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Current time: August 19, 2026, 11:56 pm

Poll: What will you choose to do?
This poll is closed.
I will choose to push the fat man onto the tracks.
28.57%
2 28.57%
I will choose to do nothing.
71.43%
5 71.43%
Total 7 vote(s) 100%
* You voted for this item. [Show Results]

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#1 Thought experiment - "The Trolley Problem"
#58
RE: #1 Thought experiment - "The Trolley Problem"
I don't know if I'd freeze up or not. I'm happy to say I've never been in a position where I've been required to quickly make decisions of such magnitude. I hope I never will.

In this case, I wouldn't consider anything to be murder. I wouldn't even call it manslaughter. I'd call it attempting to save lives through damage control. But if you did want to term it manslaughter, then letting 5 people die would be manslaughter by neglect.

I don't consider the lever to be relevant. It would only be relevant if there was a really good reason why it was set the way it was, rather than how it happened to be when this weird scenario started. But imagining why it would be set up that way is difficult.
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RE: #1 Thought experiment - "The Trolley Problem" - by robvalue - May 19, 2016 at 4:18 am

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