this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
888 points (97.4% liked)
memes
15382 readers
3819 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to !politicalmemes@lemmy.world
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
A collection of some classic Lemmy memes for your enjoyment
Sister communities
- !tenforward@lemmy.world : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- !lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- !linuxmemes@lemmy.world : Linux themed memes
- !comicstrips@lemmy.world : for those who love comic stories.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Cool meme
But the whole trolley part doesn't add anything to the question. You can leave it off and nothing changes. It is still just the question on whether teleporting transports you or copies you. Which depends entirely on the technology used.
The joke is that trolley problems are usually used to portray moral dilemmas, so the teleporter is a subversion by rendering the trolley question irrelevant.
I thought it was funny
Personally I love memes that mix different moral/philosophical dilemmas in silly ways
The exemplar version of this concept
The trolley is still relevant because if you don't step into the transporter, people die. If you do, there's a good chance some version of you dies, but some version of you survives. So is the current version of you more valuable than the lives of the people on the track?
I believe that the trolley portion is partly subtext: notice how, unlike in the traditional problem, there's nobody ON the other track. This is a variant where you must risk/accept personal annihilation of self to cause someone else identical to yourself to save five lives. It does add a layer, but I think it would be better to explicitly state the actual sacrifice, rather than asking the trite question.
It also raises the question whether it's a perfect teleport or one that modifies you. While you might be willing to pull the lever before jumping into the teleport, you might not be afterwards.