jadero ( @jadero@mander.xyz ) English54•4 months agoIt’s always better to gain a full understanding of the system when trying to make important decisions.
The trolley has two sets of wheels, leading and trailing, both of which must remain on the same set of tracks.
The switch is designed to enable the trolley to change course, moving from one set of tracks to the other.
Throwing the switch after the leading set has passed, but before the trailing set has reached the switch points will cause the two sets to attempt travel on separate tracks. The trolley will derail, rapidly coming to a halt. If the trolley is moving slowly enough to permit this action, nobody dies.
Source: former brakeman (one of the people responsible for throwing switches), section hand (one of the people responsible for installing switches), and railroad welder (one of the people responsible for field repairs of switches).
paholg ( @paholg@lemm.ee ) English24•4 months agoI’m pretty sure that leads to multi-track drifting, and so all the people die.
Source: https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/000/727/DenshaDeD_ch01p16-17.jpg
jadero ( @jadero@mander.xyz ) English3•4 months ago🤣
Don’t worry, the first body or two will take care of it!
Rodeo ( @Rodeo@lemmy.ca ) English3•4 months agoThis is quintessential anime action. So ridiculous, yet so awesome.
doggle ( @doggle@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English12•4 months agoI’m no expert, but I’d expect such a slow moving trolley to eventually derail itself anyway on account of all the corpses
jadero ( @jadero@mander.xyz ) English3•4 months agoYes, or come to a halt. You’d be surprised at how little it takes to reduce the already low friction to nothing. A bit of blood and a bit of resistance will bring it to a halt pretty quickly.
Deconceptualist ( @Deconceptualist@lemm.ee ) English9•4 months agoI think you just passed the Trolley version of the Kobayashi Maru. Well done.
jadero ( @jadero@mander.xyz ) English3•4 months agoThanks. This is the first time I’ve seen a jokey enough presentation to feel comfortable in treating it as a hypothetical reality rather than a moral/ethical exercise.
archchan ( @archchan@lemmy.ml ) English8•4 months agoWay to stop the trolly problem dead in its tracks.
GekkoState ( @GekkoState@lemmings.world ) English5•4 months agoOR… if you can keep the wheels spinning really fast, you could “drift” the trolly, keeping a set of wheels on each track and kill everyone on both tracks into infinity.
humanplayer2 ( @humanplayer2@lemmy.ml ) English2•4 months agoIf the leading wheels are allowed to continue any interval down the original track, uncountably infinitely many people die.
jadero ( @jadero@mander.xyz ) English1•4 months agoOnly if those people can also be infinitely packed into the distance the leading truck (the set of wheels) manages to travel.
Which, I guess is fair play in a thought experiment involving different sizes of infinities. :)
humanplayer2 ( @humanplayer2@lemmy.ml ) English2•4 months agoI think that wad the premise, yeah.
pruwyben ( @pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de ) English37•4 months agoI would question the ability to line people up on a railroad track such that they have a 1:1 correspondence with the real numbers.
corvus ( @corvus@lemmy.ml ) English17•4 months agoIt’s totally doable because they are real people.
Ephera ( @Ephera@lemmy.ml ) English10•4 months agoYeah, for any length of track, you would need to stack infinite people…
nul ( @nul@programming.dev ) English28•4 months agoHas anyone tried just asking the trolley to stop?
lolcatnip ( @lolcatnip@reddthat.com ) English3•4 months agoFound the Canadian!
gandalf_der_12te ( @gandalf_der_12te@feddit.de ) English3•4 months agoIt is my understanding that the trolley just wants to go forward. It doesn’t care whether it kills people or not.
Therefore, make the trolley go in circles.
Dark_Dragon ( @Dark_Dragon@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English2•4 months agoOr in reverse
humanplayer2 ( @humanplayer2@lemmy.ml ) English1•4 months agoSorry, that’s only an option of you have a Pro subscription.
nothacking ( @nothacking@discuss.tchncs.de ) English21•4 months agoPulling the lever will kill people slower, therefore less deaths in the lifetime of the universe.
Johanno ( @Johanno@feddit.de ) English8•4 months agoSo I won’t do it
Artyom ( @Artyom@lemm.ee ) English19•4 months agoPull the lever, thus killing -1/12th people.
uis ( @uis@lemm.ee ) English1•4 months agoKilling -1/12th? I didn’t know it can revive people.
LadyAutumn ( @LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) English17•4 months agoMove to the end of the track and undo the constraints of people on the track. You will have infinite time until the trolly reaches the end, and can thusly save infinite lives by doing so.
