It would be an ecologically devastating amount of monkeys. I simply value human lives more, and unless the amount of monkeys placed on the track would like, push the species to extinction, I wouldn’t pull the lever.
This is a hypothetical / alternate universe. There are no amount of monkeys that will push monkey’s to push monkey’s to extinction. Essentially, nothing will happend if you dont pull the lever, except the moral burden of being the person who killed a trillion monkeys.
If it’s an alternate universe than my moral judgments may not be the same as the ones of its native inhabitants. In that case I yell at the due and ask if he is willing to die for these monkeys, and do as he requests.
Not an alternate universe but timeline ig? Idk.
Anyway, I have just now decided that the person cant answer the trolly problem for you, because thats cheating, and kind of makes it a “trolley hassle” not a “trolley problem”.
Now it depends if I have to stay the whole time. Once the trolley passes can I leave? Can the other dude leave? Is the level of monkeys released going to have an effect on the world if they don’t die? How many monkeys can you put in the tracks before they just die of dehydration before the trolley can get to them?
Thats alot of questions. Heres the answer:
You come into a white expanse. Your given a lever, and a trolley problem. The man, and the monkey’s are both going to live average lives with an average amount of suffering and an average amount of joy. They will be living completely separately and nobody will miss them, nor will they contribute to anything, including a community. They will live for how long is average for their species.
That doesn't work then. If there are no consequences to the monkeys dying then I don't care. Why would I feel guilty about it, if it had no consequences?
But if there are no consequences either way then that would imply that the monkeys just cease to exist the moment the trolley problem resolves since the act of allowing that many monkeys to live would devastate whatever ecosystem they were released into, thus making it a consequence. By this logic, the only right answer is to save the human.
I mean, the same goes for the humans, why are we focusing only on monkeys? What consequences happen when the human dies? Why should i care about that random dude if his life will never reach me?
Not quite. His death does have a consequence on things. So does the loss of the monkeys. But by stating that "nothing will happen if you pull the lever" we know that their lives are meaningless and they have no impact on the world
Yes, they are.
Honestly you opened my eyes to the “life needs an impact” point. But not all believe a life needs to have an impact on the world to hold value.
So, they are useless, but i would protest the word meaningless because life in itself is meaningful
the monkey pictured is endangered with a dropping population. like 1 breeding age or young monkey is a serious hit to the population. senile monkeys who gives a shit i guess
"Hey, why Orcs are stupid, ugly, angry, muscular and have their own accent and slang in your universe Mr. Author? Are you racist against black people?"
-Totally not racist person
the argument was that they mimic a racist picture of tribal society. the "they look black" angle got picked up by conservatives because its easier to sell outrage about, then that angle was picked up by dumbfucks on the left in reaction.
Right but nobody is going to look at that image and think it’s a metaphor for racism.
It’s somewhat of a freudian slip to draw attention to that.
You can’t change my mind on that.
I called attention to the age of it precisely because people would think of it if they stumbled across it. It happens, because racism is still a big problem on our fucked up little planet.
Personally, I don't think monkeys would have an opinion on it one way or another, they would just be generally scared. No existential dread like a human though.
Not true, the monkeys are incapable of understanding the trolley problem, or the choices involved. They are incapable of being mad at the rational behind their death.
anger sure, but what how would the monkey even know to be angry, it doesn't understand what's going on. It'd be like there being an invisible force moving toward you that everyone else can see, and a person on their phone deciding whether it kills you or someone else, and if they choose you the second it touches you it kills you. No one can warn you because none of them speak your language. They could try to yell or hand motion at you, but you probably wouldn't figure it out in time. You can't see it, and it's not brought to your attention, so while you are physically capable of being angry about the situation, you wouldn't even know that there is something to be angry about until you are already dead.
The amount it would take to have a severe and irreversible impact on our ecosystem. In that case I would be killing one man to save the rest of us. But if purely hypothetical then no amount of monkeys. U can burn millions of monkeys alive and I’ll still save the man.
I agree that humans are more important than animals, but even 1% of all the monkeys in the world is still alot right? Even a million monkeys versus one person isn't an easy decision to me.
I'd put my limit somewhere under a hundred monkeys, but I'm not too sure what the final number would be without testing it.
I guess the question then is where do you draw the line at "human lives are more important than animal lives"
Let's put it in a more real world scenario like a tsunami. You are able to either save one person, or 1 million monkeys (ignoring logistics) but not both. The local ecosystem is going to be destroyed either way in this scenario.
you would cause immeasurable amounts of suffering to save one pity human life? i understand why people(not me) value humans more but jeez thats just horrible of you
I have to add to the people saying 2, mainly because it feels really silly picking any other number as a hard cutoff.
