Re:Kill Whitey- It’s the right thing to do.
by smallblacksun on Thursday September 16, 2010 @02:06PM
(#1698578)
There's also the fact that you would be making a complete guess that the man was large enough to stop the trolley in real life, and if he wasn't you would simply be adding another victim. Besides, a man large enough to stop a trolley would be really hard to push.
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Re:Kill Whitey- It’s the right thing to do.
by Jeema3000 on Thursday September 16, 2010 @02:17PM
(#1698618)
Exactly. There's no way to know if the action of pushing the fat man onto the tracks would actually stop the train. Worst case scenario, you might end up killing one extra person.
In the 'switching the track' example, on the other hand, the worst case scenario is that your actions have no effect on the outcome and no additional people die than would have died otherwise.