With the turning of a wheel you can prevent 10 deaths, but doing so will cause you to be 5 seconds later at work. Would you turn the wheel?

This is America most of those cars should be ford f150

This is probably even true in the philosophy sense. Basically instead of a single lever, each of us gets a lever which might change something or might not, or it might do something unrelated. This means that everyone’s responsibility for that decision is dithered. This sort of rewrites the trolley problem. How does it change the philosophy? No idea.

Here in the States, it was a legitimate effort by the motor and oil industries to quash public transit and force car ownership. Even our parking requirements for commercial zoning turns every city into a sprawl.

We were aware of global warming concerns before the Model T (though the concern then was coal, not petroleum). By then, the Federal government was already heavily influenced by industrial barons who were sore when FDR created the New Deal to prevent a communist revolution. (They were hoping for a dissolution of democracy and a fascist state, and even considered a coup.)

So the US society long bought the ticket to ride this train. But don’t look at it as a question of character; we as a species are just not equipped to deal with huge societies and are too easily tempted by holding too much power. No billionaire today looks to diffuse their power or use it to address global concerns, even though they have enough power to do just that. We just haven’t yet developed the sociological mechanisms that facilitate huge societies or disperse consolidated power without resorting to violence.

This may well be our great filter.

This meme is incredible. I really love trolley problem memes, collectively they’re great.

I would be remiss to not link to this trolley problem game https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/

Who’s this “we”? My city still has them.

Daniel Tiger the children’s show has a trolley that is on wheels with no track. Does this still count as a trolley or is this a glorified bus?

You can choose not to participate, this saves no one. Good luck!

So nobody has to die?