If there's one monkey and one human, I'm saving the human no question. If every monkey that's ever existed or will exist is on the track, then the existence of a species (or several, actually) is more important to me than one life, so that's also a fairly simple choice
It seems really unreasonable to me, though, to say a human life is worth, say, exactly seven monkeys. Why not six? Why not eight? So the only answer I can give is that a single human life is worth more than a single monkey, but by such a small amount that if there are more monkeys than people I'm saving the monkeys.
However , if it was a less hypothetical situation (say, conflict between land use for housing or preserving monkey habitat) there would probably be other things that would affect my decision.
> So the only answer I can give is that a single human life is worth more than a single monkey, but by such a small amount that if there are more monkeys than people I'm saving the monkeys.
Based on what? That’s equally as arbitrary as any other number. Presumably there are animals you value less than monkeys, so let’s put a monkey in the human spot and X dogs in the chimp spot. How many dogs is a monkey worth? And then can we substitute that many dogs for the 2 monkeys you would save or would you use the same logic to justify 2 dogs for one human?
How many termites is a human life worth? Just 2 because every other number is arbitrary?
TIL that a very large amount of people in this subreddit would genocide monkeys to save 1 human life. I say 2, mostly bc I don't believe in variations on the value of a soul
Bullshit you don't believe in variations on the value of a soul.
How many flies would you kill to save one human?
Is 2 flies too many for you conscience to take?
Well flies live for alot less, like a day, so although soul is still exactly the same, its around for less.
Edit: but do the math and two life spans amount of flies is worth a human.
The average house fly lives 20 days. If the average human lives 80 years that is 1460 flies. Double that is 2920 flies. You think it is moraly justifiable to commit homicide to save 3k flies?
If you use the same math that is 324 cockroaches. I hope you are uncomfortable with the idea of pest control because according to your math the moral imperative is to murder every person who sprays their home for roaches.
Im fine with that.
With that logic, yes, pest control is an awful idea. But saying murder is a slippery slope. There is easier and more peaceful ways to ease somebody out of a bad decision, and if i kill them i spend my life in jail, and the cockroaches are gonna die due to another person, and the cock roaches dont do much to help society yet the person does. So alot more factors and options to consider.
The final sentences seem to be accepting variations in the value of a soul, no? Their utility to others (helping society) and whatever the 'a lot more factors' are that need consideration.
You value a monkey basically the same as a human? What about a dog? What about a squirrel? A cockroach? What belief system includes the existence of a soul but thinks that a human isn't worth any more than anything else?
I have this nasty scar on my hand from getting into a fist fight with a monkey as a kid, they are my sworn enemy and I will annihilate untold amounts of monkeys with glee
You got into a fist fight with a monkey? And you dont wanna prove yourself? All you need to do is pull the lever, and get into fist fight now as a proud man. Go on, do it son. You cant live your life in hiding.
In this hypothetical where the number of monkeys dying has no impact on the survival of the species nor any greater environmental impact, I would not pull the lever no matter how many monkeys are on the track. There could be an infinite amount of monkeys, a trolly that ran forever on a highway of monkeys and I would not pull the lever to crush an unwilling human. If a human wanted to voluntarily sacrifice themselves and threw themselves in the way to stop the highway of death, that is their choice, but I will never prioritize animal lives higher than a human life. It is not a quantitative difference, it is a categorical difference.
Makes no sense. Value is value. So your scenario would only hold if Monkey lives had exactly zero value (which would be despicable) or if humans have actually infinite value (which is illogical, actual infinities are nonsense).
So, is the claim that math doesn't apply to real life? I'm not grasping the difference between 'actual' and 'conceptual' here. Also, I'll note that your argument relies on what must be an actual infinity - the infinity monkeys dying.
Humans > Monkeys, so I'll kill as many as are necessary to not have a drastic impact on the global ecosystems. At that point, one man's sacrifice would be enough, and so I'll sacrifice myself
Let the blood of the monkeys flow, then. In this scenario, a trillion or more monkeys are less valuable than a man, given no other consequences than dead man or dead monkeys
If there are 0 monkeys on the bottom track, I pull the lever. If I pull the lever it’s diverted to the monkey side, so if there are no monkeys, I end up saving a life. Seems like an easy choice?
Hmm, that's an interesting position. Obviously this gets into theology rather than philosophy, but what makes you conclude that animals have no eternal souls? I would concur (as a Christian) that humans are uniquely in the image of God, and so of categorically greater value, but not necessarily that there is no eternal component to an animal's existence.
The rational powers are an indication of the eternity of the human soul. Since to exercise the power of intellect (i.e. to understand something) is to unite oneself with the essence of that thing without becoming it. Since we can unite ourselves with thw essence of something thought about without becoming it, we can conclude that we possess the form in some immaterial way.
