These are all sort of parody to begin with but the purpose of the trolley dilemma isn't about the results of the lever switch, it's about approaching complicity and participation in a system that creates this kind of immoral choice.
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
875 points (89.3% liked)
Political Memes
5601 readers
2980 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
But if you have a choice between lots of violence and less violence isn't it immoral not to try and at least minimize the violence that you have to no power to stop?
I mean that's why I referred to this as a parody: the point is with the trolley dilemma is that you're being forced to participate in an immoral choice (the lever), not just that the lever applies or absolves the user from a moral liability.
A major part of the exercise is that the choice seems simple to flip the switch as plain harm reduction, but that people change their calculus the moment the single victim has a personal connection: (it is their parent, spouse, child being killed instead of the other 5 strangers.)
The forced immoral act (killing) ceases to be the moral quandry and instead harm reduction is the level of personal connection and culpability that people begin to weigh.
Since these memes tend to portray the trolley effectively running down both tracks with one outcome, the whole premise is kind of defeated.
load more comments
(5 replies)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Wtf. I've never seen so many people annoyed that their fellows are protesting genocide. How do you take a situation like this and make it a fucking trolley meme.
Imagine you're strapped to an operating table, incapacitated. There are two other people in the room strapped to tables with you.
In walk two psychopaths, let's call them Al and Bob. They explain to you that they've decided to let the three of you choose your fate: Al wants to chop off your right hand, Bob wants to chop off all four of your limbs. They give you five minutes to decide, and then they'll come back to take a vote, majority decides whether Al or Bob gets their way. If you refuse to vote they'll flip a coin.
Immediately one of the other victims starts saying how terrible Al is and how horrible it is to chop off someone's right hand. Non-stop protesting the inhumanity of Al, how important it is to deny Al the opportunity to take your right hand.
For whatever reason they seem oddly quiet on the fact that Bob also wants to take your right hand, and arm, and the left, and both legs. Whenever you try to interject with that fact, they accuse you of being pro-handchopping and how could you even suggest voting for Al the evil handchopper. And now the other victim seems to be taking this anti-Al rhetoric quite seriously.
Would you find that annoying?
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(17 replies)
You people should be less worried about leftists who despise both parties and more worried about the huge amount of people who just don't want to vote. Now it would be easier to convince people to get out and vote for an actual candidate rather than an artifact of campaign financing but hey, that's your problem to solve. Tell the Democrats to do better next time.
Shaming and blaming is so much harder than reaching unaffiliated/disaffected voters and winning them over.
So much easier to denounce Ralph Nader for a 450 vote margin in Florida than to tap the 4M people who didn't turn out in one of the lowest turnout elections in recent history.
So much easier to claim the election was rigged in 2020 and kick off a riot than to get more people registered and in line to vote in Michigan or Pennsylvania or Georgia.
I keep trying to explain this to people, maybe this graphic will work.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Immigrants used to be on top rail, but after four years, they have been placed on both rails, just like the Palestinians. There is no guarantee that the groups placed on the top rail will not be shifted to the bottom rail as well in four years.
Voting for Democrats is always advertised as the lesser of two evils, but it sure seems like the lesser evil is just trying to kill the same groups the greater evil. If they want people to vote for them, the Democrats should start working to save and prevent people from being tied to trolley tracks.
Or at least lie about it.
load more comments
(5 replies)
Thank you for confirming my bias that both sides are indeed the same - I will now proceed accordingly. 😜
/s btw, and damn I wish this was funny. As it is, it feels all too real...😔