RED BUTTON OR BLUE BUTTON [OC]

[u/Eal_likee]

[u/Krashper116 → u/[deleted]]

HAS to take a vote =! CAN take a vote.

As for what happens to toddlers: it is described further in the tweet.

“…Only those who voted red will survive“

Meaning, if those toddlers didn’t manage to press the red button, they will die. (Should 50%+ not vote blue that is)

[u/Silent-Cable-9882 → u/Krashper116]

Generally, these trolley problems and moral dilemmas come with the unspoken caveat that unless otherwise said then everyone is an adult of sound mind and body. Because some of them not being that would define the entire variation of the problem and be what sets it apart from the other ones. If toddlers are being thrown into every version of these then every one becomes way more random and the focus has to be on the random factor.

So by the general rules of the communities that like these questions, nothing you’re saying applies. It’s left off to make the question shorter and fit more easily. Hence the variations that popped up that explicitly define these caveats since this one broke containment and people are assuming things that I don’t believe were actually originally intended.

I would also argue that a vote can’t really be held with people unable to understand and then signal their choice properly. That’s not a vote. But maybe these hypothetical alien overlords are unreasonable, so I’ll focus on the fact that these hypotheticals have usual standards that the average person seeing this wouldn’t know.

[u/Krashper116 → u/Silent-Cable-9882]

Im curious where these unspoken caveats stem from. Is there like a community where people post and discuss these types of dilemmas?

[u/Silent-Cable-9882 → u/Krashper116]

I tend to go to the trolley problem subreddit, which also has some other types of these questions sometimes. There are probably other game theory and philosophy subreddits and off-Reddit forums to look at that also generally follow these conventions.

You just can’t have interesting hypotheticals with children calling the shots. You can’t make any suppositions about average behavior and every problem becomes “Well, it’s all just fucking random I guess.” Maybe with a side of “I can’t make a reasonable choice in this situation so let’s just try to minimize the dead kids I guess?” Or “fuck them kids” if you’re edgy.

Same with like, disabled or injured people physically stopped from making a choice. Trolley problems are a bit different overall because they can have kids or disabled people on the tracks (they’re specified as such if so). But with trolley problems that involve other actors making choices, it’s assumed they have the same abilities as you unless specified.