The Needs of the Many: Star Trek and the Trolley Problem

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#startrek #videoessay #startrek #philosophy #trolleyproblem #startrektos #startrektng #startrekthenextgeneration #startrektheoriginalseries

[@umjackd]

I'm surprised you didn't use the excuse to include Sisko again. "And all it cost was one petty criminal, one Romulan senator, and the self-respect of one Starfleet officer." And he can live with that. He CAN live with it.

[@clockworkmonk]

The difference there is that Sisko created that scenario through his own choices and actions, he didn't just land in the middle of it.

[@bigblue9908]

@@clockworkmonkh

[@MeNoOther]

​@clockworkmonk well Garek added the choice and Sisko had to go along with it. Also, the Admiral in the episode where Section 31 kills one loyal Romulan lady to promote a Section 31 Romulan to council. Sloan is killed. Also, Section 31 was planning for after the war with the Dominion to weaken the Romulan empire so that it wouldn't be powerful.

[@obiwanpez]

@clockworkmonk Nah, Garek knew the whole gambit. He knew he was going to have to give Sisko a series of increasingly-violating choices to warm him up to the idea of committing murder. Sisko didn’t know where the whole thing was heading, but you can see his hesitance incrementally worn down into acquiescence.

[@r.russellkingsr.2296]

​@obiwanpez Garek had the end planned from the minute Sisko told him he was willing to do anything. In fact he most likely was the "buyer" of the biomimetic gel.

[@pigmeatmarkham898]

One point overlooked in the Spock scenario is that he was going to die anyway. His choice meant that ONLY he would die.

[@queenannsrevenge100]

Was about to make the same point - if I were in a situation where I could save others before dying anyway, it would make the choice far more palatable for me. None of this Saw “saw off your arm or else your loved ones die” bullshit - if the building were collapsing and going to kill us all, but I can do something to buy time for others, it would make more sense.

[@lokelaufeyson9931]

yea, hes death would save the many on the ship. If he didnt do anything everyone including him would die. The past time example with Edith wasnt that good, the people he saved wouldnt be born for many more years.. so they are not alive at that point. The example with the forced removal of the bakku was political dirty play, in that case the best solution is to save the few.. They didnt play fair with the bakku and was planning on tricking them into go with the plan. BUt the biggest "not used but mentioned" is the prime directive.. they go against the prime directive more times than they follow it.

[@Skaldewolf]

That overlooks another thing. Dying from radiation poisoning was portrayed as slow an painful, whereas Genesis looked extremely quick. Spock choose his own suffering over the death of others.

[@christianc.christian5025]

This is why I love Steve’s sardonic remark about how we need to “answer succinctly and definitively.” It’s an endlessly varying, situationally complex decision. The easiest pop-culture one to reference is Thanos’ movie-verse Snap - I think that there are two vital reasons why, regardless of “cold, hard facts,” Thanos’ conclusion is wrong, but they’re very much situation-specific. 1) He seems to make himself immune to the Snap, which is a really weak move on his part. 2) He also seems hellbent on this ONE solution and has done virtually nothing else to help anyone in any other fashion *except* culling for centuries… Invent some new toys, man. Solve the resource problem with GMOs or something. *Side-note: As much as I liked ‘Endgame’, I still think that my one change would drastically improve the movie: in ‘Infinity War’, Thanos snaps half the population… *and himself* out of existence. Game over. Except the Stones remain, albeit in a damaged Gauntlet. The Avengers fetch-quest a replacement, fight over the idea to “unsnap” everyone, knowing they’ll have to take out the guy who just handed them their asses to do so, etc. You could keep the “same” version of Thanos by doing this and avoid the 2014 Thanos problem, which was my least favorite aspect of the movie. Anyway. Unrelated, but I still think about that possibility.

[@naidanac1]

@@christianc.christian5025 If you're into the lore, there is another reason: he wants to impress the avatar of "death"

[@ryanjohnson3615]

We need better trolley safety regulation.

[@Ken-fh4jc]

I know where the hell this this place where there’s always people tied to trolley tracks.

[@georgelionon9050]

and stop whoever keeps tying people onto tracks!

[@formlessone8246]

​@@Ken-fh4jcit's interesting, jokes aside, because safety regulations suggest a different philosophical approach and answer to the problem. In Aristotelian ethics, the whole problem as normally presented would be dismissed as a matter of practical wisdom rather than moral understanding. He was more concerned with why people act out of habit rather than how precisely they choose in the moment. But safety regulations have a concrete goal to prevent all deaths and injuries, even if some slip through the cracks. The important thing at a society level is to minimize the number of moral dilemmas that we have to confront in the first place by proactively seeking out those that are predictable and eliminating them by instilling the right protocols and habits in those with the responsibility of handling those situations on a daily basis. The problem isn't unanswerable, but the answer can only be found in the general rather than specific case. Which is actually rather appropriate when you learn the original reason that the problem was presented in the first place, to pit utilitarian philosophy directly against deontological ethics. It may be that neither philosophy offers a complete answer.

[@craigvdodge]

The ease of access to trolley line controls so some random schmuck like me has throw the lever also seems like a serious security oversight.

[@d.lloydjenkinsjr]

Just make it a Tesla

[@Theroha]

A core component I see in most of these scenarios is wants vs needs. Spock is right that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but the wants of the many do not outweigh the needs of the few.

[@HallyVee]

Ah, the old should we all be required to donate our livers problem.

[@christianc.christian5025]

@@HallyVeeI think that the consequences of this boil down to make it simple: I 100% support mandatory organ donation… upon death. This also solves maybe the stupidest, most “unlucky-lotto” arguments I’ve ever heard about why some people *don’t* want to be organ donors: the supposed “my aunt is a nurse and saw doctors not work as hard to save someone cuz they’re a donor and they needed a heart, so I won’t do it” bullshit… But anyone saying that is just finding an excuse to exercise control over thumbing their nose at proposed benevolence. Because if the medical establishment is so corrupt (and it often is) that doctors will work to make you die in order to get organ donations, then why in the hell would someone expect to have *ANY* semblance of control, hope or confidence in their choices when they’re apparently so sick/injured that they need life-saving treatment from those medical professionals? And - of course - what about if *they’re* the ones needing the donation and their argument persuaded a potential donor out of donating to them? They’re all dumb, self-obsessed longshots anyway, so I don’t think there is a real answer to that. But for me, it’s simple. Either mandatory donations upon death. Or for all adults capable of consent, if you aren’t willing to donate, you can’t receive.

[@christianc.christian5025]

Certainty of outcome is also a major component. “If we don’t definitely kill 5,000 people, a million might get sick and die too!” ‘Might’ is doing a lot of work there. I’d want to be pretty damn certain that ‘might’ meant ‘certainly and in a short amount of time’ to eliminate the possibility of other solutions arising.

[@shawn092182]

​@@christianc.christian5025Replace "might" with "will"

[@shawn092182]

Well, with the op, this problem comes up: Does the need to live of the many outweigh the need to live of the few, or does the need to live of the few outweigh the want to live of the many?

[@johnsavard7583]

Well, Star Trek gave us the right answer. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one, but if the many can make a little effort to also rescue the one, so that everybody's needs are satisfied, that's even better!

[@fantomx11]

There was also the episode where Picard dated a subordinate. He cut it off because he realised he would eventually face the trolley problem with someone he cared about and would make the decision based on personal feelings rather than staying impartial.

[@BS-vx8dg]

@fantomx "There was also the episode where Picard dated a subordinate. He cut it off because he realised he would eventually face the trolley problem" . I don't know about that. That's the way he explained it, but I always thought he had gotten what he wanted and was just tired of her.

