• KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    8 months ago

    im just trying to figure out why theres a picture of a railroad switch in this meme.

    The railroad switch is fine, working as intended even. Nothing changed, as far as it’s concerned at least.

    • interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      Trolleys are quite slow affairs, like all public transport they happen at the leisurely pace of thevunemployed.

      We can presume that all passengers of the trolley would prefer the trolley be stopped in this controlled manner than via a further uncontrolled collision.

      Also, since passengers have never been explicitely mentionned in the premise, they do NOT exist. After all, many version of the trolley problen even go so far as to stipulate your kin relationship with the potential victims on the tracks to sway your decision.

      If there had been passengers they would have mentionned repeatedly, yet they have not.

      No, the only person on the trolley is the conductor, the one person with more responsibility than the switch flipping audience stand-in.

      Not suprising, as a lot of scheduled public transportation travels in a state of under-utilization.

      And for that reason, controlled derailment is the only moral certainty, as the fact that the trolley has no brakes is the only guaranteed fact universally included in this problem AND ensuring safe operability of the trolley is a universal responsibility of all persons driving a vehicle in public.

    • AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      8 months ago

      The gap between the wheels in the trolley in the image is much smaller than the gap between the tracks in the image. Still, depending on the amount of friction of the road surface and the wheels, it could either stop safely, tip over and kill people inside, or keep going and run over everyone. I assume it isn’t going that fast though because that turn is very sharp and the trolley would derail itself on that turn if it was going at speed.