Recursion

Comments

• blackstampede@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I’d pull the lever to kill one person immediately. Assuming the decision maker at each stage is a different person with different opinions on moral, ethical, religious, and logical questions, then it’s a near certainty that someone is going to pull the lever to kill the people at their stage. If you’re lucky, it’s the very next guy. If you’re not, it’s the guy killing a million people a couple of iterations later. If I’m the first guy, I’ll take the moral hit to save the larger number of people.

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  • aseriesoftubes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    If you’re not, it’s the guy killing a million people a couple of iterations later

    I feel like running over all those bodies would make the train come to a stop way before it ran over a million people.

    Now I sit back and wait for some morbid soul who is better at math and physics than me to figure out the answer.

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    • Deceptichum@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Now if we assume the victims tied up are frictionless orbs, and the train is also a frictionless orb, and the two of them are travelling in a frictionless void than I reckon we could kill a few more.

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    • Reliant1087@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I mean if you’re going fast enough with a pointy train, you could chop up people pretty easy. You just need to make sure that each person is a tire width apart to make sure the wheels don’t lose traction. Assuming a person is roughly half a metre across and a tire is 75cm in diameter, we get 1.25m per person, so a track of 1250km for a million people. Not very long at all.

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  • kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    On the one hand, the possibility exists that the buck gets passed forever, especially as the kill count numbers grow substantially making the impermissibility of allowing the deaths grow with it. It’s not likely the any given person would kill one stranger, let alone millions.

    On the other hand, in an infinite series, even something with miniscule odds will still eventually inevitably happen, and some psycho will instantly become the most infamous murderer in history, followed immediately by the person that didn’t just kill one person and end the growth before it started.

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  • rockSlayer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    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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  • docAvid@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I agree with your logic, so far as it goes. However, there are, currently, just over eight billion humans in existence. If my quick, over-tired math is correct, that means only 34 people have to say no, until we run out of people to tie to the tracks. Assuming, at that point, the system collapses and nobody dies, I’d guess 34 people would refuse - might be the better choice.

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    • bstix@feddit.dk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Would you trust the entirety of human existence to be decided by 34 people? In my experience from watching reality TV, the last one always screws the rest over for their own benefit.

      Imagine being the last one. You could singlehandedly wipe out half the global population. This would normally be a bad thing, and it is, but it would also make every surviver twice as rich, solve food scarcity and halve the pollution, perhaps even saving humanity from itself.

      If that’s not enough, think about everyone now having double the amount of kittens and half the traffic on the roads.

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    • blackstampede@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Oh yeah. I was assuming an infinite series (somehow). Also, odds are good that out of 34 people, one of them would misunderstand the rules or be crazy enough to do it anyway for various reasons. I’d probably still do it.

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    • Default_Defect@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      After we run out of people, they start adding cats & dogs.

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  • Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    But what if you’re the tenth person with 1024 on the line? Or the 20th person with 1,048,576? Etc. Is there ever a point (before it’s everyone, in which case risk doesn’t increase) where you stop pulling it?

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• uphillbothways@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Step in front of the train: Tell your manager this whole project is dumb, provide a list of reasons why it's a bad idea and explain you are prepared to resign rather than enable it's further development.

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• corytheboyd@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  MULTI-TRACK DRIFTING!!

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  • blackluster117@possumpat.io ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    KANSEI DORIFTO

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• chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Just keep doubling forever until the number is more than everyone alive, free s-risk emergency button.

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  • lugal@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    This might cause a buffer overload that crashes the programming and we can escape the matrix together once and for all

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    • TheWoozy@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      But what if we are all NPCs?

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• TheObserver@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Double it and I’ll do it myself

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• statues_lasers@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Modern financial system in one picture.

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• superkret@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Depends on what I know about the other lever pullers. This is basically what playing limit poker is like.

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• Creddit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Just walk away and assume the original engineer put safety measures in place.

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  • FaceDeer@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    If you pull the lever after the trolley's first set of wheels has passed the switch but before its last set of wheels has passed the switch then you'll derail the trolley and everyone lives.

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    • imPastaSyndrome@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Except the guy in the trolley

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    • Creddit@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yeah, not a bad answer! I’d assume someone is on the trolley too, but that’s just an assumption and, hey, maybe they would survive the wreck anyway!

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• Aux@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  THE MORE THE MERRIER!!!

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• nyan@lemmy.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Half-pull the lever so that the points get stuck midway between the two tracks. That should derail the trolley. Someone could conceivably still get hurt, but it improves everyone’s chances.

  (What? You mean it isn’t a literal trolley that has to obey the laws of physics? Damn.)

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  • cicadagen@ani.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    News next day, 10 dead in derailment.

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• downpunxx@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  if you're a decent person you double it, if the person on the track is a republican you let it motor on through

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  • 2d@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    go back to reddit

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    • Deceptichum@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Aww did the little rightie not like being made fun of?

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  • OneNot@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Apart from making it political for no reason, how on earth did you come to the conclusion that doubling the kill count and putting the responsibility on someone else makes you a decent person?

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    • downpunxx@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      doubling the future possible kill count is inherently better, republicans aside, than killing someone right now. wait for it, you'll get there.

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• roguetrick@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  The main problem with this is: is there a finite number of people? and if I pass it on do I count as part of the pool that will end up on the tracks?

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• over_clox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Depends on how much I’m getting paid…

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• lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I don’t have to be a soldier on anyone’s ethical recursion war, so since the default position is set to kill 1 person, that gets done by the problem itself and the whole thing is solved without me having to do anything.

  As a further bonus, now the lever people on the next branches are free to get out of the levels and go release the other prisoners.

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• Tschuuuls@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  This is a screenshot from here neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/

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• janus2@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  “hey hun i’ve got an exciting business opportunity for you!!1!”

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• hectocotylus@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  por qué no los dos

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• Gallardo994@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Sounds like TikTok challenges. Oh boy.

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