[@shawn092182]

​@@BS-vx8dg"Captain's prerogative." - Captain Picard 😁

[@MrDanJB85]

There is a vital dimension to Consience of the King which this skips over: Kodos genuienly and fervently believed he was facing a 'trolley' problem, but in fact he was not. We learn that relief ships arrived ahead of schedule, which is why Kirk says the deaths are 'needless'. I read the episode as judging him mainly for his hubris and poor judgement rather than the decision to kill the 4000 itself. He believed he was the only person who could save the situation, wrongly discounting the possibility that the relief mission could find a way. Kodos probably isn't wrong when he said he might have been considered a hero (had his bold decision that saved lives) - but he is judged in the episode with the benfit of hindsight as wrong. The other factor is imposing his own criteria for who would live; to me that implied that he had harboured eugenicist views all along and he seized an opportunity to indulge them (which is a huge 'no no' in the world of Star Trek, even more so than in our present day). Even if his plan had saved lives, he would probably have been reviled for those choices. This captures something I think is a really important factor in how many people respond to variants of the trolley problem: uncertainty. For the purposes of the thought experiment people are told 'this action, will cause this outcome' people subconsiously weight the plausibility of the cause and effect and the related uncertainties. There is a variant where people are asked would you push a large person onto the track to save 5 down the line, more people answer 'no' than in the switch variant - and I think their response is rooted in 'I doubt that would work'.

[@miguelvelez7221]

Yeah... Kodis is heavily implied to not be have administered his solution in some blind, objective way. It adds a definite layer of malevolence to his actions. It may even suggest that he was prone to seeing such actions as a possible solution long before faced with the reality.

[@chriselrod3884]

While I consider myself a utilitarian, the problem is the real world always has a tremendous amount of uncertainty. Maybe there is some "I doubt that would work", but I think it's easy to change the story to: push any person (regardless of size) in front of the trolley, and then the trolley's driver will stop after hitting a person (but it takes a long time -- seeing people up ahead on the track is too late!). Maybe they say large to exclude the option of jumping yourself? I think the even bigger question is, did they look hard enough to find another way? There will always be that doubt, that they didn't try hard enough. It doesn't take much to get mighty suspicious of anyone dolling out death. Kodos obviously did not look hard enough to find another way. We do benefit from hindsight in the story, but we have to think he should've been able to consider different schedules and come up with robust plans for survivals. Instead, it looks like he jumped at the chance to execute his eugenicist vision! The unfortunate history of people doing things "for the greater good" has generally been anything but "good", e.g. revolutionaries oh-so-often becoming even worse than the oppressors they overthrew and all the horrendous things done there like confiscation of food in collectivization of agriculture, purges, cultural revolution...

[@HallyVee]

This is a very common response hypotheticals like this, not only are many people unaware that the questions presume strict limitations, but even if they are they are sometimes unable to think abstractly. Like they're unable to factor in that it is strictly held in place. Baffling.

[@northernsun6003]

I was just thinking about the uncertainty portion. For obvious examples, see Across the Spiderverse, Endgame, and the Dark Knight. What are the chances that the trolley just derails before it kills anyone? In Spider-Man, Miguel claims to know that allowing some death will prevent a future disaster, but does he? No one knows the future, and we support Miles as he rebels against fate. We’ll see in the sequel if there were some unaccounted variables that justify that hope. In Avengers Endgame, many people supported Thanos, believing that he was right to kill half of everything. Only he had the strength to do the hard thing and save everyone. But how could he have known what would come to pass? Not to mention the hundreds of superior uses of the Stones. Lastly, in the Dark Knight, both prison ships have their bomb-trolleys barreling down on them. The prisoners refuse to be the monsters they are seen as, and the middle-class passengers can’t bring themselves to do the hard but necessary thing that Thanos does. Of course, they’re vindicated when Batman derails the trolley by punching the Joker in the goddamn face. If you’re not trying to derail the trolley, I say you’re doing it wrong. Screw no-win scenarios.

[@hyzmarca2737]

The fat man variation, I think, has less to do with uncertainty and more to do with the social contract. Simply put, if it is acceptable to push the fat man to stop the train, then every fat man walking across pedestrian bridges over trolley tracks would be in mortal danger at all times, since you never know when a runaway trolley will speed through and need to be stopped. The switch variant doesn't violate the social contract in the same way. It is natural and normal and expected for people who are tied to train tracks to be hit by a train. This is why you shouldn't tie yourself to a train track for some stupid ethical experiment and frankly if you do you deserve to be hit. The social contract is broken at the tie them to the train track step, not the switch step. . Pure white room ethical thought experiments don't really work because the world isn't a white room and it never ends with just one push. You need to consider the wider impact of your actions on society at large and how they impact people's perceptions of you. And if you push one fat guy off a bridge, even for a good reason, people will fear you and you'll probably go to prison.

[@cl8733]

Picard is a great example for ethics, always. One thing to add: The difference between "Journey's end" and "Insurrection" is that in the case of "Journey's end" there is a peace treaty Picard generally agrees with on the whole, which kind of serves as "greater good", while in "Insurrection" the relocation is completely illegal by the Federation's standards.

[@ADavidJohnson]

The sentient Exocomp robots in the TNG episode “The Quality of Life” are another good example of the tension of this dilemma and its resolution, where it’s unambiguously wrong to send the robots to their destruction against their will but the *self*-sacrifice of a few to save many is seen as good and noble.

[@bjorn00000]

And the follow on with Peanut Hamper is interesting to that point, where everyone expects her to nobly sacrifice herself and she just declines.

[@stevenemert837]

@@marieroberts5664 She (?) is an Exocomp in a couple episodes of the new animated series Star Trek Lower Decks. It's available streaming on Paramount + and (I think) maybe Amazon Prime.

[@albertmartinez2539]

​@marieroberts5664 In Star Trek Lower Decks, they introduce in one episode a new Exocomp ensign, named Peanut Hamper.

[@Trigger-t4g]

And she is a trampy lil B, with daddy issues.😂😂😂😂

[@bjorn00000]

@@marieroberts5664 Lower Decks has an exocomp character that joined Starfleet.

[@jerethkhan]

Star Trek character actions pretty much boil down to "Preserve the Prime Directive", "Preserve the Timeline", "Preserve the Peace", and "Preserve Personal Liberty" in any instance of a Trolley Problem. Working out the nuances of each Trolley Problem is what makes most of these story points good and never repetitive no matter how many examples of it there are.

[@mikebelcher7244]

And do the least harm possible, in any circumstance. Sometimes harm either must be done or cannot be escaped. So always err on the side of doing the least harm.

[@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t]

@@mikebelcher7244 That's a lovely theory, but it only works when the choice that will cause the least harm is evident. What if the 5 people you saved were Tories?

[@georgelionon9050]

And most importantly, preserve the status quo

[@KaiHenningsen]

@@f0rth3l0v30fchr15t Suppose there are 5 people on the one track, none on the other, and 20 people in the trolley. The curve onto the empty track is fairly sharp, and the trolley isn't exactly slow - but you are not a trolley engineer. You don't really know if the trolley can make it onto the empty track if you throw the switch. So what do you do now?

[@Chasmodius]

Yeah, they're very pro "status quo," but I guess that's okay when you live in a post-scarcity utopia?

