Hey so the trolley problem is dumb because the real person at fault for any of the deaths is the person who designed the trolley without an emergency braking system, the people who put in the purchase order for a trolley without an emergency braking system, the people who approved a PO for a trolley without an emergency braking system, the people who delivered a trolley without an emergency braking system, the organization that inspected and certified a trolley without an emergency braking system,and the operator who did not make a huge stink about being assigned to a trolley without an emergency braking system.
Whether you pull the lever is irrelevant, because a whoooole mess of people fucked up for you to be in that hypothetical situation.
Seriously, like, as a professional engineer, I find the premise of the trolley problem offensive. Cause like, so many safety regulations have been violated that it's just... insane.
"But, Cody, what if there was an emergency braking system, and it failed?"
Failure to perform regular maintenance and inspection. So, it's still someone else's fault.
"What if maintenance and inspections were done correctly, and it still failed?"
Some engineer somewhere failed to design a failsafe with the necessary redundancies. Again, it's someone else's fault.
"What about sabotage?"
The saboteur is obviously to blame.
"What if it's just a freak accident?"
Once again there's that engineer failing to place redundancies.
"What if it was just an act of God, and the engineer and everyone else did everything right?"
Then God is to blame. Duh. Not sure why this is so hard to get.
Any accident investigator will tell you that an accident is caused by a chain of incidents, and there were always several places the disaster could have been stopped.
Trolley problems are just philosophers being cruel to their audiences.
I would look at whoever is tying people to trolley tracks. That might be the issue right there.
Maybe the real trolley problem was the OSHA violations we made along the way.
[ID: gif of Chidi from The Good Place listening to someone speaking and looking extremely stressed out.]