Training montage
“The exact nature of the situation is irrelevant. The problem seeks to answer a moral quandary.”
Rainbow Dash raised a hoof once more.
Twilight flicked her pointer in her friend’s direction. “No, for the last time. There is no way to stop the trolley.”
Rainbow Dash slowly lowered her hoof. Twilight then flicked her pointer back toward her chalkboard, tapping on her rudimentary drawing. It depicted a trolley approaching a fork in the tracks, with five ponies on the straightway and a single pony on the alternate path. Off the side there was a drawing of who appeared to be Trixie standing beside a lever.
Applejack then spoke up. “Well, ain’t much of a question if’n yall ask me. Savin’ five ponies is a heck of a lot better than savin’ one.”
“Yes, but you are doing so at the cost of another pony’s life. A death which you are responsible for,” Twilight rebutted.
Fluttershy spoke next, “Um, aren’t you responsible for the death of the other five if you do nothing?”
Twilight leaned in, uncomfortably close to Fluttershy’s face. “Are you?” she whispered.
“That’s tha way I figure it. Somepony dies whichever way ya slice it, so ya may as well save as many ponies as ya can,” Applejack nodded.
“Yes dear, but how could you live with yourself after causing the death of another pony?” Rarity asked.
Applejack pulled her hat down. “We all must live with our sins Rarity. Trudging ever forward through this cruel joke we call life.”
An awkward silence fell over the room.
“I mean, aw shucks, ah sure love apples.”
“...Right. What about you Starlight? You’ve been awfully quiet,” Twilight said.
Starlight Glimmer, who had been leaning back in her chair nonchalantly, snapped her attention back to the topic. “Oh! Well, I wouldn’t pull the lever.”
“Because you couldn’t hurt another pony, right?” Fluttershy asked.
“Huh? No, if the five ponies are too stupid to get out of the way then they deserve to die,” Starlight answered.
Everypony was silent for a moment before Rainbow Dash spoke up. “Starlight, they’re tied to the tracks.”
“How can you know that for sure? How do you know they’re tied to the tracks?” Starlight asked.
Twilight facehooved. “Starlight, the semantics don’t matter. The point is that if you do nothing, five ponies die, but if you pull the lever then one pony dies.”
Starlight tilted her head. “And I know that because..?”
“It doesn’t matter! For the sake of hypothetical argument, you just know! It doesn’t even need to be a trolley!” Twilight shouted.
Starlight pouted. “Okay, jeez. I’d pull the lever then.”
“And kill the other pony?” Twilight asked.
“Yeah sure, whatever.”
“But how can you be sure that’s the morally correct choice?” Twilight asked.
Starlight shrugged. “If I do nothing, I kill the other five through my inaction.”
Applejack nodded. “Yep, that’s what ah figured.”
“But like, what if I could outfly the trolley?”
“Oh for the love of- Rainbow, for the sake of argument, the trolley is moving infinitely fast. You cannot outfly it,” Twilight groaned.
“Um, if it’s moving infinitely fast, then shouldn’t we not have time to pull the lever?” Fluttershy asked.
Starlight piped up. “Actually, an object’s mass increases the closer it approaches the speed of light. Anything moving at ‘infinite’ speed would theoretically destroy the entire planet, making the entire exercise meaningless.”
“What if I stopped the pony who tied them to the tracks before they did it?” Rainbow sounded smug.
Twilight’s eye twitched. “You can’t.”
“Why not?” Rainbow asked.
Starlight smirked. “Yeah, why not Twi?”
“You just. Can’t. Okay?”
Dash opened her mouth once more. “But what if-”
“It’s hypothetical Dash! We are just assuming that all you may do in the situation is pull the lever or not pull the lever. That is all,” Twilight said, sounding rather irate.
Rainbow put a hoof to her chin in thought for a moment, and did indeed manifest a thought. “What if I ‘hypothetically’ could outfly the ‘hypothetical’ trolley?” she said, making air quotes with her hooves.
Twilight ignored her, turning back to her friends. “Rarity? How about you then?”
“The train is not destroying the entire planet then?” Rarity asked cautiously.
“No.”