[@trekkin_fpv5272]

I want to acknowledge the effort you put into these videos, even when the video is essentially a talking head piece. Well done. This takes a lot of thought and effort instead of just sitting in a chair and talking through all videos, which many KZbinrs do. 😊

[@TrueYellowDart]

The importance of nuance and thoughtful consideration indeed. I think the only wrong answer to the Trolley Problem is to pick one answer and always stick to it, no matter the circumstance.

[@BS-vx8dg]

@@jonathanhibberd9983 The biggest different between TCotEoF and LUWSCR is that the former is about ensuring the death of someone who had already died in the past, the latter is in the here and now. If Majalis had continued its parasitic relationship with children for a thousand more years, and midway through that 500 years there had been born a Majalin child who found a way to bring peace to the entire galaxy, a time traveler from the 28th century to the 23rd century would be hard pressed to interfere in the "Accension" of the next child the way that Pike would have, had he only arrived in time.

[@miss1of2]

My answer is always I'd freeze and wouldn't make a decision in time...

[@juliankirby9880]

Everyone always forgets the true answer to the trolley problem. You ignore the people who are tied to the tracks, and take out the person who keeps tying people to trolley tracks. This is obviously a Saw scenario, so the only answer is to Captain Kirk the problem, and cheat.

[@Black-Swan-007]

I love when "Captain Kirk" becomes a verb lol

[@kristofbe1]

Trolleyashi Maru

[@harismeld9411]

This is the way media almost always takes the problem. 'Just cheat! Find another way! Don't let arithmetic decide on human lives!'. And in Star Trek they often bend over backwards to make that possible. They even let Kirk fuck with the Maru simulation just to make sure he doesn't even have to face a *hypothetical* no win situation. Anything but face the fact that sometimes someone really does have to choose between 5 or 1, and without any further information, that is a decision with only one right answer even if its horrid.

[@juliankirby9880]

I Said ignore the victims, take out the Trolley Jigsaw guy. this person is a serial killer. the only way to win is to change the game.@@harismeld9411

[@shawn092182]

Kobayashi Maru responded with: But there's no one person who is tying down other people onto the tracks. They're doing it themselves.

[@Inscriptions37]

I'm not the first person to mention it here but "In The Pale Moonlight" is a fascinating example of Trek answering a trolley problem because Sisko makes his choice in an attempt to affect the course and outcome of a war---a conflict in which people are already dying and will continue to die, no matter what he does. He believes the Romulans siding with the Federation will save lives overall, but the Dominion still comes pretty close to winning in the end, after presumably untold thousands of Romulans have died who might otherwise have lived; In any case, I don't think it's really about the numbers for Sisko either. He thinks the Romulans are making a morally and strategically incorrect choice by not intervening, and on a philosophical level he's certain that even those Federation citizens who might survive a Dominion occupation would suffer a fate worse than death. He isn't technically the one who pulls the hypothetical lever, but he leaves it in place afterward not based on any claim to an empirically correct answer but instead based explicitly on his own personal biases and philosophical views, sacrificing his moral values in the process. If the Dominion weren't so blatantly evil, his actions could come across as downright villainous, but we empathize with him because his iconic closing line boils the entire dilemma down to its probable (but not guaranteed) end results and the fact that no possible outcome would have allowed him to feel like he was truly doing the right thing. The episode reminds us that, if we ever face a similar dilemma ourselves, we probably shouldn't feel good about whatever choice we end up making.

[@rmdodsonbills]

And before that you have Statistical Probabilities wherein a group of eccentric, genetically enhanced people calculate that more people will survive if the Dominion wins a quick victory and counsel surrender. I don't believe the script ever explicitly puts the suffering under dictatorship on the other track to weigh against the lives lost, but it sure could have.

[@threeofeight197]

Well said.

[@shawn092182]

Of course, he didn't have that same reasoning when faced with letting the Founders die of the virus created by Section 31 and end further threats of the Dominion.

[@reinderknoops1682]

I have a love hate relationship with the trolley problem. It is fun thinking about it in the abstract. At the same time , I am a truck driver and I know there could be a dark day, confronting me with the problem in real life. If I am lucky I will have a full second to make my choice.

[@silverharloe]

10:26 fortunately you wouldn't have to feel guilty about it for the rest of your life - just until the end of the episode, when you can forget it ever happened forever.

[@TwoYaks]

It's serendipitous that this came out on the same day as Henry Kissenger's death, a man who thought the Trolley Problem was something where the solution was to achieve as high of a score as possible.

[@KrBme78]

A crucial difference between Spock's death and some of the other cases here is the element of self-sacrifice - the interpretation of "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" is drastically different when the person using it as justification is part of the many or the few.

[@st.anselmsfire3547]

Ironically, I feel like it would be easier to pull the lever if I know I'm going to die than to pull it knowing it'll kill someone I care about, or even someone I don't know. If it's someone I don't like, oh, believe you me, that lever is getting pulled.

[@JSFal]

I think the question makes a lot more sense and applies much better to many of these situations if you phrase it properly. "Does the good/needs of the many outweigh the RIGHTS of the few"

[@Bakamoichigei]

I think the biggest contrast between the morality of _Journey's End_ and _Insurrection_ is that the forced relocation in the former was the result of a years' long diplomatic effort culminating in a treaty with the Cardassians, while the latter involved an admiral's not-quite-above-boards dealings. You're 100% right though, and this is my biggest problem with Insurrection; They literally could've just set up a fucking _spa_ on the planet, or even in orbit, where people could be rejuvenated/healed by the radiation. That's the real tipping point in the morality for that story... Instead of trying to just share the benefits, these fuckers wanted to stripmine the energy and GET IT _ALL_ RIGHT NOW... Which raises another problem; they would've presumably been killing the golden goose. It sounded like the result would be a finite resource which they could then control, rather than the naturally-occurring source which would theoretically last as long as the planet itself. So, it's not just evil, it's _stupid!_ In the end it would have been more compelling if it didn't come off so mustache-twirlingly greed for greed's sake evil and dumb.

[@manic5378]

Then there's the forced relocation in "The Ensigns of Command," which is ultimately solved with "stay here and you will die." The relocation was not aborted in that case, rather delayed so the affected colony could actually BE relocated.

[@keit99]

But to me it felt like the guy with the grudge (I genuinely forget his Name) was just that a moustache twirling villain who was hell bent on destroying the lives of the Population of the Planet.

[@miguelvelez7221]

Not even joking... The conundrum/paradox of the lessons from TREK II and TREK III is something I have been struggling with on a deep level for a very long time. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. And... The needs of the few or the one outweigh the needs of the many. Both are true. And brother... Is it hard to really tell when which one is in play and which one isn't a lot of the time no matter what anyone Left, Right or Center tells you.

[@organMike]

The many made a decision to go and rescue the one, since they collectively decided that *they* needed him. That to me is a pretty reasonable decision to make. Much as Spock's decision in ST2 was reasonable. I think the original Trolley Problem was intended as a thought experiment to show how ridiculous it is to reduce it all to a sheer numbers game.

[@kristofbe1]

You forgot another (in)famous example of the trolley problem: Tuvix. On the surface, Janeway seemingly decides to kill 1 person to save 2. But as an additional factor, she's convinced that both Tuvok and Neelix are crucial to her crew getting home (aka surviving). For her, the trade-off was not killing 1 person to save 2, but sacrificing 1 person to save her entire crew, roughly 140 people that she - as captain - is ultimately responsible for. We can debate if she was right in her conviction and her action, but I think that's besides the point. The point of the episode is showing a person being confronted by this dillema and exploring the process of how they come to a decision, specifically from a person in a leadership role.

[@jessesloan864]

Naw, nobody really cared about him...great speech (he gave) though.

