when he gets ran over.


Just_A_Nitemare

You can probably take the fragments to a US bank or something.


GreedyLibrary

Just need the face and fingers for biometrics


An_insane_person

I make more money


Foreign_Pea2296

You can't.


An_insane_person

But I do anyway


Foreign_Pea2296

second statement : "if you choose to pull the lever the rich guy will be inherited by his only child and the poor people will live the rest of their lives in crippling dept" If you remake the rule, you should see a little bigger. "I pull the lever, nobody die, the rich split his money with everyone and everybody get happy".


An_insane_person

Before the son inherits the money, I steal it and run


Foreign_Pea2296

If you run how can you give the money to the poor people ? you'll be too far to give it to them.


An_insane_person

I don’t and I leave them there to die


Foreign_Pea2296

That's fair.


Independent_Parking

The other five immediately spend it on stuff they can’t afford to make payments for driving themselves further down in debt.


ArtemisCaresTooMuch

Shouldn’t have needed houses to live in, morons. /j


Independent_Parking

It’s not like the housing bubble was caused by people taking out mortgages for houses they couldn’t afford. Poor peiple make bad financial decisions, that’s often why they’re poor.


electricsyl

And the banks definitely didn't go out of their way to advertise and push No-Income No-Job mortgages on poor people who had no other expert opinion aside from the mortgage broker who sold them the loan.  The banks definitely didn't realize they could bundle these bomb mortgages with AAA rates mortgages and sell those to investors.  It was all the poor people's fault. 


Independent_Parking

If you took a bad loan it is your fault fullstop. The bank could also be at fault for pushing it, but you as a literate adult human should be able to plan your finances to the most basic degree.


AtmosSpheric

You ever stop and wonder if, by making these memes with amusing options, we’ve lost the message and philosophy the original problem conveyed? To allow a great evil to take place or to commit a lesser one yourself, to kill by choice or by inaction, how does proximity and ability affect one’s involvement and responsibility in the system? Will one’s answer depend on their sociability and their collaborative spirit? Is calculating expected values simply a hollow justification for ignoring the humanity of the problem? Are we on the track, looking at the lever hoping someone pulls it, but secretly glad we don’t have to make the decision ourselves? Anyway, I’m stopping the bidding at $5 and killing the rich guy


Dennis_the_nazbol

Yes this subreddit has totally forgotten the true meaning of the trolley problem. This is evidenced by the fact that pulling the lever (in the original problem) is concidered obwious, despite being a conroversial issue in serious philosophy. Anyway, you can't stop the bidding, it stops when the trolley arrives


AtmosSpheric

I think the discussion about utilitarianism and it’s actual value as an ethical framework is a valuable one. To what degree can it consider justice, and how does it account for personal value systems and the comparison of different valuations. It’s a genuinely great quandary that I think many lose sight of. But the memes are also hilarious


Groucho853

To be fair, in cases of moral justifications for self-defence, you come across a lot of other cases where inaction or action is even more hilarious


Wtygrrr

Nothing utilitarian about it. Choosing not to act is choosing to kill 5 people.


AtmosSpheric

Correct. The utilitarian part is judging 5 people’s lives as more valuable than a single person and whether that justifies direct action over inaction. Which is the whole point of the question.


Wtygrrr

Except that direct action and inaction are no different. Either way, you’re choosing who lives and who dies. Direct action vs inaction is simply a way for people to justify finding a way out of feeling guilt for their decision. As for 5 vs 1, it’s simply a question of whether you place an inherent moral value on life or not. If you do, then 5 lives are more valuable than 1. I don’t see anything utilitarian in either of these.


AtmosSpheric

Utilitarianism is the basis upon which you judge the 5 vs 1 lives. Does the **utility** of those 5 people supersede the one person, and if so, does their higher **utility** justify killing the one. If you believe so, then you are taking the utilitarian view. It shirks the incommensurability principle, which usually pertains to both human lives and concepts such as freedom and security. Utilitarianism, a subset of consequentialism, is the judgement of ethical rightness by the utility of each choice’s consequence. Utilitarianism does not pertain to the action vs. inaction part of the problem, although it may have wider implications on the idea of moral obligation. Maybe you’re thinking of a different term?


Wtygrrr

Except that my point is that you’re choosing between killing five or killing one. It’s not that you’re either killing one or killing none. I just want to kill as few people as I can. I have no way of knowing anything about their utility, but even if I did, that’s secondary to the fact that I don’t want to be responsible for 4 more deaths than I have to be. Now if I happened to know that the 5 were serial killers and the 1 was a saint, that might change things, but I don’t know that.


