The Agile vs. Waterfall Trolley Dilemma

You find yourself standing before a complex, control panel in a dimly lit room. Two paths diverge before you: one labeled "Agile", the other "Waterfall". A single, rusted lever protrudes from the center.

To your left, the Agile path, a lively bunch of developers are sprinting towards a rapidly approaching deadline, their hair on fire, eyes wide with panic. They're still iterating and refining their product, but time is running out. If you pull the lever, you'll derail their momentum, forcing them to focus and deliver something actually finished and useful on time. But if you don't, they might sprint off the cliff of completion, leaving behind a half-baked mess.

To your right, the Waterfall path, a team of meticulous, bespectacled analysts are methodically working their way through a towering stack of Gantt charts. They're following the plan to the letter, but a massive boulder of a feature has just rolled onto their critical path. If you pull the lever, you'll redirect their focus, allowing them to adapt and deliver the essentials. But if you don't, the boulder might crush their entire project under an avalanche of scope creep.

What do you do? Pull the lever and disrupt the status quo, or leave things as they are and hope for the best?

The Noodle Trolley Dilemma

You're working in your small Italian restaurant when a runaway trolley with noodles speeds down the food track.
On the left track are 5 customers who ordered "spicy pasta" but actually can't handle heat. On the right track is 1 customer who ordered a plate of your grandmother's "blissfully mild marinara" but secretly wants habanero peppers.

Pull the Lever: Everyone thinks they get the wrong order, but is secretly happy about their meal.
Don't Pull the Lever: Everyone gets their requested order but can't really enjoy it.

So many needless deaths.

Serious thinkers about ethics and lives worth living should spend less time on the trolley problem and more on "Middlemarch".

#Ethics #Philosophy #MoralPhilosophy #Literature #TrolleyProblem #Middlemarch #GeorgeEliot #Books

Dr Lydgate and Rosamond

https://victorianweb.org/authors/eliot/gallery/11.html

ok, denne var fin
#trolleyproblem

Everyone assumes they would be the one pulling the lever but in reality that is someone else

Car dependency, bad urban design, and public transit sharing space with cars means we can't even do the trolley problem right, anymore.

Updated #trolleyproblem just dropped on #SNL
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mprkxTmMeAo

Great #trolleyproblem humor.

#democrats
#america

The solution to the #TrolleyProblem.

Don't Create the Torment Nexus?

You're an engineer working on a top-secret project for a mysterious billionaire. The project is complete, and you're tasked with flipping the switch to start it up. Unknown to the rest of the team, the project is a doomsday device that will eventually destroy all life on Earth. If you flip the switch, you'll make billions of dollars and secure your family's future for generations. But flipping the switch means the end of humanity as we know it. Do you flip the switch and bring your family enormous wealth, or do you not flip the switch and save humanity, knowing your family will suffer?

If you flip the switch:

• You become incredibly wealthy.
• Your family is set for life.
• You may feel guilt, knowing you caused the end of humanity.
• You get away with it, as no one but you knows what really happened.

If you don't flip the switch:

• You save humanity.
• Your family suffers due to your decision.
• You are revered as a hero.
• You feel immense pride in saving the world, but constant guilt about your family's lost opportunities.

What do you do?

This lovely story is the #TrolleyProblem with cats: an ethical conundrum, asking ‘when we believe that our obligation is to all sentient beings, how do we choose to act when saving one may mean denying aid to another?’

As humans we face this dilemma every day. IMO there’s no always right answer, but making our choices consciously means we can act with intention & learn from experience. And be kinder to ourselves & each other for our choices when we’re placed in impossible situations.

Meanwhile I am glad this much-loved cat was saved.

#ethics #kindness

Doctor faces inquiry after giving his cat a Cat scan at Italian hospital https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/05/doctor-inquiry-injured-cat-scan-hospital?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

6.10: The Dilemma of Utopian Joy: Ariel & Christina Discuss

While solarpunks often choose to stand in direct opposition to selfishness, greed, and systemic problems, the choice to be kind and to prioritize joy, sympathy, and understanding is also central to solarpunk in fiction and in real life. As Christina and Ariel discuss, while acts of kindness occur in all sorts of fictions, even cyberpunk and dystopian fictions, acts of kindness in solarpunk stories tend to be transformative, especially for the person or group on the receiving end. They then explore the sacrifices that it takes (and who has to make them) in order to maintain peace, prosperity, and joy in society by two famous solarpunk–adjacent stories set in utopias, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K. LeGuin and “The Ones Who Stay and Fight” by N.K. Jemisin. Christina is not sure if she’s on board for either of these stories, but she agrees with the premise that now is the time not to walk away in disillusionment, but to fight hard for human rights, justice, and fairness in all of our different political systems and societies.

https://youtu.be/saBnIh3jZq4

You're the new CEO of a once-thriving tech company now teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. You've just discovered that pulling a metaphorical lever will either:

1. Sacrifice the Scapegoat: Blame the company's failures on a beloved but slightly bumbling employee, saving your own skin and the company's reputation. The employee will lose their job and face public ridicule, but the company stands a chance of recovering. Everyone else keeps their jobs.

2. Pull the Plug: Refuse to play the blame game. Instead, you personally admit to the mistakes and decide to shut down the company entirely. This will save the scapegoat's career, but every employee will lose their job, and the company will vanish into oblivion. However, the industry will gain a new meme: "Remember when that CEO took one for the team?"

In Aperture Science Test Chamber 9437-B, you find yourself in a familiar white-walled room, the dull hum of machinery filling the air. Cave Johnson's voice booms over the intercom:

"Ah, welcome, test subject! We've got a little situation here. You see, I've misplaced a prototype Core, one of our most important pieces of technology. It's floating around in the test chamber, and it's not alone. There are five Weighted Companion Cubes in there with it. Now, the Core is our top priority, but those Cubes... well, they're not exactly expendable, either. They're in danger, but the Core could power our next great scientific breakthrough!

Here's your choice: press the button to activate the Core's emergency retrieval system. It'll suck the Core out of the chamber, safe and sound, but those poor Cubes won't stand a chance. They'll be crushed in the process. Or, you could leave the Core and manually guide the Cubes to safety using the nearby portals. But remember, time's a-wastin', and that Core's not going to retrieve itself!

What'll it be, test subject? The Core or the Cubes? The future of Aperture Science or... well, a few moments of sentimentality? The choice is yours, but remember, in science, there are no wrong answers... just ones that cause less paperwork!"

Imagine the #trolleyproblem, but instead of 5 vs. 1 people it is cows and chickens suffering and causing #climatechange vs. you gaining a slightly higher #risk of #cancer. That's how I feel when people say "#meatreplacements do not taste the same, look at the #NutriScore, I want the original." #okay.

https://xkcd.com/1338/

But the most exciting thing about the meat replacements industry will be exploring the space of possible creations between poultry/pork/beef that no human has tasted yet.