“But it is still moving too fast to stop, or untie the ponies from the tracks?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my, this is quite a conundrum.” Rarity pondered the question for a moment before speaking, “I believe I would pull the lever, and simply bear the guilt myself.”
Twilight nodded. “Most ponies say that they would pull the lever, reasoning that they’re responsible for the death of the five if they do nothing, and that five lives are worth more than one. However…”
Twilight flipped her chalkboard over, revealing a similar drawing, only this time the pony beside the lever was Applejack, and the single pony on the branching path was Apple Bloom. Twilight smiled at the gathered ponies. “Who would pull the lever now?”
Starlight raised her hoof, and everypony glared at her.
“What?” she asked.
“Starlight, that’s Apple Bloom!” Applejack shouted.
“Who?”
“Mah sister!”
“Oh!” Starlight lowered her hoof.
Twilight nodded to herself. “Applejack, would you care to explain your change of heart?”
“Well, family comes first after all.” Applejack nodded.
“But are you not then responsible for the deaths of the five ponies on the other track?” Twilight asked.
“Naw, not like ah tied em up.”
“Right then. Starlight, earlier you said that if you do nothing then the other five die through your inaction.” Twilight said.
“Yeah, true,” Starlight responded.
“And you would let the other five die to save a pony you know?”
“Yep.” Starlight leaned back in her chair.
“Wow, that’s cold,” Rainbow said.
“I think it’s rather touching, that Starlight would kill five ponies to save Apple Bloom.” Rarity said.
Twilight shuffled uncomfortably a bit as she spoke, “Anyway, most ponies, even after saying they would pull the lever and let one stranger die, wouldn’t pull the lever if somepony they know would die. This is because the life of a friend or family member is worth more to them than the five strangers, even though five lives is worth more than one."
“What about you Twilight?” Starlight asked.
Twilight straightened her posture. “I have actually given this some thought. As princess, it’s my duty to remain impartial, and no matter who was on the other track, it is my obligation to save as many ponies as possible.”
“Wow, okay then.” Rainbow Dash scoffed.
Looking around, Twilight could see the disappointment on her friend’s faces.
“Really Twilight?” Fluttershy deadpanned at her.
“What?” Twilight asked.
“Ah mean, ah woulda left that lever alone if’n it was you on that other track Twi, but now ah ain’t so sure.” Applejack sounded disappointed.
“Some princess of friendship,” Starlight said disapprovingly.
“And here I thought we were friends darling.” Rarity flicked her head away from Twilight.
“We are friends! And as my friends I would expect any of you to do the same to me!” Twilight retorted.
“I can’t believe you wouldn’t kill five ponies to save me,” Fluttershy sounded on the verge of tears as she spoke.
“What- I can’t believe we’re even discussing this! Of course I wouldn’t kill five innocent ponies to save you!” Twilight yelled in disbelief.
Fluttershy then actually began crying, and Rainbow had to put a hoof around her in comfort.
Twilight reached out a hoof. “Fluttershy I-”
Rarity slapped Twilight across the cheek, but since she has hooves instead of hands she basically just punched her in the face. Then she shouted, “I think you’ve done enough!”
“Yeah!” Rainbow added helpfully.
“What the- I don’t- It’s hypothetical!”
The next day
“And now they’re all ignoring me! Over a stupid thought experiment! Can you believe that!”
Derpy nodded her head. “I really do sympathize with you Twilight, but I actually deliver mail to the entire town and I’m running really late because of this.” She made a move to step out of the castle doorway, but Twilight kept talking.
“Everypony agreed that it’s morally correct to pull the lever! But when I want to pull the lever they’re all ‘oh Twilight, how can you be so cruel’. The hypocrisy!”
“Twilight!” Pinkie Pie dropped in from the ceiling, scaring the daylights out of both ponies, and giving Derpy the perfect excuse to flee at high speeds.
“Pinkie! I’m so glad to see you!” Twilght sounded relieved.
“There’s no time Twilight! Quick, teleport us to longitude 27.56, latitude -69.28!”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“What part of ‘no time’ was unclear!?”
Twilight lit her horn, and with a pop, the two of them reappeared in the middle of nowhere. There was a grassy field around them on all sides, and the two of them were standing beside a railroad track.
And right beside them was a lever.