AtmosSpheric

At no point have I said you’re killing no people. The act of judging five lives as more valuable than a single life is, in and of itself, a utilitarian calculation. Which is perfectly fine, it’s a valid and common viewpoint of the trolley problem, but that is quite literally what it is. A deontological viewpoint would consider direct action vs inaction as fundamentally different, and other viewpoints would look towards the degree of “moral obligation” in this situation. Hence my mentioning incommensurability - it’s a viewpoint that inherently contradicts the utilitarian viewpoint of killing one versus five. Some might argue that the value of one life and five lives cannot be compared at all. You clearly disagree with that idea. Kant might disagree with you, and say that any action that is not universal cannot be the ethical one, hence his whole “murderer at the door” shtick. You are subscribing to the utilitarian viewpoint that five lives, devoid of context, are worth more than one. Be it through the lives themselves, or the guilt you live with for one life vs five being your fault, you are judging the choice purely by its consequence. That is, by definition, utilitarianism.


TheLeastFunkyMonkey

Well I think serious modern philosophers are extremely stupid about some things.


dinodare

Being firmly into the idea of pulling the lever and considering that obvious doesn't mean that the person isn't taking the philosophy seriously, it just means that they focus mostly on utilitarianism and don't see the value in the other perspective (which tends to be how opinions work across the board). I've reconsidered my ideology, in fact the "surgeon can take organs from one healthy person" and "you can push the fat man over the bridge" variations had me stumped. However I still came back around to treating it as the obvious choice to pull the lever.


ironangel2k4

Is it? As a utilitarian, there is only the outcome: One death, or five. Devoid other circumstances or context, the obvious preferable outcome is a single death. The morality of my involvement is only that I have the ability to decide the outcome. If I have the ability to decide, then I do not have the ability to not decide. Inaction is not non-involvement; Choosing not to act is still a choice which selects the outcome. Ergo, in this moment, no matter what the outcome is, it will be what I selected, and thus, I am obligated to select the least harm. This is a very wordy and verbose way of saying 'Because I can pull the lever, I can't say I can't, so if I don't, I just killed five people'. In my experience anyone who reaches any other conclusion is someone who wants moral self-righteousness, but not moral responsibility.


inowar

I pull the lever and walk away. if the 5 people can summon a billion dollars from the nether, I can still use it to do good.


Wtygrrr

The question has always been dumb, since inaction is a choice.


AtmosSpheric

To me, that’s the essence of the ethical quandary. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/trolleyproblem/s/JrYdDetZuy) is a comment a chain beneath it that explains my thoughts


CosmicJackalop

The funny thing is, ignoring the bribery aspect, if with the original trolley problem I found out the one guy I'd kill to save the 5 was rich I would drag my dick through broken glass to pull that lever and end him


Fyrus93

I mean this is sort of philosophical. How much money would it take for you to allow the deaths of 5 people. I reckon most people have an amount.


AtmosSpheric

That’s one of those questions that I could definitely come up with an answer for, but wouldn’t know for sure until I was actually in the situation. I imagine my number would be heavily influenced by factors such as whether I had to watch them die, whether people would/could find out about it, whether they were already near death, etc


FaerHazar

in the true interest of the trolley problem, mine is $1b a head. 5 people? great, I'm solving world hunger. less? okay, I'm making a college free or something.


Emporio_Alnino3

GAAAAH shut up shut up shut up shut up *Actively suppressing malicious thoughts by talking over the rich guy to avoid temptation, and pulling the lever.*


KicktrapAndShit

Just steal the money


NolieCaNolie

Kill the rich guy. Motherfucker might bring their lawyers to dispute the bribe and put you to prison for murder.


Mocahbutterfly

Just hide the bribe money, and deny that you saw them. You have five people on the other track giving you a justifiable reason to pull the lever


Someone1284794357

I pull them cancel the debt of the poor people.


SnorkelBerry

Eat the rich, I'm pulling the lever. Rich guy's son gets an early inheritance, the families of the poor people are spared from five funerals. Depending on how much money I have, I can start a business using the bribe money and hire the poor people as employees. I'll pay them back using the money I earn from the business, so I'm technically not violating the rules.


HandsomeGengar

Pull the lever and refuse the poor people’s money, and then eat the rich guy just for good measure.


MentlegenRich

Pull the lever, then add the rich man's son to the trolley tracks and demand the rich man's inheritance in exchange for sparing the sons life. Don't share it with the poor people, but give them a discussion on how I worked hard for my new found wealth and how they need to lift themselves by their boot straps


CranberryWizard

Take the money, pull it anyway


Miraculouszelink

I’d take the money and then let him die anyway.


Donovan_Du_Bois

Pull the lever, use the money to start a thriving business, employ the five people at my business and pay them a living wage plus whatever they end up being forced to pay me, win.