[@trimblypibbles9654]

The second variation of the trolley problem (can a doctor murder a man if his organs can save multiple people) nicely covers Tuvix - doesn't matter how useful it is, it's still murder.

[@alanpennie]

​@@trimblypibbles9654 Good point. The Hippocratic Oath is there to rule out such a utilitarian approach.

[@DavidStowers-o7k]

The "trolley dilemma" is probably the most famous question College/University Ethics Professors have used throughout the last 100 years, but are there any other examples that are used. Here's one that I think might be worth a shot. It's called Donor and Recipients. Get nine people together, ask them to take one of the nine envelopes on a table. Eight of them have an organ of the human torso written on them, i.e. Heart, Liver, Pancreas, Spleen, Right Lung, Left Lung, Right Kidney and Left Kidney. The remaining envelope has the word Donor written on it. The thought experiment asks would the person marked as the Donor willingly while they are still alive, give up each of their eight organs for the eight recipients thus ending their own lives in the process.

[@KatharineOsborne]

Given how Spock kicks off the unification of the Vulcans and Romulans, you could argue that rescuing Spock did have the effect of prioritising the needs of the many.

[@noahjohnson5312]

but there is no way kirk and crew could have known that

[@JasonWickham-k2z]

The answer is not simple and objective- it's subjective and nuanced. The thing that makes you an ethical human is that whether or not you pull the trolley lever, you feel sadness, regret, and a sense of personal responsibility for the death of your fellow human(s)- even if, given the circumstances- you cannot really be held to blame (the Trolley Problem is a classic Kobayashi Maru, scenario, after all). These kinds of questions (and the themes the stories are structured around) are one of the things that made Star Trek (particularly TNG, DS9, and VOY) so engaging to watch. Thanks for another great video.

[@theamaries.7747]

My takeaway for Spock's adage of "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" is as a call to self-sacrifice. Recall that in KHAN, Captain Spock first uses this to assuage Admiral Kirk of any misplaced guilt in taking over command of the Enterprise. "I have no ego to bruise," he tells his friend. Then, later, as you pointed out, the adage is used again to comfort Kirk concerning his death. He gave his life so that his ship, his crew, his friends may live. When you start imposing your will to force others to sacrifice on behalf of arithmetic is when you start veering off into Kodos/Nagilum territory. This willingness to sacrifice self is how Kirk & crew can invert Spock's adage in the next film. They are choosing to give their all -- their careers, certainly; their freedom, potentially -- to turn their friend's certain death into a fighting chance to live.

[@katecraig2974]

This is so cool that you posted this when you did. My Star Trek and Ethics class just had a mid-term test on the trolly problem yesterday! Showing them this video next week.

[@Alexander-me9zu]

I’ve been enjoying these Steve Shives videos for a while now and dare I say this is the best one yet.

[@DarkElfofVulcan]

I find it interesting that generally Star Trek tends to lean toward "if you're making the choice for yourself the needs of the many are more important, if someone else is making the choice for you, the needs of the few should matter more". Which, honestly, I'm pretty on board with. If you choose to sacrifice yourself that's laudable, I guess. But if death is ordered from above, then not so much. Choice being taken away is just, always the worst feeling.

[@EvilAng3la]

And when it comes to ordering a member of the crew to sacrifice themselves, to understand when people have made choices of service that alter that dynamic. That by being an active crew member in Starfleet does mean you've accepted that this is a possible outcome for you. That's very different then telling a random person they have to die to save others.

[@n543576]

I've had to answer this very question in my ethics class in college and damn do I gotta say I think your explanation of "number DO matter" is absolutely well said. I remember reading plenty of discussion response and felt they were either exceptionally cold blooded or wayyyy to unrealistic and utilitarian for me to believe even the writer truly believed they own response to the dilemma.

[@jamestargaryen9588]

Been a fan of yours for 6 or 7 years now and this is one of your most thought provoking episodes. Thanks, Steve.

[@cl8733]

The great thing about Spock is that he himself is the person on the other track and pulls the switch so nobody else suffers. You can't ask that sacrifice of anybody (except if you're the commanding officer and take the exam for being promoted, I guess). It is morally ok if you have a volunteer, but you can't make that decision for others. Trouble is, sometimes you have to. But as a rule of thumb, you generally are not wrong by not interfering. Even in the case of "City on the edge of forever", the "problem" is caused by McCoy interfering in the first place, and it is rectified by letting her get killed. It's not like they have to push her in front of the truck to repair the timeline.

[@MintyFarts]

I think in several situations, it's the wants of the many don't outweigh the rights of the few. they could have put a clinic on the baku planet or a space station. they could have considered the colonist's autonomy and allowed their voices into negotiations, even established rights for them if they refused to move. or maybe it would have influenced what exactly they pushed for if they didnt see them as sacrificial

[@Bubblesthewitch]

The trolly problem is a no win scenario. If I remember correctly Spock literally asks Kirk if he liked his solution to the Kobayashi Maru in his last moments. Star Trek’s stance is very clear. Find another way. If the rules say someone has to die, cheat. Honestly this is probably best summarized by the tagline in Trek’s adopted child of a movie Galaxy Quest. “Never give up. Never surrender.”

[@kyleethekelt]

Steve, this is a most interesting discussion. 'Why should we do it just for you?' is an oft-repeated cry from some people whenever I and others try to advocate for accessible design in everything from buildings to information to appliances. What they fail to realise, sometimes stubbornly and wilfully and deliberately I'm sure, is that altering their design will ultimately benefit everyone and not just those of us who need the development in order to use the building/service/appliance at all. Therefore, I think that people take into account their perceived value of those doing the asking - and ultimately find us unworthy.

[@NaanProphet]

With Steve's love of DS9, I'm surprised there wasn't a comparison to the Defiant crew, specifically Odo, when talking about sacrificing lives to save those we love. In Children of Time, Odo from the future sacrifices an entire civilization so that Kira can live after the crew were ready to sacrifice their entire future (and Kira's life) for their descendants to exist. But the examples used were great.

[@threeofeight197]

Omg!!! Yesss. What a Wild episode. I thought Kira would never forgive him for that. But I guess since they never really existed… it’s more of a timeline divergence than a trolly problem. A trolley problem through time. How many kids are born in one timeline versus another.

[@davidkoritan1692]

@@threeofeight197 I think the only reason Kira forgave Odo for that is because the Odo that made that choice ceased to exist. The Odo she knows spent the bulk of the episode in a quasi-liquid state and is, therefore, "innocent" of the event.

