This is where a lot of people misunderstand the purpose of the trolley problem as a thought experiment, and why it doesn’t apply to voting or other lesser-evil-ism decisions.

The trolley problem isn’t about whether it would be better for one person or five people to die, but rather about your moral responsibility or culpability in a situation where you have the opportunity to affect the outcome. The reason it’s a “problem” in the first place is because it’s very clear that, absent any other information, it would be better for one person to die than for five people to die, but that, again, absent other information, it’s not clear whether or not you have the right or the obligation to make the decision to pull the lever. The ambiguity and complexity around your relationship to the situation is what makes it a moral dilemma, not the outcome. The answer to whether or not you should pull the lever depends on what ethical framework you apply to the situation, and that’s where the problem lies in the trolley problem.

If you use the trolley problem as a way of saying that the person holding the lever has a clear moral imperative to make the decision to pull the lever, then you’re implying that the trolley problem has a known and obvious solution, which means that all you’re saying is that your ethical framework is the correct one. If that’s the case, then you can just say that. You don’t need the trolley problem, and in fact you’re actually muddying your own message by implying that there’s any sort of moral dilemma at all.

The ideal solution is, as you say, to figure out how to stop the trolley from killing anyone, not to assume that there’s nothing that can be done about it. It’s actually pretty funny that libs like to use the trolley problem to talk about voting. The implication that the trolley requires human sacrifice as a matter of course is a pretty damning indictment of what they’re advocating. I would probably try to argue for my position in a way that doesn’t imply that innocent people have to die in the first place, but I guess that’s not pragmatic enough for them.

one must imagine coupling to the runaway trolley at high speed and using your own breaks, like the CSX 8888 incident (wtyp episode 132) (the guy who tried jumping onto the train ended up being dragged 100 feet on the ground before letting go)

The Trolley Problem, an Infantile Disorder

I always imagined my ass futilely trying to untie the people on the track. I'm quick to act but not great at planning my time

vote

Or derail the trolley.

Or shoot the driver.

Y'know, hypothetically.

You can stop the train by flipping the switch so that the front wheels are on one track and the back wheels on another

there's a variant where instead of pulling the lever you can shove a really fat guy in front of it before the switchtrack.

I looked around on my hard drive and I found ~4 year old quote from the Chapo sub.

[Taps temple with index finger] You can't have a moral dilemma if you have no morals.

But what if one day I might get to drive the trolley?

the proles think they'll be in charge of the lever

You have received advance information that there will be people tied to the tracks of the trolley today, and you also know that the trolley driver has no idea about this. However, you do not have the money to purchase a ticket to ride on the trolley. Do you break the rules to board the trolley and warn the driver? If you do, you may disturb other passengers.

On those republican/Democrats trolley problems the correct answer is derail the train and kill the conductors

It used to be possible to derail the train by switching the points while the train was halfway over them, causing the front end to go one way and the back to go the other.

However, much like with the US elections, they've since found innovative ways to prevent this preferable third option from happening.