The utilitarian framework of ethics provides an answer in this specific case, if you make an assumption about the level of suffering the people will endure while being run over by the train. If the suffering of the one man when he gets hit by the train is equal to the suffering to any one of the five men when they get hit by the train, then is makes no difference that the one man will not die. Utilitarianism states that the greatest good is human pleasure, and the greatest bad is human suffering. In this case, the one man being immortal increases his capacity to suffer, while the five men can only experience the suffering once. This means that the one man will experience human suffering equal to the five men after five cycles of the tram, which will take 50 seconds. If I wasn’t sure that I could break the chain and free the one man within 50 seconds, then the correct course of action is to let the five men die because human suffering will be greater overall for this system after 50 seconds, at the cost of one unit every ten seconds. If the one man could be sedated and experience no pain until the chains could be cut, then we are effectively performing a kind of surgery on the one man, and long periods of sedation would be justified while his chains are being cut.
To counter: immortality means that this person must necessarily endure an infinite amount of suffering whether they get off the tracks or not (e.g. drifting through the cold void after the sun explodes)
The other people can be saved from an avoidable grisly death while the immortal’s suffering is merely delayed.
I appreciate this take on the concept of how this utility function would work. If we made the utility function different within our utilitarian framing, we might produce different outcomes given the same scenario. It seems that the differences in our utility functions are whether they are based on absolute or relative suffering. Also, death may be a type of suffering which is different from pain, as I assume most people would accept a large amount of pain to continue living. How many times of getting hit by the train would be equal to one death, I wonder?
those who pull the lever in omelas
Just install a switch
Rip up the tracks, thus stalling the tram before it gets to immortal man.
“With this tram’s death, the thread of prophecy is severed. Restore a saved game to restore the weave of fate, or persist in the doomed world you have created.”
or derail it with a penny
Edit: I know that wouldn’t actually work. It was a joke.
Some people have never had to cut through chain quickly, and it shows.
Give me 10 minutes with my cordless angle grinder and a fresh pack of cutting discs and I’ll have every link cut from head to toe
Or 20 minutes with a hacksaw and I’ll at least have a link cut that allows me to unravel the chain.
Or just make the immortal person Jeff bezos and I’ll just call it a day?
He’s just wrapped in chains. Roll him so he goes groin first once, because fuck him for making me get out of my
chainchair, then roll him the rest of the way to safety. He can starve the rest of the way out of the chains.Well, since the train passes every 10 seconds, I’d say you reasonably have to batch this job in 5-second bursts, maybe shorter to be safe. Even if you focus on just one link per side on this “very heavy-duty chain”, I’d say this poor soul would die at least 30 times just while you’re working. Plus imagine all the blood you - and your tools - would be splattered in. What’s that going to do to your angle grinder and your fresh cutting disks?
Without getting into specifics, I’m 100% confident I can cut through up to 12mm of hardened steel in under 10 seconds with one, assuming I get the alignment right and the steel isn’t going to shift on me. Given it’s being called “heavy duty” chain, I’m going to assume a layman’s version of that and say 12mm is probably overkill, but let’s just go with that.
10 seconds of grinding. I’ll give myself 3 seconds to run in, 3 seconds to run away. 6 seconds to cut, we’ll go with 4 of those actually making contact. That’s 3 trips per half-link (you need to cut through both sides of a link to pull the chain apart) so 6 in total to break one strand.
I’d say 30 deaths is generous.
And again without getting into specifics, blood on brushless tools doesn’t do much, especially if I use some corrosion resistant coatings on the sensitive contacts.
Ultimately though, one would hope the immortal being is willing to accept the temporary trolley torture if it means the others can be rescued
Has anyone heard from nancy?
Yes because while he’s dying again and again, I can find a way to derail the trolly.
very difficulty
Negotiate with him. You’ll kill the 5, but the immortal has to work for you as your personal assassin for as long as you live. Send him after billionaires.
The 5 will be remembered for their sacrifice for the greater good.Everyone should read The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin.
Le Guin is honestly an absolute titan of a writer. Incredibly thought-provoking stuff.
Sisyphus trolley
Absolutely yes, because it means nothing since this scenario is impossible.
Since he’s immortal, some form of extreme violence like a concentrated explosion would destroy the chain quickly and free him with minimal separate regeneration cycles.
Since he’s immortal, why doesn’t he free himself after he gets severed the first time
His head and legs are crushed. He’s not really a (mobile) person post-crush.
Yeah, and his torso is still chained.
Well he should have thought of that before getting chained to the tracks
So if you saved the immortal would the immortal go onto suffer but in different ways
Hey I just thought of a new solution to the trolley problem. Instead of flipping the switch or not, stick an object on the tracks that derails the trolley. Guessing there’s a decent chance no one dies since trolleys generally don’t have the speed or intertia that a train has. The chaos option.
The true choice was the lever all along.