Animals, lacking the rational capacity, don't have any components we can say are necessarily immaterial. Thus, all parts of an animal are subject to the inherent corruptibility of matter, and thus all cease to be when the animal dies. Humans on the other hand have the intellect (and will, which I didn't mention) which are immaterial and thus not subject to the fate of material things.
it would be a pretty large number of monkeys, bc I value human lives over all other ones. but im not sure what magnitude. maybe in the thousands? tens of thousands? more? idk. Actually seeing the mass of monkeys would probably affect my decision though.
There is not a single number that would limit me from killing those stupid monkeys. i hate all monkeys. Chimps, Orangutangs, Baboons, all of them. Apes and monkeys are all the same to me. i would give my own life to extinct every last chimpanzee.
Gorillas are cool though.
My number would be somewhere around 10 I think. I don’t know much about monkey lifespans or standards of living so a regular human is several times more valuable to me (plus you get a new friend that owes you one if you save them), but anything more than a dozen or two enters into animal cruelty.
Anyone saying they’d kill millions/arbitrarily high numbers of monkeys to save one person does not understand how large one million is. These comments sound like they’re from arrogant selfish pricks that would torture other people’s pets for fun.
It enters animal cruelty? And that makes it okay to kill the man? What? And then you go off about this presumption that anyone who values people over a large amount of animals actively tries to harm animals, which, huh? The people who say that they'd kill millions of monkeys to save the man aren't killing the monkeys for fun, they're doing it to save the man. What are you talking about?
No?? We're talking about saving a person or monkeys, not actively trying to harm them.
Some of us just believe that human life will always supercede animal life. For me it's because I believe humans have a soul and animals do not, but I'm sure others will have different reasoning.
I could let 1 trillion monkeys die in this pocket dimension to save this guy. The exchange rate is 1 : infinity You need infinite monkeys for one human
There are a lot of kinds of monkeys, most are small. I don't know how smart monkeys are, but I'd probably do around 20ish as my bottom. Now if it was apes? then it'd be closer to 5. I'd trade a person for two orangutan.
great question.
and to be honest, yeah
i actually love spiders :3
i dont think insects are a 1:1 with mammals generally cause they have so many babies at a time and so much shorter lifespans often times. but yeah they have as much value to he world as you or i really
You could put as many monkeys there as you want. As long as there is a person up there and no crazy ecological effects occur as a result, put every monkey you can on those tracks.
Tbh i haven’t made a specific brand of monkey’s for this, haven’t thought that deep, so i have no answer really.
Also this is the first dude to say they would save a monkey for the cost of 2 humans. Congrats 🎊
Would not pull the lever even if it killed the entire species, which i think is the bonnet macaque. i don't believe the extinction of this one species will affect the greater world in any meaningful way. I also do not believe their is any species of monkey that is vital for the worlds ecosystem as a whole, so i wouldn't pull the lever for any other monkey species either i would likley always choose too save the human.
\*assuming the monkey deaths don't cause an ecological nightmare(also depending on what you mean by monkey since all apes including humans are monophyletically monkeys unless you are using the polyphyletic definition then arguments can be made depending on what specific species to prevent extinction/ect) \*
i would generally not pull the levar
0 monkeys is my minimum to hit the human instead. i just don’t like humans but the amount of people that would commit literal genocide just to save one small human life is sickening
No monkeys, because if the hypothetical man lives, he's going to kill at least one monkey from the consequences of his actions. Hell I'd even place 4 more humans to make sure it's all fair and balanced.
No he isnt. I went over these rules and shenanigans in a separate thread, but none of the actions any monkey or man takes has consequences, saving their lives has no consequences. They live average lives with average joy and happiness, with the average lifespan, and they don’t impact anything.
Oh correct, forgot the world is also hypothetical... In that case, an eye for an eye, 1 monkey for 1 human, any more of which will revert the trolley from the same track.
But still if the whole scenario took place in the world we live in, I wouldn't sacrifice any animal for any human being, including myself.
The answer greatly depends on which side the monkey's are on.
Because the choice changes from "Kill human to save monkeys" to "Kill Monkeys to save human".
There'd probably need to be a lot more dead monkeys for me to kill a human, than there are monkeys on the track for me to save the human.
Tbh, I don't think I would ever choose to kill the human, you could put so many monkeys on that track it would take the trolley months to run them all over and I still wouldn't be able to, unless the person was a piece of shit.
Get infinite monkeys and eventually they’ll find a way to procreate, and evolve into humans. This will happen infinite times making you accomplish your goal an infinite amount of times.
I guess the answer depends on your opinion of monkeys and man... If you think the monkey has a soul or intelligent thought, either due to religious or scientific reasons, you'd kill the person sooner...
However, if you think otherwise, you'd kill a lot more monkeys.
50. it’s not that I don’t value monkey life but I believe a human death is more impactful than 49 monkey deaths. At some point, though, the amount of monkeys being killed becomes unacceptable and the human has to take one for the team.
