Thats actually a really good dilemma if you think about it. Like if everyone doubles it you basically don’t kill anyone. But you’ll always risk that there’s some psycho who likes killing and then you will have killed more. And if these choices continue endlessly you will eventually find someone like this. So killing immediately should be the right thing to do.
At some people you will run out of people to tie to the tracks.
Long before that, you'd run out of track to tie to the people.
How many branches is that going to take? Just out of interest.
Only 32
math checks out. log2(8 billion) ~= 32.9
It's a little more complicated than that. You have to be summing everyone who is still tied to all the previous tracks. It needs to be a geometric sum formula.
It'll just be one fewer junctions. 2^n is always one more than the sum of 2^1+...2^(n-1)
You could just move them over whenever someone decides to double it up. That way the person that was going to die alone is doomed to die anyway. 😂
I wonder if we do stack it till every human is tied to the track whos at the lever?
Does the train/AI decide?
Some day it reaches a person that thinks...
Well, 4 billion people less is better than someone being able to wipe out humanity...
(it would also solve many problems lol)
(and that point would be after 32 people had the choice...)
Thanos waiting patiently in line 💀
Meanwhile Thanos is on the third switch and very frustrated. (He would double it and pass it to the next person - there's no point in killing four people when there's a chance that the second-to-last guy might kill half of humanity.)
This is really the only answer. The only thing that makes it "hard" is having to face the brutality of moral calculus
But you’ll always risk that there’s some psycho who likes killing and then you will have killed more.
I disagree. The blood is not on your hands.
Suppose you see someone walking towards a bank with a gun. You have an opportunity to steal their gun. If you don't, and they go on to kill 5 people in an armed robbery, is the blood on your hands?
Suppose you see a hunter in the woods with a gun. You have an opportunity to kill them. If you don't, and they go fire on a city street and kill 5 people, is the blood on your hands?
Suppose you see a juvenile delinquent on the path to being a serial killer. You have an opportunity to kill an old lady in front of them to scare them straight. If you don't, and they go on to kill 5 people, is the blood on your hands?
Suppose you see a newborn baby. You have an opportunity to kill them. If you don't, and they grow up to become a terrorist and kill 5 people, is the blood on your hands?
What if I want to be the person down the line?
Welcome to climate policy.
That implies that if nobody tries to stop climate change, it'll never destroy the world.
Continuously double it so that the trolley has as much room as it needs to brake to a complete halt, therefore killing 0 people.
The real questions are, "Who is fueling and piloting the trolly, and can we kill them?"
Math-wise, it won't take long until they are tied to the track with us and everyone else.
But it only takes 1 idiot to ruin the whole thing.
Successfully explained climate change
Loop continues until entire human population tied to track and there's nobody left to pass the switch to. kill the scapegoat on round one and done
Double it. Then the other guy will double it, and so on. Infinite loop = no deaths.
And then there's some psycho on round 34 who kills all 8 billion people alive on earth.
This will create an incentive for people who have 2, 4, 8, maybe even more more people om the tracks to not double, making the idea even worse.
You would need a crazy low probability of a lunatic or a mass murderer being down the line to justify not to kill one person
Edit: Sum(2^n (1-p)^(n-1) p) ~ Sum(2^n p) for p small. So you'd need a p= (2×2^32 -2) ~ 1/(8 billion) chance of catching a psycho for expected values to be equal. I.e. there is only a single person tops who would decide to kill all on earth.
You don't even need a lunatic or mass murderer. As you say, the logical choice is to kill one person. For the next person, the logical choice is to kill two people, and so on.
It does create the funny paradox where, up to a certain point, a rational utilitarian would choose to kill and a rational mass murderer trying to maximise deaths would choose to double it.
Well what about the fact that after 34 people the entire population is tied to the tracks. What are the chances that one person out of 35 wants to destroy humanity?
Also thing the entire human population to the tracks is going to cause some major logistical problems, how are you going to feed them all?
I just calculated the sum from n=0 to 32 (because 2^33>current global population). And that calculation implies that the chance of catching someone willing to kill all of humanity would have to be lower than 1/8 billion for the expected value of doubling it to be larger than just killing one person.
Oh come on. A trolley is not going to have the momentum to kill that many people nor would the machinery make it through. The gears and whatnot would be totally gummed up after like 20 or so people.
You gotta double it until it overflows to negatives, then you end up reviving billions of people!
Then you end up killing more because of massive famine 💀
I was gonna just do the one but they do say it's best to pay it forward when you can.
Right is the boomer way.
If I must kill 1 person or cause even more death, I suppose I'd kill the person responsible for this scenario.
Lever half way and it crashes.
Attempting to subvert the thought experiment only makes things worse. The trolley is full of child prodigies, all future geniuses that will cure cancer and solve the world's problems. By sticking the lever halfway you kill all of them. The only way to save the child prodigies is to choose, left or right.
I say let it go for 33 doublings (2^33 people), and then decide.
Throw the switch to pass and then sprint ahead 31 spots so I can kill 4 billion people like Thanos.
Seems like exactly what politicians are doing. Pass the problems along to the next one.