“There’s a train coming down the tracks Twilight! And there’s five ponies tied to the rails! What do we do?!” Pinkie shouted directly in Twilight’s face.
Twilight frowned. “Is this a prank? Is that what this is?”
“No! Look!” Pinkie passed Twilight a pair of binoculars she just sort of had, and Twilight took a look down the track.
Sure enough, tied to the track were five ponies, all struggling to break loose.
“Now look on the other track!” Pinkie almost screamed.
Twilight looked, and to her horror, she could see Spike all alone, tied to the other track.
“Right now, the train is on course to run over those five ponies! But if we pull that lever there, then it will change course and run over Spike! Oh Twilight, this is horrible!” Pinkie dramatically fell over.
Twilight began sweating. “Okay okay, this is fine. Pinkie, you pull the lever, I’ll fly over there and untie Spike.”
“You can’t! There’s some sort of wall of psychic energy keeping us away!”
“I’ll teleport!”
“You can’t teleport past it!”
“I’ll go stop the train then!”
“You need to pass the barrier to do that!
“I’ll make a spell to destroy the barrier!”
“There’s no time Twilight! The train will be here in 30 seconds!” Pinkie screamed.
Sure enough, Twilight could feel the rumble as the train drew nearer to the fork. She could see it now, plumes of smoke billowing from the locomotive.
Twilight was pretty much having a panic attack. She was hyperventilating and fanning her face with her wings trying to calm down. “I can do this. I can do this. I can’t do this! Pinkie, you decide!”
She turned to find Pinkie attempting to tie herself to the tracks
“Pinkie!”
A giant timer appeared in the sky, slowly counting down from ten.
“Oh no oh no oh no oh no-”
And then everything was suddenly on fire.
“I can’t!” Twilight shut her eyes and huddled up on the floor.
Suddenly everything stopped. Twilight cracked open an eye to find Princess Luna standing over her.
“Oh, this is a dream. That makes sense.” Twilight chuckled, but Luna didn’t seem nearly as amused. The field they were in slowly faded away until the two of them were alone in an endless white expanse.
“Twilight Sparkle, We are not too proud to admit that We have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Wouldst thou kindly explain the nature this nightmare?” Luna calmly asked.
Twilight then spent some time explaining the details of her thought experiment, followed by yesterday’s events, which of course had led to her current distress, and her friend’s irritation with her. Luna followed along as best she could, saving most of her questions until the end.
When Twilight’s story was finished, Luna pondered all she had heard, and asked a simple question.
“Is there any reason why We cannot stop the trolley?”
Several hours later
(in dream time, so about three minutes of real time)
“We understand now. It would seem that you owe thine friends an apology, Twilight Sparkle.”
“I know I upset them, but how is it unreasonable to say you wouldn’t let five innocent ponies die to save them?” Twilight grumbled.
“Indeed, it is only five, after all. A small price to pay. It may be difficult, but in the past, We have slain countless innocents to protect those dear to Us.”
“Wait what?”
“It was more socially acceptable at the time.”
Twilight scratched her head. “So, you’re saying I should be willing to let innocent ponies die to save my friends?”
“Yes.”
“That’s sort of messed up.”
“It is, although perhaps thou should not have breached the topic to begin with if ye were not prepared for the consequences. Also, you could have just lied. You know, to not sound like a tool.” Luna stood up and stretched. “Our work here is done! Fare thee well Twilight Sparkle!” She then turned around and walked away, eventually fading out of sight.
“I think I know how to fix this now!” Twilight exclaimed to herself, alone, within the endless expanse of her own mind.
The next day
(for real this time)
Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity and Starlight Glimmer had all received a correspondence early in the morning, requesting their presence on the train platform at 9:15. They had all arrived at relatively the same time to find Twilight Sparkle waiting there, standing in front of a curtain with a sheepish grin on her face.
“Everypony, thanks for coming here. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, and that I was wrong. I hurt all of you with what I said, and I really shouldn’t have. You all mean more to me than the entire world, and I should have made that clear. So, let me prove it to you.”
Twilight finished her introduction and turned around, pulling away the curtain to reveal that off in the distance, five ponies were tied to the railroad track. Branching off on another track, the group could see Pinkie Pie, also tied up, waving at them enthusiastically, and with a big grin on her face.