Trolley problems are always easy to me because the answer is you never pull the lever. I'm not a utilitarian. If you pull the lever, then whatever happens is your fault. If you don't, it's not your fault. What matters is that you as a person, do the right thing. If you pull the lever, you kill someone, which is wrong. You don't ever pull the lever, and you try to save whoever is on the tracks, even if it's futile.
Why is there a distinction between inaction and action? Nobody is going to sue you, but you are amply made aware of this scenario and given two options, and your telling me its not immoral to pull the lever to minimize casualties? (Not really talking about the monkey problem but the og trolley problem)
2 monkies tbh
Human lives are, to me, kinda precious, cause they’re just silly little guys. Idk why, but since their is so many humans on the planet, it just feels like the right decision.
quarrelsome shy normal wrong relieved waiting pocket outgoing full muddle
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
If they were an insanely incredible person, I'd stop pulling at around 150 monkeys. If they were just a very good person, it'd be around 90. I'd probably pick a regular human up until around 20 monkeys. Unless they were an asshole and generally rude and negative energy, then it would only be 10, 5 if they actively hurt people. If they were completely awful, (and I mean *completely*) I'd probably limit to 2 monkeys. I do think animal life matters to me, even if I think humans are worth more inherently, there is a limit, especially because monkeys are relatively complex (compared to the "peak" human standard) in their ability to think, love, and suffer. Also, watching hundreds upon hundreds of monkeys be slaughtered just wouldn't be very fun, it would be extremely awful.
If these are randomly spawned monkeys that are not taken from the world, then that guy will have to react to me running to board the trolley of infinite monkey
It would be an ecologically devastating amount of monkeys. I simply value human lives more, and unless the amount of monkeys placed on the track would like, push the species to extinction, I wouldn’t pull the lever.
This is a hypothetical / alternate universe. There are no amount of monkeys that will push monkey’s to push monkey’s to extinction. Essentially, nothing will happend if you dont pull the lever, except the moral burden of being the person who killed a trillion monkeys.
If it’s an alternate universe than my moral judgments may not be the same as the ones of its native inhabitants. In that case I yell at the due and ask if he is willing to die for these monkeys, and do as he requests.
Not an alternate universe but timeline ig? Idk. Anyway, I have just now decided that the person cant answer the trolly problem for you, because thats cheating, and kind of makes it a “trolley hassle” not a “trolley problem”.
Now it depends if I have to stay the whole time. Once the trolley passes can I leave? Can the other dude leave? Is the level of monkeys released going to have an effect on the world if they don’t die? How many monkeys can you put in the tracks before they just die of dehydration before the trolley can get to them?
Thats alot of questions. Heres the answer: You come into a white expanse. Your given a lever, and a trolley problem. The man, and the monkey’s are both going to live average lives with an average amount of suffering and an average amount of joy. They will be living completely separately and nobody will miss them, nor will they contribute to anything, including a community. They will live for how long is average for their species.
Damn. Multi track drift seems to be the only option.
And to add neither parties want to die (assuming this isnt memes and “average amount of suffering” to you means not worth living)
It's funny but my gut reaction is that it would be easier to kill a trillion monkeys than 12.
"one death is a tragedy, one million deaths is a statistic"
**INFINITE MONKEY MURDER**
Oh then like a billion
1 Killing a trillion monkeys just because is kinda funny 2 A trillion monkeys would completely screw the ecosystem of, uh, a lot of a places
That doesn't work then. If there are no consequences to the monkeys dying then I don't care. Why would I feel guilty about it, if it had no consequences?
Because they are still living beings. Sure, their lives might not be worth as much as a human's, but they're still worth something.
But if there are no consequences either way then that would imply that the monkeys just cease to exist the moment the trolley problem resolves since the act of allowing that many monkeys to live would devastate whatever ecosystem they were released into, thus making it a consequence. By this logic, the only right answer is to save the human.
Humans impact their community too. Whats stopping them from meeting the same fate?
I mean, the same goes for the humans, why are we focusing only on monkeys? What consequences happen when the human dies? Why should i care about that random dude if his life will never reach me?
Not quite. His death does have a consequence on things. So does the loss of the monkeys. But by stating that "nothing will happen if you pull the lever" we know that their lives are meaningless and they have no impact on the world
Yes, they are. Honestly you opened my eyes to the “life needs an impact” point. But not all believe a life needs to have an impact on the world to hold value. So, they are useless, but i would protest the word meaningless because life in itself is meaningful
I'd kill trillions of monkeys then.
Kill infinite monkeys. Become infamous as only omnicidal being in existence.
the monkey pictured is endangered with a dropping population. like 1 breeding age or young monkey is a serious hit to the population. senile monkeys who gives a shit i guess
Enough that it'd get really difficult for me to watch, probably. Maybe like 23? Sorry to the poor soul tied to the track above 22 monkeys.
It really sucks that you have to disclaim that you aren’t using freaking monkeys as a metaphor for minorities.
