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Exactly. If you have the means at hand, you have the responsibility to act. At the risk of taking a shitpost way too seriously, if you were in that situation and actively chose to leave the decision to someone else to kill double the people, then you acted unethically.

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Zellith@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Technically the 2nd guy could just let it go through and nobody dies. However if it was to double over and over forever until it stopped, then technically the best option is to just double it forever. Nobody would ever die?

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- andrew@lemmy.stuart.fun ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Pretty sure there’s a base case when you run out of people to tie to the tracks.
  
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  - FarceMultiplier@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Except, given finite resources, the tracks would run out before having enough space for 8 billion tied-up people.
    
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    tetraodon@feddit.it ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    There are 1.3 million km of railroads in the world. At 200km/h, a trolley could travel them in 18 years.
    
    Rearrange them in a circle and, providing everyone is cooperating, there’s plenty of time to tie 8 billion people to the rails and run them over.
    
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  - FunderPants@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Yes, say there are 2^33 people for illustrations sake, by 33 decisions you (the first puller) are guaranteed to be dead too. At 32 it’s 50/50, the odds increase as the decisions get made. From a self preservation standpoint the best thing you can do to minimize your personal risk is pull the lever. It also happens to kill the fewest other people.
    
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- Deceptichum@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  It’s on them, but it affects thousands or millions of others.
  
  As such if you can prevent that, and don’t, it’s also on you too.
  
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  - Alexstarfire@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I think that’s bad logic. The choice everyone has is kill or not kill. I can’t be held responsible for someone deciding to pick kill when they have the ability to pick not kill.
    
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    Deceptichum@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    You’re not responsible for their choice.
    
    You’re responsible for giving them the choice.
    
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- rockSlayer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  True, since we’re analyzing a hypothetical ethical question I shouldn’t leave any open assumptions. I made the assumption that at some point, at least one person will have to die, as in I see this trolley problem as a situation where at the end there is no choice and the maximum number of people die.
  
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