Twilight turned back to the group with an eerie smile. The five of them then suddenly became acutely aware of the broken lever beside Twilight.
“Now, at 9:20, the Friendship Express is scheduled to arrive at the station…”
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My favourite line in the whole story.
Anyway, the whole thing is wonderful, I’m glad to see that even Luna can teach Twilight a friendship lesson sometimes.
Dammit, Twilight.
This is why I hate the trolley problem.
Good one!
11151599
Whereas my reason for hating it is that the level of contrivance required for it to work makes the objectively correct answer "find the asshole who set all of this up, because that'll save even more people in the long run than are currently in danger."
You can imagine how happy I am about the "fat villain" variant, where the one guy you can choose to kill instead is the asshole in question.
Knew this would make the Featured box.
I personally hate the trolley problem and the moral dilemma associated with it. But seeing how the Mane 6 and Starlight react to this was just hilarious
Since this sort of dilemma normally only takes place during wartime and philosophy classes, what we need to do is get rid of war and philosophy teachers.
I never really get how anyone can even take more than a second to think about this. Of course you kill the one person, regardless of who they are.
My answer has always been to pull the lever and quickly untie the one person.
Almost all pictures with the iteration of the trolley problem literally place the one person a foot next to the lever. It should be possible to untie the person after you pull the lever and save them all. If it isn't then I want to at least try.
the ending was very raw.
For those wondering, what is the correct answer to the tram riddle is: sacrifice yourself by throwing yourself in front of the train to stop it with your body before the train harms others. (You will not be able to live with the guilt so the most merciful thing is that you end your own suffering before it happens.)
Hilarious. I love it. For that, here’s an upvote and an add to my ‘Favorite Randomness’ library.
That being said, I did notice some typos.
Dialogue Punctuation
We start with the most simple one. If a piece of dialogue ends with ‘?’ or ‘!’, then there is no need to put a period (or full stop) or a comma at the end. So you write:
However, if your tag is before the dialogue, then you must add either a comma or a period.
Which brings us to our next point - the difference between action tags and said tags.
Any word that is a synonym of ‘say’ consists of a said tag. Any action while the speaker is speaking consist of an action tag. The two follow different sets of rules.
Furthermore, when using an action tag, the pronoun that follows is uppercase, but when using a said tag, the pronoun that follows is lowercase.
Here’s what you shouldn’t do:
Twilight used a said tag, whereas Starlight used an action tag. The punctuations that follow should change.
Here’s what you did do well:
We now move to what happens when your tag is before the dialogue. The same rules apply, actually. Action tags require a period and said tags a comma.
Now you might ask yourself, “What happens when there’s both an action and a said tag?” You do this.
See how the punctuation changes? Depends on what comes where. With enough practice, you’ll get the hang of it.
(On a side note, ‘speak up’ is not a said tag, even if it does contains the word ‘speak’. It's an action tag, and therefore requires a comma.)
Some other typos
I would like to apologize if any of part of this came off as blunt, rude or forceful. I tend to come off as those at times and please know that I did not mean to hurt or offend.
I enjoy receiving construction criticism and I enjoy giving them as well. I liked this story, and hope you keep writing.
All the best, hamster wizard!
11151733
It's not that simple because the trolley problem isn't about presenting someone with a problem they need to solve and find the best answer for.
The point of that whole class of problems is to act as diagnostic tools to examine moral and ethical systems. Yes, they're contrived, they're contrived in the exact same way that a physicist's spherical cows of uniform density are: To remove complicating factors and make them useful for the analysis being done. Trying to come up with 'clever' solutions is missing the point, the point is which of a binary pair of choices you make and using that to learn something about your moral system¹.
While the basic trolley problem does seem simple to most people, (one death v/s five), if you present them with the choice of either allowing the trolley to hit the five or stopping it by pushing someone in front of it most people give what would seem to be the opposite answer. This tells us something: That, while utilitarianism is an element of most people's moral system, most people do not operate under simple utilitarianism.²
1: IOW, neither answer is "right" or "wrong", it's just that one is yours and one isn't.
2: It turns out that we tend to follow the categorical imperative, that people can only be treated as ends, not means. So it's more OK to do something that happens to lead to a person being harmed than to directly use that harm for the same ends.
