This is only superficially a prisoner's dilemma. In a true one, you cannot get a better result for yourself no matter what the other person does, but here if you assume the other person pulled the lever, there is no reason to pull the lever yourself.
To fix this, you can have 4 relatives on the trolley, and 5 of the opposite faction way back on the middle track. Both do nothing, 1 relative of each is killed. One guy switches the lever, their relatives are all fine, other guy loses 5. Both switch, crash with all 8 relatives on the trolley dead.
I see what you're trying to do and you're not necessarily wrong, but you're kinda perpetuating the attitude that inspired someone to make this meme in the first place
for the longest time, i did know that game theory did not have anything to do with “games” and that it is somehow connected to the prisoners dilemma, but the concept as such wasn’t very clear to me. If you are like my former me, take 30 minutes out of your day and visit https://ncase.me/trust/ to learn and play around with game theory; it’s a great webpage and it’s pretty good fun all around.
I did a few game theory simulations in college and they were always real interesting. In one of them for example, it was a multiplayer game, with multiple interactions. I think it was to simulate global trade basically: you could cooperate with as many players as you want and each time you cooperate you both get a point. If you defect then you get two and they get none. However, all the players could see what the other players are doing, so if you defected they would know and probably would play (trade) with you. The best way to win was to form as many connections as possible and fully cooperate the whole time.
I formed maybe like 20-30 connections with other players and didn't defect. Each point was worth a few cents or something. So I walked out with a check for like $20-$50 or something. Many players walked out with nothing because they cheated too many people too many times and nobody wanted to trade with them.
Therefore, clearly, the best economic policy is protectionism, tariffs, trade wars, and fucking over both allies and enemies, right? Right?!?
Your simulation seems to only punish selfish actors when that's not always the case. Doesn't include natural monopolies, lacks clandestine exploitation, and there's likely no market capture or saturation.
In such a case the only play is to cooperate.
If these are tracks in the US then I just understaff the engineers and maintenance teams and the train derails before I have to make a decision, checkmate.
Not even. Game Theory is supposed to take a lot of stuff into account. Boiling it down to this is insulting and a way to paint situations like proxy wars as immoral.
Wrong. You pick the obviously wrong moral stance and then aggressively yell about it on the internet. The more obvious it becomes that you are wrong, the louder you yell. This protects your ego from introspection.
that right, I'd masturbate on the tracks and on the people tied to the tracks so they are slipery and can slide or bounce to safety. And before you judge me, its the only thing I'm really good at and we should make the most of what we have in life.
Failing that for whatever reason (or maybe in addition to that), I'd asses which of the prospects are lefties and make sure those people in particular live. Sorry centrists and republicans, but we need the votes and some people have to die, but I'm focussed on doing the least harm here.
You realize this is your family watching you make the decision to have their vehicle run over a loved one? There's a possibility they all live if you pull it.
Unlike the classic prisoners dilemma, this isn't a nash equilibrium. When I know that the other person pulls their switch, I'd improve my outcome by not pulling mine. Compare to the prisoners dilemma, where not snitching when the other side snitches earns you five years in prison.
And unlike the original trolley problem, pulling the lever will always kill more people. I'd wager most people wouldn't pull this lever because of this, but I agree there's no Nash equilibrium.
Do nothing that way you don't get to jail for murder. All the pressure goes to the other guy. Sue the railway company, guy who pulled the lever and the creator. Another is find a way not to reach to that point.
You need to watch more shows. Don't get me wrong, I like The Good Place and what they were trying to do with it, but yeah no there's a lot of other shows that are just as educational and well written that don't have to do a show-wide reset to start every season
Well obviously you should pull the lever once the front wheels past the split but before the rear wheels cross it, so that trolley gets off the rails. This way everybody has the chance to survive and you have defensible position during inevitable court hearing.
I think these scenarios might be easier to analyze if we made them a bit more realistic.
This an analogy for military intervention. If we empower our military to be proactive, we can save one "good guy"TM by killing 3 bystanders. But if NATO's adversaries are participating too we lose 3 of our "good guy"TM
I think the abstract nature is one of the strengths. If you ask someone a question about military intervention, their pre-existing views towards military intervention will heavily bias their answer.
Yeah that's a good point. Maybe I should amend my statement to say something like:
If this seems like an absurd hypothetical, consider reframing it. Multiply all the numbers by a factor of between 1,000 to 1,000,000 and make them "our soldiers", "bystanders" and "enemy soldiers" respectively.
They'll be thinking the same thing tho and if there is a greater than 20% chance of them pulling the lever it'd be worse in terms of losing family members than not pulling at all.
But in terms of overall death, not pulling the lever is 1 or 4, and pulling the lever is 4 or 13
But equally that might be what they're thinking. There's no simple equilibrium in this game... If your opponent pulls, your best move is not to pull. If they do not, your best move is to do so.
Well, from a pure game theory standpoint, assuming you only value your relatives. This is all somewhat disregarding the three innocents in the middle.
Questions: why doesn't the person at the switch run and get the person off the tracks? And the people on the trolley hop off or try to the sslow the trolley?
I think this exposes the sadism of philosophy the past few hundred years.
Often, it’s been some rich idle folks making up murderous fantasies in their heads while looking down at my ancestors . “Oh, you don’t know page 273 of Aristotle’s rejoinder? Haha, you must be too poor”.
I would tie a really really long string to the lever and attach the string to a large bird and then scare it into flying away. Then I would eat some delicious Heinz Baked Beans
Yell to the other lever dude that I'm not pulling the lever but fuck those beige dudes, hope they can't tell i'm lying, run and lay down with the beige dudes, and if I'm lucky they pull their lever too and we get maximum carnage. If lever dude suspects I'm lying and insane, and thus doesn't pull their lever, at least I won't have to answer my loved ones' questions.
you find some third way thats not the bad outcomes that are suggested. Theres always possibilities in life and people who say there are not are generally trying to coerce you.
looking at the junction points on that diagram only one side of the axle would change track if the switch was pulled resulting in a derailment so you could ignore the possibility of hitting the people in the middle thereby reducing this example to two parallel but unconnected trolley problems
i choose to kill whoever calls them trolleys and not trams
"Killing almost everyone"... okay, but even in that "worst" case, both lever operators loved ones are fine, so it's not the worst case for them
All they have to deal with is a little existential PTSD bubbling up occasionally. Whatever, add it to the pile. They can lean on their still alive loved ones in those tough times.
A trolley is approaching a junction and you have the ability to leave the switch where it is, sending the trolley into an innocent person tied to the tracks, or pull the lever sending the trolley down the tracks to someone else that is now faced with the same trolley problem.