shminux comments on The Unselfish Trolley Problem - Less Wrong

5 Post author: elharo 17 May 2013 10:51AM

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Comment author: shminux 17 May 2013 04:46:26PM 1 point [-]

You pick your answer in ignorance of who you'll be in the problem. You don't know whether you're the pusher, the pushed, or one of the people tied to the tracks. In this case, the answer is easy: push! There's a 6/7 chance you'll survive so the selfish and utilitarian answers converge.

You mean, the selfish answer becomes the utilitarian one. In general I find arguments which only work when you consciously refuse to take into account some of the information available to you (like whether you are the pusher) quite suspect. It seems anti-Bayesian.

Comment author: MugaSofer 19 May 2013 06:53:10PM -1 points [-]

It can be handy for dealing with the "hostile hardware" issue, when you don't want certain parts of you updating.