[@Redshirt214]

I have always felt that the trouble with the trolley problem is that everyone fixates on the question of the loss of life, but never really honed in on the real question: the question of duty, and whether one has a duty to take action if they have the ability to effect the outcome of the situation. The reality is that, unlike the problem suggests, we’re never actually sure what the outcome of any of our actions actually will be. Throwing the switch could lead to a derailment, for instance, and that could potentially mean everyone, or no one dies. The real question is: if you have the power to affect events, regardless of outcome, do you have a duty to act? I think the answer that I, and Star Trek, unequivocally come to is “yes”. In Wrath of Khan, it’s emphasized that Kirk *rejects* the trolley problem, as represented by the Kobayashi Maru… he chooses to take action, and rejects the binaries of the question it’s in favor of coming up with his own solutions. In a similar vein, Kirk rescues Spock because it’s his duty to help his crew and his friend, regardless of the personal sacrifices he makes. Picard chooses to sacrifice his crew in Where Silence Has Lease because it’s his duty to protect his crew, even if that means sacrificing all of them to keep them from being tortured. Meanwhile, Kolos the Executioner fails in his duty to save as many colonists as possible by murdering them outright for the sake of an uncertain survival and for his own eugenicist vision. It’s notable that he survives, too: he clearly doesn’t make any personal sacrifices to help others. In the same position, Kirk would have starved before he let others go hungry. Kolos seemed perfectly willing to kill others before he considered any other options. I think that, realistically, one has to strive to do their best to cause the least harm with their actions, but that they absolutely have a responsibility and a duty to act. Most people, I believe, don’t have the luxury of having the power to make meaningful actions in their lives. We essentially live at the mercy of those in power. So, I believe, it is the duty of people who can make meaningful decisions to act, in all cases. In such cases, anyone with that kind of power, like a starship commander, would be obligated to pull the lever simply on the basis that action is morally superior to inaction. However, if Star Trek has any moral, it’s that when presented with these kinds of bizarre binary choices, what we should do is reject the question out of hand. There is *always* a better option or outcome possible, and the real moral failing would be in not looking for that option. The trolley problem seems to me to be rooted in a twin fallacy of firstly believing that the actions of one person are sufficient to make an outsized difference in outcomes, which is a condition only really present if you also have a lot of power over people, and that the outcome of all actions are predictable and binary. Neither is true so the question is unanswerable, really. It’s like asking someone “If purple is orange, why is Denmark a no parking zone?”.

[@kaitlyn__L]

This is my favourite comment here! I've also always had a problem with the trolley problem, in that even the objections it's designed to raise always seemed too narrow for me. But you put it better than I probably ever did over the years

[@salenstormwing]

Janeway: "Should I unalive Tuvix, so I can get Neelix and Tuvok back? I can kill 1 person and get 2 people in return? Come here, Harry, I need to see if this works on you too...."

[@francoislacombe9071]

In my opinion, the only time it is moraly acceptable to sacrifice one individual in order to save many others is when that individual sacrifices themselves. The way Spock did in Wrath of Khan.

[@georgelionon9050]

@@TiagoMorbusSa or a variant thereof without a switch you stand on a bridge with another person next to you, you could push that person down to stop the train... in experiments asking people what they would do, it matters a lot on how the situation is framed.

[@francoislacombe9071]

@@TiagoMorbusSa I always thought throwing the switch was the moraly acceptable option. Since I am the one who decides, then it doesn't matter if I let the trolley continue on, or switch it to the other track. Either way, I am fully responsible for the result. The dilemma comes from people wrongly feeling that actively directing the trolley to kill one person somehow makes them more responsible than passively allowing it to kill the five. It does not. There is no dilemma. Throw the switch.

[@carmensavu5122]

@@francoislacombe9071 That's stupid. If you throw the switch, you are fully responsible for actively killing the one. If you don't, you are not responsible for killing the five unless you are also the person who tied them to the track in the first place. I would not throw the switch. Usually when I discuss this with friends, they call me a coward, but I'd rather be a coward than a murderer.

[@jasper265]

There's an important element to the trolley problem that took me a long time to understand: the choice is between action and inaction. As such, your answer will depend on whether you consider there to be a difference between choosing to let people die and killing people.

[@michaelhall2709]

Yes, that’s the crux of the whole problem. In the first scenario fate (God?) is deciding who dies. In the second, the choice is yours. That’s a profound difference, and as Picard noted, mere arithmetic won’t solve it.

[@MilesDashing]

Thanks for bringing up "The Burden of Command." In at least one of Kirk's soliloquys on how hard it is being a Starfleet captain, he talks about having to decide who lives and who dies. If he had been in the engine room and fully informed about the situation, it would have been his job to order someone qualified to go in there and fix the warp core. Starfleet officers know that they may be called upon to give their lives to save their ships and/or colleagues. If Kirk had been there and NOT ordered someone to sacrifice themselves, and then the ship was destroyed but somehow Kirk survived, Starfleet regulations would probably have called for his court-martial.

[@rossgriswold6348]

Re. The needs of many vs the few, I think the big difference was that in Wrath of Khan Spock was the few and he CHOSE to put priority on the many. That choice is what makes it right. Damn. Just as I type that, you got to the same point. Lol

[@ArgonTheAware]

The succinct answer is that it depends on the amount of Depth and Span involved in the situation. So that the Vulcan axiom should be modified to The needs of the Greatest Depth with the Greatest Span outweigh the needs of the lesser Depth or Span alone. I went into this in great detail with examples of each in the Trolley Problem with a post on Reddit but the link is not allowed to be included here

[@MrOuter]

One of the things about "Where Silence has Lease" is the mercy factor. You made vague allusions to it, but what's crueller: Subjecting your crew to a lottery in which whoever loses suffers a torturous and painful death, where the lots are drawn at seemingly random times which in and of itself would cause immense anxiety in even those who did end up surviving; or killing everyone quickly, sparing them that torture? I don't know what the answer is, to some degree that's the point, but I think it's a very real part of what made Picard make the choice he did.

[@willmfrank]

Kodos: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the...equally many."

[@williamblakehall5566]

Steve, thanks for this. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend the original Outer Limits episode A Feasibility Study, which I have come to think of as Masada in Space. A huge part in how these problems feel is how much choice the people themselves can exercise.

[@michaelhall2709]

That’s a wonderful episode, though I’m not sure how it relates to the trolley problem, since the victims on the track don’t get a say in the outcome.

[@vexgodglove]

I kinda lean toward Mobius's line in the latest season of Loki: "There's no comfort, you just choose your burden." When it comes to complicated moral choices, there are no definitive solutions, no set rules, sometimes there are no good choices, there's just what you can live with.

[@aliensinnoh1]

I think another confounding variable in Insurrection is that the Sona are actually also Baku. They’re from the planet and were exiled.

[@georgelionon9050]

IMO makes not much difference, its just another show effect.

[@joebenavides]

should have mentioned the DS9 episode where worf abandons the mission to save jadzia. (and in so doing, prolongs the war, and probably endangers LOTS of people)

[@Drekal684]

While not Star Trek related, this is trolley problem related. I was listening to Big Finish's War Doctor range of late, and it is astounding to me how there were trolley problems all over the Time War. You can really hear the effect this has on The Doctor. John Hurt, as ever, is a magnificent performer.

[@tbeller80]

Sounds a bit like Year of Hell on Voyager. "If I make this one little change to the timeline that will drastically affect billions of others, it might be okay." And spending an entire career making those decisions.

[@noahjohnson5312]

so doctor who also adresses the trolly problem as well

[@rookjameson]

I'm surprised you didn't talk about the Strange New World episode "Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach". It is arguably the most extreme version of the trolley problem, where one live is sacrified for the good of an entire planet and the episode still depicted it as morally wrong.

[@keith6706]

In that case it's more complicated because the "good" they're sacrificing the life for isn't survival, it's their life of leisure. The fact that people can, and do, walk away from Ome...refuse to participate in the atrocity demonstrates that. They could, at any time, send out ships to scout for a new planet, or ask for help in finding one, but that would mean sacrificing their little paradise.

[@FaithfulObjectivist]

Interesting thematic tie in of various episodes. Nice work!

[@BernardManansala]

ST: Strange New Worlds S1 E6, "Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach" is also a Trolly Problem episode.

[@charlestownsend9280]

Trolley problem: pick one track. Picard: I'm going to blow up both tracks and kill everyone!

[@Esperi74]

The trolley problem is not about THE answer... it's about whether YOU can live with YOUR answer.