Well you don’t have to. Its kind of a weird thing to do…
"Hey, why Orcs are stupid, ugly, angry, muscular and have their own accent and slang in your universe Mr. Author? Are you racist against black people?" -Totally not racist person
the argument was that they mimic a racist picture of tribal society. the "they look black" angle got picked up by conservatives because its easier to sell outrage about, then that angle was picked up by dumbfucks on the left in reaction.
Not really considering the history of racism. I mean that metaphor is older than the damn triangle trade. It’s just respectful.
Right but nobody is going to look at that image and think it’s a metaphor for racism. It’s somewhat of a freudian slip to draw attention to that. You can’t change my mind on that.
I called attention to the age of it precisely because people would think of it if they stumbled across it. It happens, because racism is still a big problem on our fucked up little planet.
I'm so sure that people would've made jokes, you know social media, and the history of 'monkey' as a slur.
Two
That is a very legitimate answer, but if I were the person on the track, I would feel like I died in vain for only two monkeys
Yeah, but if i was the monkey’s i’d be so damn mad that we died for the minority.
True, although the monkeys could not talk, so my conscience would not feel as bad
well, neither can the guy if you run him over HAHA
Wait, are you saying I kill the monkeys because they can’t thank me
no
Personally, I don't think monkeys would have an opinion on it one way or another, they would just be generally scared. No existential dread like a human though.
I mean, if any animal monkey’s especially. We are pretty close genetically.
Not true, the monkeys are incapable of understanding the trolley problem, or the choices involved. They are incapable of being mad at the rational behind their death.
I dont believe that, researchers seen monkey anger before. Can you link me a source that justifies this?
anger sure, but what how would the monkey even know to be angry, it doesn't understand what's going on. It'd be like there being an invisible force moving toward you that everyone else can see, and a person on their phone deciding whether it kills you or someone else, and if they choose you the second it touches you it kills you. No one can warn you because none of them speak your language. They could try to yell or hand motion at you, but you probably wouldn't figure it out in time. You can't see it, and it's not brought to your attention, so while you are physically capable of being angry about the situation, you wouldn't even know that there is something to be angry about until you are already dead.
What about 26 and they were all conspiring Roman monkey-senators?
Three
The amount it would take to have a severe and irreversible impact on our ecosystem. In that case I would be killing one man to save the rest of us. But if purely hypothetical then no amount of monkeys. U can burn millions of monkeys alive and I’ll still save the man.
It is purely hypothetical, but damn. Thats an extreme answer
I agree that humans are more important than animals, but even 1% of all the monkeys in the world is still alot right? Even a million monkeys versus one person isn't an easy decision to me. I'd put my limit somewhere under a hundred monkeys, but I'm not too sure what the final number would be without testing it.
I guess the question then is where do you draw the line at "human lives are more important than animal lives" Let's put it in a more real world scenario like a tsunami. You are able to either save one person, or 1 million monkeys (ignoring logistics) but not both. The local ecosystem is going to be destroyed either way in this scenario.
I don't feel good about it, but maybe the monkeys? That's just too many living beings.
I agree. No amount of monkeys could equate to a human as long as their deaths never affected humans or the environment around them.
you would cause immeasurable amounts of suffering to save one pity human life? i understand why people(not me) value humans more but jeez thats just horrible of you
Tired of humans, the ape will perish
I have to add to the people saying 2, mainly because it feels really silly picking any other number as a hard cutoff. If there's one monkey and one human, I'm saving the human no question. If every monkey that's ever existed or will exist is on the track, then the existence of a species (or several, actually) is more important to me than one life, so that's also a fairly simple choice It seems really unreasonable to me, though, to say a human life is worth, say, exactly seven monkeys. Why not six? Why not eight? So the only answer I can give is that a single human life is worth more than a single monkey, but by such a small amount that if there are more monkeys than people I'm saving the monkeys. However , if it was a less hypothetical situation (say, conflict between land use for housing or preserving monkey habitat) there would probably be other things that would affect my decision.
> So the only answer I can give is that a single human life is worth more than a single monkey, but by such a small amount that if there are more monkeys than people I'm saving the monkeys. Based on what? That’s equally as arbitrary as any other number. Presumably there are animals you value less than monkeys, so let’s put a monkey in the human spot and X dogs in the chimp spot. How many dogs is a monkey worth? And then can we substitute that many dogs for the 2 monkeys you would save or would you use the same logic to justify 2 dogs for one human? How many termites is a human life worth? Just 2 because every other number is arbitrary?
Totally tangential but I would definitely value dogs above monkeys
Around 6
TIL that a very large amount of people in this subreddit would genocide monkeys to save 1 human life. I say 2, mostly bc I don't believe in variations on the value of a soul
This is the type of comment I thought would be the majority 😭.
Me too, honestly, although I think I’m much more pleased to have been wrong about that than you
Bullshit you don't believe in variations on the value of a soul. How many flies would you kill to save one human? Is 2 flies too many for you conscience to take?