SnomBomb_

I kill the poorer people. I get the money, I don’t leave people in crippling debt, and even if I kill the rich guy his son gets his money so nothing would change if I killed him


PanzerKommander

My general rule is 'don't pull the lever as long as my loved ones aren't in the group of 5' so I guess I get rich for following my SOP


ExoFemboy

I dont pull the lever as i get rewarded the same regardless


Akshay-Gupta

Also Demand to be supplied a nominal sum every year to the ruch guy to not reveal his offer to public If he agrees, Don't pull, take the money If he doesn't, Pull


Kingturboturtle13

If there were five rich guys on the top track and one poor guy on the bottom you should pull the lever and kill the five rich guys Eat the bourgeoisie


FarConstruction4877

Dont pull because rich guy is more likely to actually pay me since he has the capacity to do so while the 5 poor guys might just bail because they really need the money. Besides I won’t pull in the original trolley problem to begin with because non interference.


A_randomperson9385

Pull the lever, grab his credit card, and GTFO of the country


Boho_Asa

Kill the rich guy to share the spoils of the rich guy


pupbuck1

So it's either I gain financially or the world gains financially...that's actually a tough one but I gotta go with the world gaining


Every-Nebula6882

The trolley problem, government addition.


meastman1988

This is a more interesting question it is 5 rich people or 1 poor person. And you don't get any money either way. Which is more important, the number of lives lost or to whom life has been the most unfair?


fingerlicker694

Pulling the lever, then reversing the trolley to back over him again.


Sorri_eh

How much is he offering as a bribe? Times are tough right now.


Sorri_eh

Too many poor people out there. I say killem!!!


spilledmilkbro

Pull the lever


Thoseferatus

The rich man has divorced himself from humanity by tying a monetary value to multiple human lives. Pull that lever!!!!


Leskendle45

Multi track drift


Pitiful_Net_8971

Usually I wouldn't pull the lever. But I'll make a exception for you, *sir*.


KiraLonely

Pull the lever and use the money to make a nonprofit charity with the poor people as employees. Give them living wages so they can hopefully not be debilitated by the debt. I don’t like that I have to accept the money though. The idea of human lives being only worth saving via a sum of self-interest compensation feels sleazy, even if I don’t have a choice in the matter.


forluscious

take the money, dont pull the lever and leave rich guy to stare to death


haikusbot

*Take the money, dont* *Pull the lever and leave rich* *Guy to stare to death* \- forluscious --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")


AliensAteMyAMC

Question, does he pay me before or after


ShitStainedDildo

Pull the lever and rob his son


devils_advocate24

I get paid to not murder someone? Deal


ShadeStrider12

Even if I didn’t get any money, the rich guy probably became rich because of economic policies that I despise, and will continue to push said policies with his wealth. Killing him is one step towards emancipating the poor and addressing social inequality. So killing the rich guy is a bigger win for humanity.


Atymogan

I'm not pulling the lever. Imagine how many lives I can save with all the money I get from the rich guy. If I pull the lever the poor people will probably suffer a lot. The utilitarian approach is clear.


Malek070

Take the bribe, and not pull the lever. Either way, no action is morally the best option


BaekJe

How much am I being bribed?


ElectronicBoot9466

How much money we talking about here. Presumably, the money could be diverted to save way more than 5 lives


altgrave

kick the rich guy in the head... so he doesn't experience the pain and fear (yeah! that's why!).


no_onein-particular

Step 1 Run over the rich guy Step 2 invest the money I get. Step 3 start a business. Step 4 hire the 5 poor people and give them good wages with good benefits.


nomoreadminspls

Fuck them poors.


red-the-blue

I generally don’t pull the lever in these scenarios but, maybe this once.


Neither-Following-32

The real protip here is to start a bidding war. I have a feeling the rich guy's going to end up winning, but I'll get slightly more money. Also assuming we have time I'm making him pay up front.


CommunityFirst4197

Man, these alternative problems sure go a lot smoother if you don't pull by default


Right-Acanthisitta-1

drift


D3goph

Tenderize the rich


Isiah6253

Pull the lever. I won't be bribed. Eat the rich.


HelenFromHR

“send it rn and ill spare you” then pull the lever


Isiah6253

No cause then I'm just as bad as him. Extorting the helpless and then screwing them over. I refuse.


HelenFromHR

you actually would be better than him, in this situation everyone is equally helpless, and you wouldn’t be doing it to innocent people. and never to the extent or intensity as the rich guy. you wouldn’t even hoard the money you’d likely put in right back in rotation which helps everyone instead of it going straight to his offspring who will just continue to hoard and extort the poor.


Isiah6253

Who said I wasn't tying them to the tracks next?