Mesophar ( @Mesophar@lemm.ee ) English14•4 months agoSadly, it takes an infinite amount of time to reach the end of the track. Thankfully, you have infinity time, though it’s still inconvenient. An infinite number of people people will die (instead of an infinite number of people), but you’ll save an infinite number of people in the end. After an infinite amount of time that will be infinitely better!
variants ( @variants@possumpat.io ) English4•4 months agobut if the trolley moves at a faster pace than you so you will never catch up?
nul ( @nul@programming.dev ) English3•4 months agoJust ride another trolley on the other track.
Zoop ( @Zoop@beehaw.org ) English3•4 months agoThat way you kill the people on the other track, too. Efficient!
lolcatnip ( @lolcatnip@reddthat.com ) English3•4 months agoAn infinite track has no end, just like a number line.
LadyAutumn ( @LadyAutumn@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) English1•4 months agoActually, that’s assuming that the track is a straight line. The distance from the beginning to the end of the track could be just a few feet, and the distance along the rail and thusly the number of people infinite.
vamputer ( @vamputer@infosec.pub ) English14•4 months agoDo nothing, since an infinite number of people implies an inconceivable population overgrowth, so the best possible good for humanity is to cull the population.
Heck, you could probably go out and genocide the rest of the population that isn’t tied to the track and still not suffer any real loss. Then, you face the last true enemy: the bloodsoaked beast responsible for the deaths of untold billions- yourself.
Once you’ve slain that last creature, all of humanity that still remains will be those tied to the railroad track. The only living people will spend their entire lives knowing nothing but the track and the trolley, and the imposing fear that one day, they, too, shall be crushed under its wheels like those before them.
The only life remaining for the human race is now one of terror and eventual slaughter. There are no good outcomes to this conundrum. There are only the uncaring wheels of the trolley.
lolcatnip ( @lolcatnip@reddthat.com ) English5•4 months agoJust the existence of infinite people implies an infinite space to contain them, and an infinite ecosystem to have produced them. Concerns related to overtaxing a finite ecosystem don’t apply.
kbal ( @kbal@fedia.io ) 12•4 months agoSeeing an infinite number of people lying there I deduce that I must be in some kind of thought experiment and let the trolley roll on while I look for a way to escape back to reality.
CileTheSane ( @CileTheSane@lemmy.ca ) English12•4 months agoI come to an agreement with the person who has tied these people to the tracks to untie every 2nd person. I save an infinite number of people!
TheOakTree ( @TheOakTree@beehaw.org ) English6•4 months agoAnd if you convince the now untied individuals to each untie two people, you can now save multiple sets of infinite numbers of people!
hemko ( @hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English11•4 months agoPeople die faster if you do nothing, so doing nothing seems like the obvious choice
LanternEverywhere ( @LanternEverywhere@kbin.social ) 10•4 months agoThe trolley goes at infinite speed after the branch point. What’s your outside the box answer now?
sqw ( @sqw@lemmy.sdf.org ) English5•4 months agowhich size infinite speed we talkin’? if its faster than light then maybe we got ourselves a time travel trolley 😎
Gamma ( @GammaGames@beehaw.org ) English5•4 months agoJoin them on the rail
hemko ( @hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English2•4 months agoThen you have a choice to do nothing and allow people die, or do a conscious choice to kill people. There’s something for everyone, everyone wins (except the people on rails)
Zerush ( @Zerush@lemmy.ml ) English11•4 months agoI kill the trolley driver. The Dead Man button makes that the trolley stops.
⸻ Ban DHMO 🇦🇺 ⸻ ( @unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone ) English8•4 months agoThis is a complex problem, hence I pull an imaginary lever and divert the trolley onto the imaginary number line to kill infinite imaginary people. No one cares because they’re imaginary
Skyline969 ( @Skyline969@lemmy.ca ) English7•4 months agoMulti-track drifting, baby. Double infinite.
unexposedhazard ( @unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de ) English7•4 months agoInvent a new number system that provides aneven smaller infinity
I_am_10_squirrels ( @I_am_10_squirrels@beehaw.org ) English1•4 months agoThe set of all even integers is a smaller infinity
MBM ( @MBM@lemmings.world ) English1•4 months agoThe cardinality is the same, because you can match every integer to an even integer
Bigfish ( @Bigfish@lemmynsfw.com ) English7•4 months agoI’m just waiting for the black hole to form just from the mass of the infinite people between 0-1 on the Reals track.