11151856
Yeah, but I'd push someone in front without hesitation. I just can't get into the mindset of someone that would sacrifice 5 to save 1 no matter the circumstances.
11151726
On one branch of the track is a warmonger. On the other branch is a philosophy teacher. There is only one train barreling down...
"While you were coming up with elaborate hypotheticals to try to save everyone the train kept going at full speed and killed five people. You are haunted for the rest of your life by the thought that you could have saved four lives but didn't because it was more important to you to seem clever and morally superior."
Anyway, good story, I enjoyed it.
Lesson Zero would have been a much more interesting episode if this had been how Twilight approached it...
11151877
And thus you have helped demonstrate the utility of trolley problems: You are more of a simple utilitarian than most people.
Okay, pet peeve: an object's mass does not actually increase at relativistic speeds. It behaves as if its mass increased in that it takes more and more energy to increase its speed further, but it doesn't have any increased inertia when it comes to applying a force at right angles to the direction of motion, nor does it generate more gravity (okay, technically there is slightly more gravity because the kinetic energy has its own gravity, but even at relativistic speeds that's negligible).
11151648
In any case where finding the bastard responsible will take longer than the time said bastard needs to set up n additional trolley problems with sufficient victims… you can see where I’m going with this, right? Since apprehending him isn’t going to be a discrete task, even if you utilised pure utilitarian ethics the maths regarding this Gordian knot aren’t so clear cut.
11151793
What good would that do? Assuming that there’s enough distance between the trolley and the people that derailing it wouldn’t end up with the trolley landing on them, even if you optimally positioned your soon‐to‐be‐corpse upon the rails you simply aren’t going have the necessary mass and durability to derail it.
11151726
We can tie them to trolley tracks
I've given this some thought, and for me, the correct option is to pull the lever halfway and let the trolley crash and derail. It's going to be a gamble, but it offers better survival rate than 100% chance of killing someone.
11151726
11151856 11151972
The actual utility of the problem is to stop your young and naive students from hand-waiving hard questions away and make them actually think for once in their lives, lol.
look there is a trivial solution to the trolley problem, do nothing, then back the train up and run over the other party
11152085
assume a perfect frictionless sphere in a vacuum
The correct answer is to drag the one over to the other five so can eliminate any pony dumb enough to get tied to the tracks
also
11151994
tell them to philosophy teachers maybe they will listen to you
11152135
god I forgot how good red-death was
11151856
I'd say that its greatest use is in demonstrating the difference between what people think is morally correct and how they'll actually act given the opportunity.
Of course, a lot of people refuse to accept the obvious conclusion, and contrive moral systems to justify to themselves that their selfish action would somehow be the morally correct one.
11152085
derailing and thus squishing all parties involved plus yourself is the optimal thing to do, nobody will be grieving
11152097
Or, possibly, convince them you're full of bullshit for coming up with contrived, overused crap like that when there are real-life moral dilemmas to deal with.
11152173
it also demonstrates the difference between schools of philosophy, like in the classical problem, holding all parties being of equal worth, the utilitarian answer would always be kill the one to save the many
My favorite Lunaism: "Also, you could have just lied. You know, to not sound like a tool."
Anyway, it's obvious that the correct answer to the trolley problem is not a yes or no, but a manifold surface embedded in a high dimensional space. The manifold is largely continuous, but possesses an infinite number of discontinuities.
11151409
Glad you appreciated that. Luna always brings out the fun advice.
11151679
Personally, I've never been big on philosophy, but the trolley problem is so widely know that it's interesting to see how everyone reacts to it. Because almost nobody immediately makes a binary choice, they always ask if there's a way to save everyone, even if they're not given the option.
11152208
So you're not pulling the lever then? :P
11152193
True. It's not right to let five people die, but it's also not "right" to kill one person to save five. It's more about picking the option that isn't as horrible.
11152097
Lol I get that, it is easy to just assume you'd never need to think about it and ignore the problem, but it does have plenty of real life parallels to squabble over, even if they're not quite as binary as pulling a lever or not.
11151907
Thanks, glad you liked it!
"Assume you have exactly enough time to make a decision and pull the lever, but not enough time to circumvent the problem entirely."