[@SergioMartinez-rg6xr]

Another possibility, which Star Trek explores in episodes like Duet, The Darkness and the Light, Nothing Human, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, is: what if the person to be sacrificed is someone despicable or may/will commit atrocities (or might be someone who will do so/has already done so). Like the other instances of the Trolley Problem, Star Trek is still exploring the ramifications. Thank you for the video and LLAP.🖖

[@nealjroberts4050]

The correct solution to the Trolley Problem is always to get rid of the Trolley Problem. It's why we created Health & Safety, contextual legalities, and professional ethics in the first place.

[@FaithfulObjectivist]

Excellent response. Civilization is the answer to unnecessary sacrifice.

[@shawn092182]

Delaying the Trolley Problem doesn't get rid of the problem.

[@TheRatsintheWalls]

I get what you're saying, and essentially agree, but a significant aspect of The Trolley Problem is its immediacy. "Prevent it from happening" doesn't actually solve the ethical problem. It's just a practical response to the idea that it might become a problem.

[@ryanlillie8469]

I really appreciate you acknowledging how my people were treated on turtle Island. Thanks Steve.

[@neoluna1172]

I think what we need to be remember is often that the point made by trek is that you should try and find a 3rd way, a better way. For exmaple with the treaty between cardassia and the federation, both goverments should have agreed to let the inhabited planets along the boarder be independent. Startrek at its core is about ideals, and living up to them even when its hard, and warning of the consequences of taking the easier path.

[@R0UTARAN]

I've contemplated the trolley problem in the context of Spock's often quoted principle as well. It reminds me of a line from Neo: 'The problem is choice.' This resonates in scenarios like Spock's self-sacrifice to save his crew, and the crew's subsequent risks to save Spock. In both instances, the individuals chose self-sacrifice for a greater cause. This differs from the trolley problem in a crucial aspect: the decision to sacrifice oneself versus sacrificing others. In the trolley problem, you're forced to choose between sacrificing a few people or many, essentially deciding the fate of others. Consider Kirk's dilemma with Edith in 'Star Trek.' He didn't 'pull the lever'-he didn't push Edith into danger; he chose not to intervene. The metaphorical 'trolley' was already on its path, and he opted not to act because interference wasn't meant to be. This, again, diverges from the trolley problem. I think, fundamentally, the pattern here is that our heros are making the choice that dont cause suffering or at least causes the least amount of suffering. Ultimately, it seems that making choices that inflict pain and suffering on others, especially innocents, is immoral. We can't justifiably harm someone without their consent, even for the greater good. It's about choice and the moral implications of violating someone's right to self-determination. In such cases, choosing to act can't be morally justified.

[@jkwatcher47]

“Get him Johnny!” I am both offended and excited by this reference. The same way I felt about my college relationship.

[@jpsteiner2]

Interesting discussion. Strange New Worlds season two episode "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" is another spin on the trolley problem and where the choice is to let future evil live.

[@Dr.SickofYou]

This is one of my favorite episodes of you. Great work

[@Jack-sy8mr]

“This is why only fools are hero’s, cause you never know when some lunatic will come along with a sadistic choice”

[@andscifi]

I think a more interesting version of the trolly problem is the question of whether you would take the organs from one person if they could save the lives of five others who would otherwise die. It's in many ways the same question. Imitate death for five people against the death of one and you're the one making the choice. But it feels different. Perhaps it's because it's a more real question is some way as there are people who need organs right now. But whatever it is, I find it far harder to answer than the trolly problem.

[@IanM-id8or]

My solution to the trolley problem is to build a loop at the end of the tracks - that way, you get all 6 :-)

[@carmensavu5122]

I saw a video of this problem presented to a toddler. The toddler moved the one person next to the five, picked up the train, and ran all six people over. Gotta love the innocence and inherent kindness of little children.

[@robertkelley3437]

This reminds me of the Ursala La Guin story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas'. For all the moral implications of the problem. Remember Steve it was your buddy Jason driving the that ran over Edith.

[@Thuddster]

This discussion is one of the pillars of Philosophy. A topic that arguably should be mandatory curricula in education. Well presented, Mr. Shives, steady as she goes! [edit: sic]

[@clements1991]

I hadn't thought about it in this context but in SNW 'Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach' is explicitly against the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few. As you say, things are often more nuanced than a simple trolley problem.

[@theghostoftom]

I still like the Mumei solution. If you time it just right you can flip the trolley and get all six in the rolling crash. Maximum points.

[@lesyankee6129]

Kind of like getting the spare on a 7-10 split in bowling. 🎳 What a great feeling!!

[@brettjholloway9206]

Good job One of your most insightful ever

[@Sara_TheFatCultureCritic]

What makes CIty on the Edge of Forever so good, okay one of many reasons, is the way Kirk clearly doesn't know if he can do it or if he should do it. Shatner was never a subtle actor, but this might be one of the few times he actually accomplished subtlety.

[@commanderproton7763]

Another aspect of the Kodos thing is that supply ships arrived earlier than expected, which meant him executing those 4000 was pointless. He even tries to argue if he would've been hailed as a hero if they hadn't arrived early.

[@whoviandax8053]

With the Baku, the difference between them and the colonies lost during the Federation-Cardassian treaty is that the colonies were part of the federation. The Baku weren’t. It’s their native planet (I think. Been a while since I’ve seen it).

[@woogha]

The important question is of course "who the hell keeps tying people to railroad tracks in 2024???"

[@CitanulsPumpkin]

Every time you named or explained the trolly problem my mind flashed back to your older Seven of Nine Wasn't Eye Candy video I saw last week. Specifically the part where Chakotay mansplains the Scorpion fable to Janeway. It's like, yes we get it. There's a trolly, and a bunch of npcs die. Put the Philosophy 101 pamphlet down and think up solutions to our borg problem. Another old scifi show also covered the Trolly Problem pretty well. It was called Seven Days, and the base premise was the Roswell Alien crash resulted in the US government inventing a time machine, but the time machine can only send one guy seven days back in time. The one guy is a marine or spec ops or whatever guy and lives in a bunker waiting for 9/11s to happen so he can climb into a giant twenty sided dice and go back to a week before that week's version of 9/11. Every episode could probably be boiled down to the trolly problem and the main character always pulls the lever to kill Bin Laden. In one episode there was a double trolly problem. The guy goes back seven days to stop a massacre at a marathon or parade or something. One person saved is a scientist who sees a flag waving and gets the inspiration needed to perfect her vaccine for aids or cancer or whatever. The main cast throws up the mission accomplished banner ten minutes into the episode and then sirens go off when another giant twenty sided die crashes in the landing zone of the time d20. Another guy pops out and starts hunting the scientist. The main guy finds the new guy and the new guy says he's from 70 years in the future where the planet has been depopulated by the scientist's aids vaccine turning into the plague from 13 Monkeys. New time guy was sent back 70 years in a super charged d20 to to save the human race by saving cancer... or aids. I forget. The main guy goes back in time again and saves the parade while preventing the scientist from seeing the waving flag. Then she sees ripples in a pot hole puddle and gets the same inspiration. So the episode ends with 70 years in the future 13 monkeys guy killing her and the main guy being sad about not saving her as the 13 monkeys guy evaporates into a cloud of pictures of Marty McFly's siblings. I don't know why, but this is literally the only episode of Seven Days I remember. Also, this show was made before 9/11 and before the US became the country that has a mass shooting every fifteen minutes. The premise just wouldn't work these days. The time d20 would burn out all its unobtainium engines in the time it took the time guy to update his crew from last week on the 30 disasters that happened that week.