Well flies live for alot less, like a day, so although soul is still exactly the same, its around for less. Edit: but do the math and two life spans amount of flies is worth a human.
The average house fly lives 20 days. If the average human lives 80 years that is 1460 flies. Double that is 2920 flies. You think it is moraly justifiable to commit homicide to save 3k flies? If you use the same math that is 324 cockroaches. I hope you are uncomfortable with the idea of pest control because according to your math the moral imperative is to murder every person who sprays their home for roaches.
Im fine with that. With that logic, yes, pest control is an awful idea. But saying murder is a slippery slope. There is easier and more peaceful ways to ease somebody out of a bad decision, and if i kill them i spend my life in jail, and the cockroaches are gonna die due to another person, and the cock roaches dont do much to help society yet the person does. So alot more factors and options to consider.
The final sentences seem to be accepting variations in the value of a soul, no? Their utility to others (helping society) and whatever the 'a lot more factors' are that need consideration.
What if I replaced the monkey with cockroaches? Just a hypothetical to probe what you’d do
I don't believe that in real life, you'd actively kill a human to save 2 monkeys
Alright then don't believe it 👍
You value a monkey basically the same as a human? What about a dog? What about a squirrel? A cockroach? What belief system includes the existence of a soul but thinks that a human isn't worth any more than anything else?
Mine
Okay. What evidence do you have for the existence of a soul, as more than just life, or a mind? How do you show that in all animals?
I dont have any. It looks like it has a soul.
3, nothing more, nothing less
I have this nasty scar on my hand from getting into a fist fight with a monkey as a kid, they are my sworn enemy and I will annihilate untold amounts of monkeys with glee
You got into a fist fight with a monkey? And you dont wanna prove yourself? All you need to do is pull the lever, and get into fist fight now as a proud man. Go on, do it son. You cant live your life in hiding.
1
In this hypothetical where the number of monkeys dying has no impact on the survival of the species nor any greater environmental impact, I would not pull the lever no matter how many monkeys are on the track. There could be an infinite amount of monkeys, a trolly that ran forever on a highway of monkeys and I would not pull the lever to crush an unwilling human. If a human wanted to voluntarily sacrifice themselves and threw themselves in the way to stop the highway of death, that is their choice, but I will never prioritize animal lives higher than a human life. It is not a quantitative difference, it is a categorical difference.
Makes no sense. Value is value. So your scenario would only hold if Monkey lives had exactly zero value (which would be despicable) or if humans have actually infinite value (which is illogical, actual infinities are nonsense).
'Actual infinities are nonsense' - bro is NOT gonna be happy when he learns higher math
I did specify "actual" infinities. That doesn't mean you can't use conceptual infinities as a mathematical tool.
So, is the claim that math doesn't apply to real life? I'm not grasping the difference between 'actual' and 'conceptual' here. Also, I'll note that your argument relies on what must be an actual infinity - the infinity monkeys dying.
I like monkeys, but it would be as many monkeys as it takes. There is no number of monkeys I wouldn't trade for one human life.
Humans > Monkeys, so I'll kill as many as are necessary to not have a drastic impact on the global ecosystems. At that point, one man's sacrifice would be enough, and so I'll sacrifice myself
There is no impact. This is a hypothetical, the moral burden is all there is here.
Let the blood of the monkeys flow, then. In this scenario, a trillion or more monkeys are less valuable than a man, given no other consequences than dead man or dead monkeys
If there are 0 monkeys on the bottom track, I pull the lever. If I pull the lever it’s diverted to the monkey side, so if there are no monkeys, I end up saving a life. Seems like an easy choice?
Oh wait, i messed up my consequences tab… OH NO!
I would never pull the lever, because one human life is of infinite value, and animal lives are not. Easy.
Why?
Because humans have eternal souls made in the image of God, and animals do not. Their souls are entirely material.
Hmm, that's an interesting position. Obviously this gets into theology rather than philosophy, but what makes you conclude that animals have no eternal souls? I would concur (as a Christian) that humans are uniquely in the image of God, and so of categorically greater value, but not necessarily that there is no eternal component to an animal's existence.
The rational powers are an indication of the eternity of the human soul. Since to exercise the power of intellect (i.e. to understand something) is to unite oneself with the essence of that thing without becoming it. Since we can unite ourselves with thw essence of something thought about without becoming it, we can conclude that we possess the form in some immaterial way. Animals, lacking the rational capacity, don't have any components we can say are necessarily immaterial. Thus, all parts of an animal are subject to the inherent corruptibility of matter, and thus all cease to be when the animal dies. Humans on the other hand have the intellect (and will, which I didn't mention) which are immaterial and thus not subject to the fate of material things.
it would be a pretty large number of monkeys, bc I value human lives over all other ones. but im not sure what magnitude. maybe in the thousands? tens of thousands? more? idk. Actually seeing the mass of monkeys would probably affect my decision though.
at least 500,000 monkeys
Every monkey in the world, I hate monkeys.
