It's always better to gain a full understanding of the system when trying to make important decisions.

The trolley has two sets of wheels, leading and trailing, both of which must remain on the same set of tracks.

The switch is designed to enable the trolley to change course, moving from one set of tracks to the other.

Throwing the switch after the leading set has passed, but before the trailing set has reached the switch points will cause the two sets to attempt travel on separate tracks. The trolley will derail, rapidly coming to a halt. If the trolley is moving slowly enough to permit this action, nobody dies.

Source: former brakeman (one of the people responsible for throwing switches), section hand (one of the people responsible for installing switches), and railroad welder (one of the people responsible for field repairs of switches).

I would question the ability to line people up on a railroad track such that they have a 1:1 correspondence with the real numbers.

Has anyone tried just asking the trolley to stop?

Pulling the lever will kill people slower, therefore less deaths in the lifetime of the universe.

Pull the lever, thus killing -1/12th people.

Move to the end of the track and undo the constraints of people on the track. You will have infinite time until the trolly reaches the end, and can thusly save infinite lives by doing so.

Do nothing, since an infinite number of people implies an inconceivable population overgrowth, so the best possible good for humanity is to cull the population.

Heck, you could probably go out and genocide the rest of the population that isn't tied to the track and still not suffer any real loss. Then, you face the last true enemy: the bloodsoaked beast responsible for the deaths of untold billions- yourself.

Once you've slain that last creature, all of humanity that still remains will be those tied to the railroad track. The only living people will spend their entire lives knowing nothing but the track and the trolley, and the imposing fear that one day, they, too, shall be crushed under its wheels like those before them.

The only life remaining for the human race is now one of terror and eventual slaughter. There are no good outcomes to this conundrum. There are only the uncaring wheels of the trolley.

I come to an agreement with the person who has tied these people to the tracks to untie every 2nd person. I save an infinite number of people!

Seeing an infinite number of people lying there I deduce that I must be in some kind of thought experiment and let the trolley roll on while I look for a way to escape back to reality.

People die faster if you do nothing, so doing nothing seems like the obvious choice

I kill the trolley driver. The Dead Man button makes that the trolley stops.

This is a complex problem, hence I pull an imaginary lever and divert the trolley onto the imaginary number line to kill infinite imaginary people. No one cares because they're imaginary

Multi-track drifting, baby. Double infinite.

Invent a new number system that provides aneven smaller infinity

I'm just waiting for the black hole to form just from the mass of the infinite people between 0-1 on the Reals track.

but what about with the infinite amount of people collapse under their own mass and form a black hole?

I get that the answer is supposed to be "it doesn't matter" but if you take time into account, it actually fucking does, and also makes it hugely obvious what the actual answer is.

Would suck being the last person on either track. It'd be a long and boring wait while tied up

Pull the lever. Save as many lives as you can and hope that someone that now wasn't killed as fast can help come up with a solution for the runaway trolley.

i'd ask for a second train.

I pull the lever and invoke Zeno's paradox to ensure the trolley's position remains < 1 for eternity.

This comment section is politics in action! :-P

Did nobody have math class? The pictures are always misleading!

It never actually specifies the density the people are packed onto the track, the image implies an answer.

I'd argue that the densities should be considered to be equal, regardless of whatever that density value may be. We do not need to solve for the exact value to discuss the problem at hand!

I know many people despise generative AI, but what do you think of this result from Copilot? I am bad at maths so I wonder if you experts can tell.

In your scenario, you have two sets: the integers on the top track and the real numbers on the bottom track. The cardinality of the integers is equal to the cardinality of the real numbers, which is called the continuum hypothesis. Therefore, it seems intuitively more ethical to pull the lever and divert the trolley to the bottom track, where you kill fewer people in any finite time.

The same thing most people would do when presented with a Trolly Problem for real. Analysis paralysis, choose to do nothing, then cry softly every night for the rest of my life.