[@Aaronlune]

I think one aspect of Star Trek’s answer to the trolley problem has been over looked, and I think it’s about as famous as it gets. The Kobayashimaru, the correct answer to the trolley problem is to disregard the dichotomy of choosing between the number of dead and just invent a solution that saves everyone.

[@hyzmarca2737]

Not really, because Kirk's solution to the Kobayashimaru is specifically a character flaw of his. Sometimes there really is no way to save everyone. That's the point of Spock's self-sacrifice in the end.

[@KristenK78]

No, because Kirk’s solution is to cheat.

[@commandosolo1266]

I must strongly disagree that Kirk's "cheating" is a character flaw. Kirk's "creativity" when faced with such problems is his greatest strength. Remember when he thundered, "I want that third option!" in "Operation: Annihilate." Kirk's hatred of the No-Win Scenario transformed him into a trickster. Consider the recent episode of Strange New Worlds where a younger Kirk used a fleet of freighters to con the Romulans -- that is utterly in character for him. I can offer so many other examples, "Fizbin," "...Hours instead of days," and "The Corbomite Maneuver." Kirk hates it when he can't find that third option, as in "The Immunity Syndrome" or The Wrath of Khan, but his constant search for it defines him as a character and a Captain.

[@shadoman7682]

@@hyzmarca2737 In the book The Kobayashimaru it is the 3rd attempt on the scenario that Kirk reprograms the computer as he realises it is rigged anyway. It's a case if Star Fleet is gonna cheat then so am I.

[@shoresean1237]

As to the initial basic conundrum, I would say the one is placed in mortal peril, based on the possible rescue by some physics. The exercise itself says the one is doomed, but if we look at it, five people will not only face the impact of the trolley, but fall upon each other and entangle themselves trying futilely to move. But on the other hand, the one will not face any others bumping into them, and more, shifting even a runaway trolley to another track is going to slow it down, ever so slightly - it's no longer in a straight plummeting line. Granted, these are only mitigators and the one is likely still doomed, but now the choice is certain doom for five versus almost certain doom for one.

[@bjorn00000]

One major element of the trolley problem in Star Trek is spoken by McCoy in Star Trek III when he says that Kirk did what he always does, to "turn death into a fighting chance to live". If there is absolutely no option left he'll pull that switch, and he'll preferably suffer the consequences himself instead of running someone else over, but he won't let passive acceptance dictate the assumptions behind that utilitarian calculation. That's true of most Star Trek heroes - they'll use skill and luck to struggle until the end rather than simply accepting those conditions, and be the first to be run over by the trolley if it comes to that. Of course, Worf is probably the most consistent trolley problem solver, but if the people he loves are dying or killed, he'll straight up drive that trolley to run over as many people as necessary.

[@billmcdonough3950]

1:35 - my succinct and concise answer is: Yes. Self-sacrifice for others is correct. Spock chooses to sacrifice himself. Kirk chooses to flush his career to help Spock (and McCoy). The rest of the crew are told point blank that he can't ask them to do it, and he basically gets told 'shut up, you're wasting time, we're coming anyway.' It works because each of the people sacrificing are the ones choosing to make that sacrifice, not _being_ sacrificed by someone else. Now for the rest of the video!

[@BlownMacTruck]

17:05 You laughing over the word "senescence" gives me life.

[@DAFLIDMAN]

What i like about the trolley problem is its essentially the 'real world' equivalent of the kobayashi maru there is no winning just loosing less and living with it.

[@harismeld9411]

And thats why its SO dumb that they let Kirk hack the test in the new movies. Yeah man we'll be sure to magically banish the trolley next time, sorry we didnt think of it lol

[@SeventhSwell]

Another great episode. Thanks! I was kinds surprised to not see Lift Us Where Suffering Cannot Reach mentioned, though since it kinda seems like it sums up Star Trek's 'the many verses the few' position in possibly the clearest way. There's almost no situation where *forcing* one person to suffer more so that others can suffer less, or not at all, is justified. Pike would rather, more or less, collapse a civilization's entire way of life and condemn himself to the beep chair than sacrifice one child. It's like, if there's suffering to be done, we all need to do it together. It's the best way to find an end to that suffering. When one group can offload their share of a problem onto another group there's less incentive to actually solve the problem. I think this is why the murder of Tuvix has never set well with many Trek fans. Janeway sacrifices him because she feels having the two officers who make him up back would be better for crew's survival. If Tuvix agreed and voluntarily chose to be separated for the good of the crew that would be one thing. Being forced to is another. And that the entire crew of Voyager just watched it happen... It was weird to have an episode of a show say "The show you're watching is not about good people." Or at least, people so desperate they've set aside their principals (which isn't very Starfleet).

[@Kay_McKay]

I never liked the trolley problem. It was presented to me in school when I was a child and according to my report paper which my mum decided to frame years later, 13 year old me slightly misspoke and said "The rights of the few outweigh the needs of the many" to cite one of my favorite shows and movies. It turned into a debate whether I was confusing rights with needs and wants and I don't recall what the resolution of that debate was. All I know is that I liked Spock's self-inflicted sacrifice out of love for his logic and I also liked Kirk's decision to throw his empathy in the face of cold hard logic. I like to imagine that this lifelong dichotomy between Kirk and Spock prompted Spock to tell Valeris that logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end. The trolley problem itself falls apart the moment you give it any serious thought. For starters, inaction is an action in and of itself and thus refusing to pull the switch after you have been afforded full knowledge and decision making authority in this entire scenario is, in fact, ethically wrong. If you do not acknowledge that harm prevention or, in this case, harm reduction is preferable to a personal, selfish desire to keep one's "hands clean", then not pulling the lever also becomes ethically wrong. The problem with the trolley problem is the trolley problem itself. And all variations thereof, in a futile attempt to find ethical equilibrium between the two actions. There is no moral relativity any more than there is moral absolutism. Logic -is- in fact the beginning of wisdom and we all have to start there. And to apply logic in this problem, you have to understand that this highly abstracted hypothetical is useless. It has no real world application, because there are never just two solutions. You do not have perfect knowledge of the consequences of your actions and you cannot guarantee an outcome following your action. I like the TNG versions of the problems only so far as they keep reframing the decision making process. Troi has to accept the burden of command and set aside her qualms about ordering subordinates to their potential death if it helps save the crew and, in line with command hierarchy, the success of the mission she was tasked with. Picard (outrageously) decides that a quick and sudden death is the lesser harm compared to potentially gruesome and tortuous deaths, but the episode rewards him by saving everyone in the end. Had his strategy failed and the self-destruct sequence had completed, it would have been, in my humble opinion, the most impactful answer. Kodos' decision is also unambiguous. There were many more altenative solutions to executing half the population. More extreme rationing was an option, recycling was an option. Yes, I mean the soylent green solution. If it meant to save lives, deciding to cull half the population was without question the worst possible outcome. It's never a trolley problem. Thank you for the video, Steve!