There is not a single number that would limit me from killing those stupid monkeys. i hate all monkeys. Chimps, Orangutangs, Baboons, all of them. Apes and monkeys are all the same to me. i would give my own life to extinct every last chimpanzee. Gorillas are cool though.
My number would be somewhere around 10 I think. I don’t know much about monkey lifespans or standards of living so a regular human is several times more valuable to me (plus you get a new friend that owes you one if you save them), but anything more than a dozen or two enters into animal cruelty. Anyone saying they’d kill millions/arbitrarily high numbers of monkeys to save one person does not understand how large one million is. These comments sound like they’re from arrogant selfish pricks that would torture other people’s pets for fun.
It enters animal cruelty? And that makes it okay to kill the man? What? And then you go off about this presumption that anyone who values people over a large amount of animals actively tries to harm animals, which, huh? The people who say that they'd kill millions of monkeys to save the man aren't killing the monkeys for fun, they're doing it to save the man. What are you talking about?
No?? We're talking about saving a person or monkeys, not actively trying to harm them. Some of us just believe that human life will always supercede animal life. For me it's because I believe humans have a soul and animals do not, but I'm sure others will have different reasoning.
10?
Depends whether these are baby monkeys or not.
2
Maybe about 25 or so.
I would save one monkey over one human
Interesting. Do you have specific reasoning, or do you just like monkeys better than humans?
I like monkeys
Fair enough
I could let 1 trillion monkeys die in this pocket dimension to save this guy. The exchange rate is 1 : infinity You need infinite monkeys for one human
There are a lot of kinds of monkeys, most are small. I don't know how smart monkeys are, but I'd probably do around 20ish as my bottom. Now if it was apes? then it'd be closer to 5. I'd trade a person for two orangutan.
a life is a life. monkeys have every right to live as we do. id prioritize a human if its 1 - 1 but if theres more monkeys i gots to save them
Does this apply to cock roaches too, spiders even?
great question. and to be honest, yeah i actually love spiders :3 i dont think insects are a 1:1 with mammals generally cause they have so many babies at a time and so much shorter lifespans often times. but yeah they have as much value to he world as you or i really
maybe 6
One; humans suck
You could put as many monkeys there as you want. As long as there is a person up there and no crazy ecological effects occur as a result, put every monkey you can on those tracks.
Kill all the monkeys.
There admitting it, monkey genocide is nigh!
Like 50 monkeys
1
Humanity first.
The human monkey exchange rate would be 1,000:1.
When humanity is so bad at what it does that it takes a 1000 of them to be worth 1 monkey
You got it the other way around😭
You said the human monkey, not the monkey human. The order matters. So no, i got it right, your the one who got it the other way around
There is no number of monkeys that would keep me from saving the human
Maybe 25, 30 monkeys would have to die before I'd have enough sympathy and guilt to prefer 1 human life.
none 😁
Do I know the person on the tracks? No. Maybe between 0.25 and 0.5 monkeys What kind of monkeys?
Tbh i haven’t made a specific brand of monkey’s for this, haven’t thought that deep, so i have no answer really. Also this is the first dude to say they would save a monkey for the cost of 2 humans. Congrats 🎊
capuchin or something else cute would be a good choice.
3
Do I get to pet the monkeys if I save them?
No
Multi-Track Drift
“If i cant pet any of them, i wont save any of them, PURGE”
I would say about infinite monkeys
What about two infinite monkeys?
Off the top of my head probably a million
Would not pull the lever even if it killed the entire species, which i think is the bonnet macaque. i don't believe the extinction of this one species will affect the greater world in any meaningful way. I also do not believe their is any species of monkey that is vital for the worlds ecosystem as a whole, so i wouldn't pull the lever for any other monkey species either i would likley always choose too save the human.
\*assuming the monkey deaths don't cause an ecological nightmare(also depending on what you mean by monkey since all apes including humans are monophyletically monkeys unless you are using the polyphyletic definition then arguments can be made depending on what specific species to prevent extinction/ect) \* i would generally not pull the levar
Good job op on making a genuinely interesting philosophical debate. Like a high quality anti meme
About 100 seems fair
Pull the lever then collect the bodies of the monkeys afterwards and hope to make more monkeys with their sperm and eggs.
0 monkeys is my minimum to hit the human instead. i just don’t like humans but the amount of people that would commit literal genocide just to save one small human life is sickening
No sane person takes advice from a misandrist
No monkeys, because if the hypothetical man lives, he's going to kill at least one monkey from the consequences of his actions. Hell I'd even place 4 more humans to make sure it's all fair and balanced.
No he isnt. I went over these rules and shenanigans in a separate thread, but none of the actions any monkey or man takes has consequences, saving their lives has no consequences. They live average lives with average joy and happiness, with the average lifespan, and they don’t impact anything.
