I was going to make this, but put Palestine before the fork. And then put the person away from the lever refusing to participate when pulling the lever would move it to a track with nobody on it. Or pulling a different lever that does nothing (labeled Jill Stein).
Palestine is and will continue to get run over regardless who wins the presidency, so they aren’t exactly relevant to the choice. It’s not a real trolley problem because it’s not a trade for different people. It’s just “let the trolley run over Ukrainians, lgbtq+ people, minorities, and immigrants” or… don’t. And then refusing to touch the lever because it somehow makes you “love genocide” to have anything to do with the trolley, even if to mitigate the damage.
I think a good representation would be to put the trolley already running over Palestine and then having to choose between keeping things as they are or adding the others + speeding up the train.
Or, changing the premise a little further, show the person as choosing between continuation, upgrade and using his own body to derail the trolley.
Perfect, except there wouldn’t be anyone on the lower track. But definitely gets the point across.
Please do, I’d love to be able to just slap that image down whenever “bUt tHe gEnOcIdE!” comes up around here.
The anti-genocide group sees both main parties as driving the trolley. They would like them to just maybe hit the brake, noone needs to be run over. They see the lever as irrelevant because again just please stop the trolley.
Unfortunately, that argument doesn’t fit with one of the primary aspects of The Trolley Problem - it involves a runaway trolley. The obviously-preferred solution to “stop the trolley” isn’t an option, because stopping the trolley isn’t possible.
Edit: Can’t tell what about this comment deserved so many downvotes? I imagine we all agree that “stopping” the Trolley would be best, but the real life “Trolley” (ie the current genocide) is just as unstoppable (between now and election day) as the metaphorical one. It’s horrible, I agree, but protest-voting third party (or arguing to just “stop the Trolley”) isn’t a solution.
A Trump defeat could have been guarantee long ago by Biden by simply not sending Weapons and Ammo to Israel.
This tram has already been running over Palestinians and Lebanese for over a year and it’s Biden to keeps sending it down that line branch.
Both the framing of this as a false dichotomy and the claim that the power to switch the line is in the hands of common people - all of which are the core of Democrat Propaganda at the moment - have always been lies.
This is literally true but also irrelevant. I’m pissed that democrats are sacrificing our democracy for a ethnostate’s expansion and genocide.
But that doesn’t negate the fact that we have the power to keep literal fascists that are threatening violence if we don’t vote for them out of office. We have genocide on the one hand vs many genocides plus project 2025 plus an even worse Supreme Court plus a vengeful Trump with a new expansive presidential immunity on the other plus more Ukrainians dying plus Taiwan being handed over to China plus Trump selling our country to the highest bidder legally since the Supreme Court said that was a Ok, etc.
I picked genocide in Palestine (Harris will hopefully actually threaten Israel is in power) rather than the other choice. It sucks ass. But Trump getting power is just so much fucking worse.
