Eh, it doesn’t matter how old the people are, really. They have all already gotten to experience the joy of life. The baby hasn’t, so they have the most to lose.
It does matter. Five young people have been fully invested in & will now produce value for the next few decades. Whereas a baby has still not been fully invested in, years of education etc, so they're cheaper to replace
the baby (young enough) doesn't understand the situation
also, you can easily flip it: elderly cannot be saved from the torture of existence, having lived so long, but the baby has barely suffered anything yet - we can save it!
The elderly also have wisdom to offer. The baby only has potential wisdom. Of course, if you're trading on potential, the baby could potentially grow up to be a serial killer. Or the elderly could potentially be mute.
Easiest one IMO. Spare an evil baby who would gladly sacrifice every single person on this planet for some ridiculous thing they feel entitled to or spare five diligent elders?
Re:Absurd Trolley Problems
by darkerside on Wednesday July 06, 2022 @06:20AM
(#31998943)
If I were your friend, I'd be concerned, too.
In this case, I did pull the lever, because it could be replaced by an electric trolley. But if killing the trolley means more cars and more car accidents and CO2, then of course we should keep the trolley. But if we ignore context and just look at kill 5 people or kill the inanimate object responsible for killing those 5 people, the answer is obvious. (But did I really ignore the context there?)
Others also have important subconscious context. Sacrifice 5 elderly people to save one baby. How elderly are they? Are they so elderly they're just waiting for death, or do they each still have more than 20 years of relatively healthy life left? And thanks to modern health care, that baby now has a very good chance to survive until adulthood, but 100-200 years ago, that chance was only 50%. Maybe not worth sacrificing 5 people for. I think that one was the hardest.
(My friends may be somewhat worried to learn that I had surprisingly little trouble sacrificing my best friend for 5 strangers. But really, I'd prefer to kill whoever keeps tying these people to the track.)