Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/01/a-two-year-olds-approach-to-the-trolley-problem.html
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Clearly a future Good Place resident.
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It feels crass to say this toddler is thinking like a Turmp voter – caring more about “what’ll happen if” than about the people in front of the train – but there, I’ve already said it
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Not to mention a tired cliche at this point.
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It’s so great to see the wheels turning. If I just move this one over here…then…I can run over them all over with the train much more easily! That was the goal, right?
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There are people who say toddlers lack empathy?
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I watched it with the sound off, and when the kid moved the person over to the other track I thought “oh, hey - that’s some great Kobayashi Maru out-of-the-box thinking right there!” Then the kid just ran them all over and I giggled “oh, right. Kids.”
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Gotta catch em all!!
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“Everyone dies. Existence is pain” he said before he went choo choo with his Thomas The Tank toy
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I mean, if you’re gonna murder people, my as well make it thorough.
And this way, with no witnesses he… covered his tracks.
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Well, say what you want about this solution, but at least it is fair…
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The trolley problem is all about maximizing drama, no matter how contrived. So this kid has successfully understood the problem and maximized the outcome!
If, instead of a runaway trolley you instead posit a runaway epidemic, and instead of an a/b switch you have a menu of painful economic choices, I’d say we are all living out the trolley problem on the wrong track. Except for Jeff Bezos and friends, they’re on the happier track.
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In which the AI driving the train decides that the larger problem is too many people causing climate change…
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– What’s your name, kid?
– Two Thousand Twenty
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Love the “oh oh!” at the end, like it was all some kind of accident 
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I feel like “forced population transfer” is a bit morally problematic to be a real “solution” to this question.
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Me: Oh, how sweet!
Me (moments later): Oh, dear god!
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Damn…
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