I wasn’t aware of the trolley problem meme when I tweeted this back in April 2016:
A runaway trolley is about to create five Trolley Problems.
Do you pull the lever and divert it, so that it only creates one?
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It ended up being shared a lot on Twitter and Facebook, and was eventually featured in this New York magazine piece. I haven’t quite decided whether little social media microprojects like this are a distraction from my “real work” or are, in fact, the real work itself. I’ve made a couple more since then. An election-themed trolley problem:
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Hey third-party voters in swing states! You’re in a real-life Trolley Problem.
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And a Trolley Problem fan theory:
Fan theory: the Trolley Problem is happening in the mind of one
of the five victims tied to the railway track; the lever doesn’t exist.
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Which, when you think about it, explains why the scenario is so implausible.