[@georgelionon9050]

A few years ago there were a lot of headlines of the trolley problem real, in a quite literal sense. Autonomous cars.. you have to code what the car does when it suddenly* finds itself in the situation there is a ground of people in front of it, and the only way to not kill all of them is to kill the person in the car (by driving against a wall, of a bridge etc.). It really hit the papers hard for a months..journalists loved the idea. Note the asterix I gave at the suddenly, because that is a bold assumption, given a suitable driving style, the car should never find itself "suddenly" in such situation, either it was speeding before relative to its ability to see, or the people just materialized out of thin air. BTW: the manufacturers put it to rest by saying.. it will kill the people, because the person in car is their customer, and no one would buy a car that is designed to kill them in certain situations. On the other hand no one cars, as said it isn't real after all. The reality is that cars kill people out of coding errors is much more a problem. (The one case where that uber killed the woman carrying a bike.. it had a routine for jaywalkers and for bikers, but a woman _carrying_ a bike, it just didn't understand what it is happening, so it killed it). About the Kodos thing, beside star trek, that is in tech wonderland, a variant I wonder why not often used in "hard scifi", a ship crew knows there isnt enough oxygen for everyone. Like I dont get it why they didnt do this for example in sunshine, a mission that is to save humanity and you discover.. oops we lost a lot of oxygen, so either a one way trip for everyone, or a two way trip for say 2/3 of the crew.. that would be a social dilemma. BTW: If I'm not mistaken, in most legal situations the answer is .. the legal safe way it is you do not make any action... BTW: there is also the variant of hijacked plane.. and you know its going to hit something, do you shoot it down or dont you? Answer, in the US, you don't. The state is not allowed to kill its people (aside from death penalty). Period.

[@Kay_McKay]

@@georgelionon9050 Autonomous car manufacturers won't be the ones making the final decision. That prerogative belongs to lawmakers and I suspect the EU regulations coming up on this matter will set an industry standard. No word on what the final word will be. I don't trust self-driving cars, considering their abysmal track record and I doubt that will change anytime soon. Even an oxygen situation as you describe has multiple solutions, from improvised CO2 scrubbers to mandating longer rest periods to reduce oxygen consumption, et cetera. The legal situation in Europe is different from the one in the US. Most countries here assign a legal obligation to citizens to help where help is needed. Non-assistance is punishable and if you do render assistance, you are protected by variations of the good samaritan principle. So long as you attempted to help in good faith and to the best of your knowledge and ability, you cannot be held liable. Any damages incurred will be covered by the government.

[@georgelionon9050]

@@Kay_McKay About cars.. out of law makers its as explained a non issue, as the situation should never arise, and if the situation arises something else went seriously wrong before and the fault lies there. About oxygen, sure a valid point to keep thinking, but other than in TNG there might not always be a way out.. About law in Europe.. yes and no, sure you are right, but you are not obliged to help if this endangers you or others. And there is also not "many vs. few" rule .. so again the legal safe way, also in Europe, is to do nothing. (Except when you can help without putting yourself or others into danger, than you have to). And even there, Germany max punishment for not helping is 1 year... doing anything that might in turn kill someone else despite you saved 10 others.. possibly murder max. punishment for life.

[@georgelionon9050]

@@Kay_McKay PS: this is the same for the literal trolley problem.. who the hell keeps tying people onto tracks? The real problem lies here!

[@austinscott893]

It's one of the best lines written for anything in Star Trek. Maybe not as good as 'live long and prosper,' but so good you can mess with the line and turn it around, and have it still sound like it makes sense...at least in the context of the story.

[@ComradePhoenix]

I've always preferred the Kirkian mindset of Rejecting the No-Win Scenario. In the trolley problem, that generally takes the form of "throw the switch when the trolley is on it, forcing it off the tracks, and thus, saving everyone on *both* sets of tracks".

[@noahjohnson5312]

what if there are people on the trolly who would die as it falls off the tracks?

[@WestRaz]

Do you know that quote comes from a tale of two cities? in ST: E there is a library on volcan of Ailon logic, and humans have their own floor

[@silverharloe]

congratulations on getting through this episode without mentioning Thanos in the MCU, even though bringing up Conscience of the King served that up on a platter.

[@silverharloe]

19:43 I don't remember the scene, but I'm guessing the admiral doesn't talk about the sorites (continuum) "paradox" in response

[@Alex_Meyer_1311]

Thank you for this very interesting video! Every day to use our conscience and brain feels meaningfull. (except for the guy in the turbolift…)

[@sativaburns6705]

I thought Steve was going to break into Soul Asylum for a second... Runaway trolley, never comin back. Runaway trolley tearin up the track.

[@erbylopez6003]

I wonder at what point the number of people becomes so abstract that it mitigates whatever guilt you would feel for causing their deaths. This still wouldn’t solve the ethical question, of course. But I think this highlights that humans are exactly rational when it comes to questions of ethics.

[@Kinkajou1015]

My personal thoughts on this: Many outweighing Few regarding Spock's sacrifice, had he not sacrificed himself then all would have perished and there would have been no way the knowledge gained from the experience could be accurately shared. He could have potentially ordered Scotty to do the work instead but knew that his half Vulcan physiology would afford him slightly more time than a pure Human and thus to ensure success to save as many people as possible, he made the ultimate sacrifice. Many outweighing Few in the Troi orders holo-Geordi to his death, as she did not require the knowledge needed to repair the problem she could not make the sacrifice of her own life and needed to send the most capable person to resolve the issue to ensure the lives of as many as possible. Few outweighing Many regarding rescuing Spock, by my recollection, the many were all united in their decision to go rescue Spock. They also did not anticipate it would result in the destruction of the ship. As everyone had the agency to decide for themselves to risk their lives/careers then the Many's wishes take precedence. Few (none) outweighing Many regarding Picard activating Self Destruct to kill everyone on the ship vs letting halfish be potentially brutally murdered, Picard is acting to deprive the being for obtaining the knowledge of death that they seek, he is also likely considering civilians as the ship has children and spouses of Starfleet enlisted and officers on board. His justification in my mind is so children aren't orphaned or parents don't lose their children, make sure everyone goes as quickly as possible. You went over more scenarios, but I'll put it this way, I basically agree with you. If the people on the track are completely random and I don't know anyone on the tracks or at least am not aware, I pull the lever, one person dies so five may live. If I have the knowledge that the one is someone I love then the 5 shall die because I am selfish and cannot live myself if I am to cause the death of someone I care that deeply about. I will say, you put 5 billionaires on the track and one random person on the other line, and I am made aware of that, the billionaires are going to become intimately personal with a trolley.

[@queenannsrevenge100]

At 23:00 I was sad that wasn’t followed by a Wilhelm scream followed by a thud and an alarm 🚨 😂

[@johnswansen192]

Both. It depends on the circumstances. If saving one for a minimum sacrifice of the many then it's correct. If sacrifice of 1 preferably yourself, prevents the death of many, that is correct .

[@gerardomunoz6725]

A factor I notice that isn't brought up often is the accountability of the choice. The Trolly Question is usually told with the assumption of immunity of consequences other than either personal guilt or being the one sacrificed. But how many would make a choice if they knew they'd face consequences for the choice they make?

[@davidcollier2500]

The answer to "What does Star Trek say about X" is usually " It depends on who the writers are".

[@ianlister7333]

City on the Edge of Forever is a interesting look at it. Since its not a number of people its an entire future, and you could also make the case that the Bones already took an action that changed the problem faced by Kirk.

[@janmolenaar9781]

Good one! I would like to add though that in Insurrection it's not just about the Baku. The fate of the Baku is the fate of the Federation. Picard believes that he can turn the tide because he believes the Federation will judge favorably to the plight of the Baku when they understand what is really happening and at the end Riker reports that Starfleet has halted the evacuation to review the situation. Dougherty and his accomplices are exposed by Picard and failing to do so would jeopardize the very core of the Federation and put it on a slippery slope towards chaos threatening the lives of billions. In Where Silence Has Lease N'gumo is a sadist and a child and Picard is denying him his toys also because he is a threat to what the Federation represents. In my opinion the captains have always been there to protect the very core of the Federation and the grand society Roddenberry envisioned. Failing to save the few in some of those cases is failing to save the many.