11151974
Not going to pretend I completely understand your explanation, but thanks for the factoid. I was mostly just trying to use the mass increasing to poke fun at the ridiculousness of a trolley moving at infinite speeds.
11152187
The entire problem with real moral dilemmas is that they are real. People tend to feel strongly about them and react in knee-jerky ways instead of approaching them rationally.
11151834
I don't think you need to apologize. You took the time to essentially give me a well-constructed grammar lesson, and I doubt you would've just to be a jerk.
I've actually never learned about action versus said tags, and it's definitely something that will be helpful in the future (somehow writing actual dialogue was never something that came up in English class). For this story, I'll probably go back and do a bit of editing once I get the chance.
I admit I wasn't sold until the end.
11152241
The disclaimer was here because I’ve had someone tell me I was forceful in my comment. Only once, though. And thank you!
That’s because dialogue is mostly found in fiction and not the factual essays we were tasked with. But I agree. Dialogue punctuation is not easy and should’ve been taught. Oh, well.
For more information, check out Ezn’s section on dialogue.
11152250
I think you're good, most of the time it's easy to differentiate between helpful and "helpful".
I can indeed write you a mean paper in MLA, APA or Chicago style. DO NOT CHALLENGE HE WHO WRITES WITHIN THE 1 INCH MARGINS. DOUBLE SPACED. TIMES NEW ROMAN. BECAUSE I CANNOT READ IT IF IT IS ARIAL FONT.
11152228
What I'm saying is that if the trolley problem is an experiment to determine a piece of information regarding one's personal morals, then it is equivalent to detecting a single photon from an image. Or maybe finding the differential at one point of an equation with hundreds of terms.
It's like the prisoners dilemma in game theory or mendel's peas punnett square. An absolutely minimal first example that serves to introduce a concept.
My problem with the trolley problem is when people do start treating it more like a legitimate problem.
IE, a variant on it always comes up with the question of how to program driving AI. And when you have a situation like that, programmers should not be thinking like philosophical theory overrides the reality of a multitude of options!
Thought experiments are all well and good. But don't let them dictate your reality - or dictate how you interpret reality (lookin' at you "lab coat experiment!" )
Instant upvote.
Oh no, where's Chidi Anagonye when you need him?! Wait, does that mean Equestria is really the Bad Place?
The problem has been set by a sadistic researcher.
Shoot the researcher, save the volunteers.
As for Spike. If the train can even hurt him before the ropes or rails break, then its definitely time to Rip N Tear.
Ask the researcher. How many cats have you kicked today?
The story was delightfully funny, and brought a smile to my face! Thank you for writing this!
Funnily enough, an incident that closely resembles the trolley problem occurred in 2003, when Union Pacific dispatchers had the choice of routing a runaway goods train through densely populated neighbourhoods or directly into the path of an oncoming passenger train. They selected the first option on the grounds that any potential casualties would be lower than the wreck that would almost certainly result from the second option.
As it was, only 13 people were injured: no deaths!
Howdy, hi!
Okay, so confession, the trolley problem is annoying, but this at least was entertaining. A goofy comedy and a fun read. I also particularly enjoyed this line which had me cackling:
Anyways, thanks for the read!
The very fact that the identity of the people (or rather, ponies) is known beforehand changes the Trolley Problem entirely. Normally, a utilitarian view would give sacrificing the one to be the "correct" choice because all six people are unknown and thus are assumed to have equal value. However, this changes completely when you know who is at stake. In terms of pure Utilitarianism, people do not all have the same value, to the point that one person could easily have more value than five, or five thousand, or (in fictional universes) five million or more. If you were in the middle of World War II and you had to either kill Roosevelt or five randomly chosen allied soldiers, Utilitarianism would say to kill the five.
In this case, Pinkie Pie is one of the six mares that had been essential to saving the world from ruination many times, making her incredibly more valuable than the vast majority of the population. Saving the five won't help much if they (and countless others) are killed next week because Pinkie Pie was essential to saving the world from some horrible cataclysm, but couldn't do so because she was dead.
11151974
It's a useful shorthand, and the more precise truth doesn't actually change Starlight's statement since a non-massless object that (somehow) got accelerated to infinite speed would have infinite kinetic energy, so the planet is gone either way.