this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
56 points (93.8% liked)
Asklemmy
50606 readers
314 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think it's like the trolley problem: a trolley (like a train) is barreling down the tracks to a fork in the tracks. You have a lever that will divert the train. Tied to the tracks dead ahead are five innocent people who will all certainly die if you don't throw the lever. However, one innocent person is tied to the tracks that you would divert the trolley to. Assume the trolley has no passengers and all five (or the one) will certainly be killed by the trolley.
The dilemma here is that by doing nothing, you could say you have nothing to do with the five people dying. You didn't put them there. You can blame the person who did put them there, but by doing nothing, you can say you have no blood on your hands. Or you can pull the lever, but then the blood of the one person is absolutely on your hands, but you can say you saved the other five.
Diverting the trolley is the lesser of two evils. But is it the right call? Depends on the situation.
And of course, there's also the unsaid option of diverting it and liberating the one in time, then the rest.
But, that is more difficult to pull off. Though better. I think if both the greater and the lesser evil support a greatly harmful outcome, then the only winning option is to support neither and fight for an option that's better.
With FPTP in the USA, the winning option would have been that everyone who normally voted Dem, voted for Green or the Democratic Socialist Party. But again, harder to pull off since you gotta convince so many people.
Five people call out to you to save their lives with the simple pull of a lever and you shout back to them βNo, I am too principled. Perhaps if I had the abilities of Superman I could save you all with this lever and then also save that person with my hands but I recognize my limitations and will therefore choose the outcome where more people will die rather than fewer.β
Theyβre all so proud of you for those next five seconds.
Diverting it to the direction of the one, and liberating the one, is what was meant. It'd be good to read before commenting.
This is you not pulling the lever.