@CosmicSkeptic

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

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@nilamelody

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

What I would do is to run to the trolley driver and tell them to open their freaking eye wide open and stop on the track immediately.
@GamerModz123

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

I would pass it on and wait for a while until it gets to some arbitrarily high number and then I would come back so I am the next person and pull the lever. Do the opposite of what the machine says you will do and then flip a coin at the end.
@jenniferziemba3878

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

Can the one person be my ex? 🤣
@DsiakMondala

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

15:25 Atheist trying to describe "good" (impossible)
@mostirrelevant

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

True dilemma actually begins when someone important to the puller is tied to these tracks. Would he/she sacrifice his family member to save 5 people? Child or women? I presume there are other options to make this a more interesting thought experiment…
@k111mep1s

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

19:30 I don't really care if I took an innocent life so I'm gonna pull the lever, kill no one and live with this "meh that happened" feeling
I wouldn't be bothered by killing a person, but I'd just rather not to in reality
@MumboJ

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

Even if you ignore the infinite/exponential growth for now, there's also a kind of Prisoner's Dilemma aspect to it.
Regardless of where you are in the chain, every person after you may decide it's better to end the chain there instead of risking more lives.
And because those decisions would kill more people than yours would, it's better for you to end the chain than it is for them to end the chain.
But because that's true of every person in the chain, that means that every person in the chain is better off letting the tram run people over.
@oslosmokesmid

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

14:47 I think it’s worth noting that if putting your hand on a stove and it feeling bad is proof that your well-being feels good as a brute fact, then I can say, at least for me, If I was standing next to someone and they put their hand on a stove I would probably try to force their hand off the stove. Or that if I was tied to a chair, and forced to watch them put their hand on a stove it would make me feel deeply uncomfortable.
@bedman3337

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

I belive Sam just wasn't really thinking well about your question cuz he didn't even thought about it beforehand, making his arguments a bit… Weird…
@Daniel-tg8cf

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

Huh… My first reaction was to k*ll the one person bc somewhere down the line is either a psychopath having fun killing thousands or all of humanity would be killed…
@friendeer04

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

I'd just not kill the person and live to think I did. My should and would is probably gonna be the same cuz iM nOt LiKE oTheRs
@HeedfulHistory

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

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@HeedfulHistory

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

The point is it goes on forever. There should be only one answer; the 'morality' around this is an act.
@christopherdyson1158

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

For the double it and pass it on question.

Its and interesting problem cause if you maximize the probability that no one dies, then you are also maximizing the expected number of deaths.

Assuming that everyone decides within non-zero and non-one probability independently of one another.

Each time you pass it on, you increase the expected value by the probability of passing it on times 2.

So if the probability of doubling it and passing it on is more than 50% this number grows for each person. And goes off to infinity if we have infinite people.

And with infinite people the odds of no one dying goes to 0.

And this still holds for finite people, just the odds of no one dying is non-zero.

(Also a slight correction to the video, if you have a infinite amount of time it is not necessarily guarenteed the event will happen. It does if its independent and the probability is constant over time… but even then probability merely goes to 0.

But having probability 0 does not mean that the event is impossible.

For example if you have infinitely many options chosen uniformly, all of them are probability zero, but we know one of them has to be chosen)
@order6680

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

Did the first guy key my car? I’d definitely pull that lever
@fgtiv

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

People who choose "guilt of killing" choice over actually killing and never knowing, don't realize that they might have already done/chosen the second option countless times in their lives, they just don't know it. That's the entire point. Thinking they've never killed someone their entire lives despite doing it every weekend. It's not just the easier option, it's the only option people who consider themselves good, would always choose.
@SirQuantization

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

For society to function people need to be kind to each other. Part of why Neanderthals died off is because they lived in smaller groups than Homo sapiens. How do we live in larger groups (society)? By being kind to one another. Without kindness our society is doomed meaning we ALL die and live miserable lives. Easy solve honestly.
@BeanZero5

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

Regarding the problem where you can kill and forget, or not kill and think you did, what does the lever puller know? Do they know ahead of time that only one track has a person, or are they convinced that both have a person, but one will wipe their memory?
@thatcherfreeman

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

Maybe the solution to your issue with how Harris's ethical system doesn't really encourage selflessness is that a strong ethical system should encode the optimal answers to prisoner's dilemmas. I think that's why the "treat others the way you want to be treated" rule works well in general, which is that it encourages teamwork.
@frostbyte12

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

It's still an easy decision. If you actively choose to kill someone, you are responsible. Some hypothetical amount of people that may be chose to be killed by a later person in the chain is irrelevant to the morality of your choice to kill one person or no one.
@warzip1581

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

Paradox are basically just badly explained riddles or scientific facts we don’t have the tools to understand.
Also gods dob’t exist
@regmitch

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

Its incredibly simple 2^33 is 8.5 billion, the rough population of earth. So 32 other people after yourself are getting this option to pull it or let it double.
@secretweapon7764

September 4, 2025 at 8:09 pm

I would go after the horrible person setting up these death scenarios. Problem solved.