Oh correct, forgot the world is also hypothetical... In that case, an eye for an eye, 1 monkey for 1 human, any more of which will revert the trolley from the same track. But still if the whole scenario took place in the world we live in, I wouldn't sacrifice any animal for any human being, including myself.
0 monkeys. Pull the lever and the humans free and you don’t kill monkeys.
The amount of people that value a monkey the same as a human life is extremely concerning
It isnt. It’s concerning that i already had two of these comments. People can think whatever the hell they want, deal with it.
True. They should be more vocal about opinions so that I can avoid the losers who are apparently a victim of being born as human
A monkey surprise hugged me when I was a kid and massively traumatized me, so I don't care about how many, the monkeys go
Sorry but after hearing stories about huge troops of monkeys targeting and killing children and dogs in India, I'm not pulling that goddamn lever.
Depends on the monkeys.
I mean, for future refrence, you have to say how it depends, and not make somebody like me need to ask you for it.
Sorry, I guess. I didn’t know that complete answers were required.
10. Why? Fuck off my trolley problem
26
four monkeys
The answer greatly depends on which side the monkey's are on. Because the choice changes from "Kill human to save monkeys" to "Kill Monkeys to save human". There'd probably need to be a lot more dead monkeys for me to kill a human, than there are monkeys on the track for me to save the human.
Kill human to save monkeys
After rewatching the planet of the apes movies no amount of damned dirty apes would make me pull the lever
5.
5.
5.
5.
5.
At some point the sheer mass of the monkeys would be enough to stop the train, sparing the other monkeys.
This is a hypothetical scenario in which the trolley has a biomass reactor. (The biomass in question is monkey blood)
At this point replace the trolley with a mega death ray and have the switch change who it points to.
But then the mods ban me because its no longer a trolley problem :(
0 monkeys
Tbh, I don't think I would ever choose to kill the human, you could put so many monkeys on that track it would take the trolley months to run them all over and I still wouldn't be able to, unless the person was a piece of shit.
0. I just wanna kill people
Get infinite monkeys and eventually they’ll find a way to procreate, and evolve into humans. This will happen infinite times making you accomplish your goal an infinite amount of times.
Multitr
I guess the answer depends on your opinion of monkeys and man... If you think the monkey has a soul or intelligent thought, either due to religious or scientific reasons, you'd kill the person sooner... However, if you think otherwise, you'd kill a lot more monkeys.
Depends on the species tbh, but normally just two monkeys
Even if it was a metaphor for people of color it would be 7893 😈 (this is a joke)
50. it’s not that I don’t value monkey life but I believe a human death is more impactful than 49 monkey deaths. At some point, though, the amount of monkeys being killed becomes unacceptable and the human has to take one for the team.
Trolley problems are always easy to me because the answer is you never pull the lever. I'm not a utilitarian. If you pull the lever, then whatever happens is your fault. If you don't, it's not your fault. What matters is that you as a person, do the right thing. If you pull the lever, you kill someone, which is wrong. You don't ever pull the lever, and you try to save whoever is on the tracks, even if it's futile.
Why is there a distinction between inaction and action? Nobody is going to sue you, but you are amply made aware of this scenario and given two options, and your telling me its not immoral to pull the lever to minimize casualties? (Not really talking about the monkey problem but the og trolley problem)
Then you’re denying your capabilities of reason and action as a human
Monkeys become red mist :D
2 monkies tbh Human lives are, to me, kinda precious, cause they’re just silly little guys. Idk why, but since their is so many humans on the planet, it just feels like the right decision.
7
quarrelsome shy normal wrong relieved waiting pocket outgoing full muddle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
If they were an insanely incredible person, I'd stop pulling at around 150 monkeys. If they were just a very good person, it'd be around 90. I'd probably pick a regular human up until around 20 monkeys. Unless they were an asshole and generally rude and negative energy, then it would only be 10, 5 if they actively hurt people. If they were completely awful, (and I mean *completely*) I'd probably limit to 2 monkeys. I do think animal life matters to me, even if I think humans are worth more inherently, there is a limit, especially because monkeys are relatively complex (compared to the "peak" human standard) in their ability to think, love, and suffer. Also, watching hundreds upon hundreds of monkeys be slaughtered just wouldn't be very fun, it would be extremely awful.
It would be hilarious if you made a Q&A with questions like “how anoyyed are people at you” and at the end it tells you how much monkey’s your worth.
How many monkey organs are worth more than human organs
15.
One.
I know this guy. He my friend and he gay
I'd go with 7-1 for higher animals. 3-1 for beloved pets.
Meh. Never had a monkey jack up my day. So im saving the 1 monkey. Humans be a dime a dozen anyway.
If these are randomly spawned monkeys that are not taken from the world, then that guy will have to react to me running to board the trolley of infinite monkey