I take the square root of the negative trolley, then use my imaginary streetcar to establish a complex track so I can start killing in an additional dimension.
Multi-axis drifting!?!?
Deja Vu!
This has everything:
- Parody of a popular franchise
- Trains
- Train infographics that add to the world building
- Drift racing
- Manga
This is one kaiju or sentai squad away from being peak Japan.
I’ve occasionally wondered at the origin of that image but never felt like looking into it. Thanks for the link, the whole thing is very funny! Really nails the Initial D parody!
Aw, yeah, that’s sick! I also choose this option.
Shit man if there’s an infinite amount of people there must also be an infinite amount of track. So forget philosophy, I’m getting rich!
Do nothing, since an infinite number of people implies an inconceivable population overgrowth, so the best possible good for humanity is to cull the population.
Heck, you could probably go out and genocide the rest of the population that isn’t tied to the track and still not suffer any real loss. Then, you face the last true enemy: the bloodsoaked beast responsible for the deaths of untold billions- yourself.
Once you’ve slain that last creature, all of humanity that still remains will be those tied to the railroad track. The only living people will spend their entire lives knowing nothing but the track and the trolley, and the imposing fear that one day, they, too, shall be crushed under its wheels like those before them.
The only life remaining for the human race is now one of terror and eventual slaughter. There are no good outcomes to this conundrum. There are only the uncaring wheels of the trolley.
This feels like a Warhammer thing.
shouldn’t there be at least one guy on the trolley?
Has anyone tried just asking the trolley to stop?
Or trying to understand its innate desire to kill?
It has tasted blood, it’s too late to reason with it
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Sorry, that’s only an option of you have a Pro subscription.
In these scenarios the trolly is too close to stop before running the victums over.
Although in this particular time, having the trolly stop would save an infinite number of lives compared to the casulaites, which would actually help it stop fatser as bodies do not make good railroad tracks [citation needed].
As an Engineer with a Physics background I say the most ethical choice is the real numbers side as the tram, having no room to accelerate between victims, will quickly stop, whilst it’s more likely it can keep going for ever on the integer branch of the line.
A more effective vehicle for this would be a tank or maybe a steamroller.
(Note to self: keep this in mind if I ever become an Evil Overlord and need to execute large numbers of people in a gruesome manner)
I come to an agreement with the person who has tied these people to the tracks to untie every 2nd person. I save an infinite number of people!
I tried to do a similar deal and ended up with negative one twelfth of a person dead.
The solution that gains us a person at the limit
And if you convince the now untied individuals to each untie two people, you can now save multiple sets of infinite numbers of people!
That trolleys going to derail eventually. So the one with more people since they are tightly packed and it can’t build momentum.
But isn’t it more likely to derail if it gains momentum?
I expect it would be more able to cleanly cut through the bodies or throw them out of the way with more momentum. If it’s going slow it’s more likely to ride up on top of a body. Anecdotally, I’ve heard that derailers tend not to work on fast moving trains.
Depends
“Eventually” on the densely packed track - even if almost instant - means uncountably many deaths. On the upper track, any eventual stop will result in only finitely many deaths.
Huh?
Any non-empty interval on the real number line holds uncountably infinitely many points.
Reminds me of this: https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/
This is f’ing hilarious 🤣
This is awesome
I just tried to kill the most people every time and apparently a lot of people agree with me
Move to the end of the track and undo the constraints of people on the track. You will have infinite time until the trolly reaches the end, and can thusly save infinite lives by doing so.
Sadly, it takes an infinite amount of time to reach the end of the track. Thankfully, you have infinity time, though it’s still inconvenient. An infinite number of people people will die (instead of an infinite number of people), but you’ll save an infinite number of people in the end. After an infinite amount of time that will be infinitely better!
Everybody dies, no matter what choice you make. It’s just a matter of time.
There are infinite numbers between 1 and 2, none of which are 3.
Then wouldn’t that make this statement false?
Which statement?
There are infinite numbers between 1 and 2, none of which are 3.
If there are infinite numbers, then there’s 3 in there somewhere. If 3 is not there then it’s not infinite.
Oh okay.
If there are infinite numbers, then there’s 3 in there somewhere.
No, this is not true. Just because you have infinitely many numbers in some collection, doesn’t mean one of the numbers in your collection has to be 3.
Look at the number line. There are infinitely many numbers on the number line between 1 and 2. For example 1+1/2, 1+1/4, 1+1/8, … are in there (among many others). But all of the numbers between 1 and 2 are strictly smaller than 3, so none of them can be 3.
Alternatively, there are infinitely many numbers strictly smaller than 3, none of which are 3 either.
If 3 is not there then it’s not infinite.
Well consider the set of numbers 3+1, 3+2, 3+3, 3+4, … (the set of integer numbers strictly larger than 3). This set of numbers is also infinite and does not contain 3. So a set being infinite doesn’t imply it must contain the number 3.
Ah, thank you for the explanation. That makes sense now.
Pulling the lever will kill people slower, therefore less deaths in the lifetime of the universe.
Fewer deaths
Gram
Or will leaving it cause the higher density of bodies to slow the trolley resulting in slower killing in the lifetime of the universe… which either way is infinite deaths?
Pull the lever, thus killing -1/12th people.
Killing -1/12th? I didn’t know it can revive people.
I’m just waiting for the black hole to form just from the mass of the infinite people between 0-1 on the Reals track.
People die faster if you do nothing, so doing nothing seems like the obvious choice
The top track can be assumed to be of infinite length, but for the bottom track this is not enough - to fit ℵ people on it, they’ll have to be infinitely compressed. And since they are compressed - they are already dead. I’m not pulling the lever - preventing the (farther) desecration of corpses does not merit killing people who are still alive.
As a mathematician, this strikes me as an entirely reasonable interpretation, except for the fact that the compressed bodies would form a black hole, killing everyone regardless.
So you’re correct to say that you wouldn’t pull the lever, but your reasoning still missed an important detail.
I don’t think a black hole would have time to form before the entire universal collapse, though
that’s infinite mass inside infinite volume right there, we aren’t talking about only infinite density anymore
we need to get a theoretical physicist on this… track
