Memes

I'm very much still in the phase of "understood a new concept, so sees it everywhere", but I'm having to think of the Trolley Problem for this one.

For those who don't know the Trolley Problem at all, the first paragraph here should explain what you need to know: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

And well, basically, when you ask people how they would decide in this classic Trolley Problem situation, most will respond that they would pull the switch, i.e. taking an active part in killing one person, but saving the other five persons.

Now, there is a different postulation of that scenario, which goes like this:

As before, a trolley is hurtling down a track towards five people. You are on a bridge under which it will pass, and you can stop it by putting something very heavy in front of it. As it happens, there is a very large man next to you – your only way to stop the trolley is to push him over the bridge and onto the track, killing him to save five. Should you proceed?

So, you're still taking an active part in killing one person for saving the other five persons, yet most people will now decide the other way around.
So, yeah, effectively the same result, but presumably because it's a much more direct role in the killing of that one person, it's psychologically very different.