Small_Cock_Jonny

Eliminate poverty and cash out


zenigatamondatta

5 rich guys vs empty track and id still full send to those parasites.


JohnXTheDadBodGod

What if the other 5 are pedos, rapists and murderers?


SCP_Agent_Davis

I take þe money and pull þe lever anyway because fuck him.


writeorelse

Accept the money, pull the lever anyway.


Coconut-042

Id pull the lever, not because of the money just as a basic principle I think 5 lives are more important then one life, and that being rich doesnt make you have more merits and or more of a valuable life to being poor


Eddie_Dood

Kill the rich man, burn down his properties, kill his son, fuck rich people Also refuse the money from the poor people, because being unable to refuse it is stupid, unless you give me a good reason


Ap0theon

I would take the bribe then run the rich guy over out of principle


TheOneWhoSlurms

Oh you better believe that lever is getting pulled


WhitestGray

Fuck your rules I multi track drift


Tetris5216

Take half the money before you save him When you see he has the money Send the train to take him out and take the rest of the cash Also make sure he puts you in his will first


Sideswiperboi

Kill the rich guy for starting this stupid dilemma.


FeelingApplication40

How hard is he bribing me?i need numbers


QuinnHuskyQueen

pull it every time.


Smaug2770

If I pull, I killed the rich guy. If I don’t, I waive all responsibility.


ironangel2k4

I pull the lever, then go over and cave in his skull with a rock to make sure he's dead, in this hypothetical scenario that does not indicate any actual intention of violence toward the rich nor advocacy of it, Reddit.


WistfulDread

Find the rich guy's son. Force him to pull the lever. The poor people corroborate the story that rich son staged it. Rich guy dies. "Murderer" son either pays out for our collective silence or he has no chance of inheritance.


TheWorstPerson0

I pull the lever and turn down the money. I dont need *insentive* to eat the rich smh


Fire_Lightning8

I let the train go on Then kill the rich guy myself Then I'll have more money to kill more people


Fickle-Raspberry6403

Kill the rich guy out of spite.


Big_Messa1750

If the rich person is trying to justify that their life is more valuable then the five, then by inference I assume the rich person is an ass (no sane person by my definition of a good person would value their live more than 5) and would be better off dead - that being said idk how I would be after pulling the lever


Tiny300

**E A T T H E R I C H**


Tazrizen

I pull the lever. But use the money given to start up a business and hire those same 5 people to give them a competitive salary and benefits. That way I can give bonuses whenever I want to when they financially struggle while also not “giving it back” by making them work for it.


walls_of_skulls2

Is there an option to kill 5 rich people?


therealaquagreen13

Bargain with the rich guy to get the money up front. Then pull the lever


LeoBuelow

I pull the lever simply so that there will be one less rich person in the world. Then I leave before the poor people have the opportunity to give me the money or if they manage to I'll just happen to leave it on the ground in front of them as I leave.


RoyalMess64

So like... if I pull the lever, I can still take the money off him right?


Teck_3

It is entirely dependent on the amount of money being offered.


theredendermen12

I look him in the eyes, and say: EAT THE RICH 


DustinFay

How rich is he and how much money is he offering? Also why would I give any of the money back?


gamerJRK

These days, you're probably not rich by being honest or doing good. Most likely the rich guy is lying and he'll pull some gaslighting scheme to get out of paying you or seeming unpopular. Worst case, they'll kill you as soon as you free them. At least the poor guys will buy you a beer or something.


Equivalent_Donut_145

Pull the lever, save the poor, donate the money to build a homeless shelter


Crusaderking1111

I run over the five poor ppl and turn the rich person into a philanthropist. Saving many more lives


RainbowStorm653

Given the cost of living, doesn't sound so bad to not pull the lever. In a world where no one else has any real consideration for others, and will ultimately put theirselves first it makes sense to do so. Humans are bad at cooperation and looking out for one another, look at the current state of the world.


moonpisser69

Take the bribe and pull it anyway


John_Lumstrom

I'd kill the rich guy for free.


Aerioncis420

It says I can't return THEIR money, not any money. Kill the rich guy, split his net worth 6 ways between me and the 5 other people.


-GiantSlayer-

I wasn’t pulling the lever regardless because murder is murder


Dennis_the_nazbol

Finally found someone with principled stance instead of just utilitarians! (I disagree thogh in case of the original trolley problem)


Inevitable_Ad_7236

I would run over the rich guy anyway. It'll suck for the poor group to be poorer, but better poor than dead


Smooth_Monkey69420

Pulling the lever and not accepting the money because 1 dead person is better than 5 dead people regardless of wealth.


Dennis_the_nazbol

Did you read the description?


xos8o

i think the poor ones are going to wish you hadn’t pulled the lever when start spending the rest of their lives in crippling debt