this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
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Political Memes
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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.