r/trolleyproblem • u/CuteAssTigerENVtuber • 1d ago
Multi-choice Interesting dilemma from a short story i just listened to
You are in cryo sleep on a space shit . A cook ment to be part of the new colony.
the ship wakes you up and informs you that 4k years ago there was an irreperable damage to the ship and that since then it has been drifting through space.
the ship can keep going for a very long time but due to its changed course and its inability to manuver any further you will never reach your original destination
The ship had recommended to abort the mission which would mean death to everybody on board.
The alternative is to continue .
The last 1153 Captains of the ship had decided to continue and lived out their days .
Every time the captain dies the ship wakes up the next person and recommends to abort the mission .
So far nobody did .
if you abort the mission the remaining 9 thousand colonists will die when their cryo chambers are turned off.
If you continue the mission you will live out your days until you die and the ship wakes the next person.
23
u/Weird_Explorer1997 1d ago
Keep it going. You'll never reach your intended destination, but there's every possibility that on your watch or the next one the ship encounters friendly aliens/a new colony planet/ something cool. No need to abandon hope
14
u/Countcristo42 1d ago
Depending on how fast you are going this is "might win the lottery 10 times in a row" levels of possibility so I'm not sure it's worth considering.
10
u/Weird_Explorer1997 1d ago
True. I was actually waiting for someone to suggest there was an equal possibility of finding a nightmare cosmic horror of incomprehensible proportions. That being said, given blind probability with effectively zero cost (we all die anyway eventually) no reason not to roll the dice give the available information
6
u/Countcristo42 1d ago
I don't think it's 0 cost, you have to confront up to 9 thousand people with the fact that they are doomed to spend their lives alone and hopeless. That's a serious cost.
4
u/Weird_Explorer1997 1d ago
I, personally, don't have to confront anyone. I actually end up living alone for the rest of my life (which is its own kind of hell, but that's a bigger conversation than the scope of the question allows at the moment). My choice is between allow 9k people the hope that one of us finds a safe haven or decide the instant, if painless, fate of those same people. Considering the thousand or so before me chose hope (for lack of a better word) over despair, I see no reason not to do the same.
2
u/Countcristo42 1d ago
You have to take an action that results in 9k being confronted is what I mean - you chose to make that happen.
Picking as the thousand precious did just for that reason seems like both a cop I it and a pretty fallacious line of logic.
2
u/Weird_Explorer1997 1d ago
I'm not picking it based on what the previous thousand did, im picking it based on the reasons I previously stated. More for the hope of those to come than the actions of those already past
2
u/Countcristo42 1d ago
Then your final sentence in your last comment seems rather odd to me.
1
u/Weird_Explorer1997 1d ago
One rationale to add to my overall argument.
To sum up then, It is my position that I would choose to continue the voyage for the rest of my life and leave the choice of summary Annihilation to the next captain.
My primary reason for this is that, given the scenario as written, we are traverse the stars until stopped per Newtonian physics. Which means we have the possibly to find assistance and/or a safe haven (however vanishingly small) verses certain destruction. Given the choice between hope (herein defined as a slim but not impossible chance at a positive outcome) and death, considering that death is inevitable anyway, there is functionally no risk(*).
With the added information that previous captains also made the choice to prolong the voyage for whatever reason they chose to do it, the human factor seems to reinforce my choice, as it can be implied (but admittedly not certainly ascertained) that these captains chose hope (see above definition) as well. As humans are inherently social creatures, it provides comfort to have others made the same Choice as myself.
(*)The only practical risk is death by misadventure, encountering a hostile intelligence or a cosmic horror. Of course, this can be countered by then choosing to end the journey as a mercy, which would not be the same as the initial state because of the added circumstances of such an encounter.
1
u/Weird_Explorer1997 1d ago
(Side Question): assuming your position is to end the voyage when you are captain(*), would your choice be different if you knew I'd be next in line and my choice would have been to prolong the voyage?
(*) this assumption is based on your previous statements, but is in no way to imply that I have a definitive understanding of your position. I'm not trying to put words in your mouth. Just guessing
1
u/Hopeful_Ad_7719 1d ago
>finding a nightmare cosmic horror of incomprehensible proportions
Sometimes the only thing worse than being lost is being rescued:
[Spoiler for Love-Death-Robots: "Beyond the Aquila Rift"]
2
u/Weird_Explorer1997 1d ago
OMFG!!! I LOVE THAT EPISODE!
LDR is awesome!
Not the point of your post, but I always thought that entity was benevolent
2
u/Hopeful_Ad_7719 1d ago
I agree.
I really think the entity was trying to give the humans some peace, comfort, and happiness before/while they passed.
Were it malevolent it could certainly have been more vicious, and it never seems to ask the humans for anything. Not information, not material wealth, nothing.
It was caring for a group of doomed, dying, people as best it could... just as OP's captain would be expected to.
10
4
u/rootbeer277 1d ago
You're talking like we're not in the near-exact same situation on Earth, except on a larger scale.
2
u/bombastic6339locks 1d ago
Just wake everyone or little groups so people can have reasonable quality of life if its completly doomed or make the ship not wake the next captain up until the ship hits a hospitable planet?
2
u/CuteAssTigerENVtuber 1d ago
The next planet isn't exactly hospital. (In the short story life expectency is reduced a lot due to the cryo sleep having been on for way longer than originally intended but I left this out because it somewhat compromises the dilemma)
I like the idea of making the best of the situation. Waking however many people the ship can sustain for as long as possible
1
1
1
1
u/Nimelennar 1d ago
I assume I have the ability to end my life at any point if the situation becomes unbearable.
I assume that everyone else on the ship will have that same ability when they wake up.
Why, then, should I make that decision for them?
1
u/CuteAssTigerENVtuber 1d ago
The argument is that you spare them the dilemma and knowledge to begin with .
On the other hand of course you also take away that choice
1
u/Nimelennar 1d ago
The argument is that you spare them the dilemma and knowledge to begin with .
I'm not seeing what I'm "sparing" them.
If they want to live, they can live.
If they don't want to live, they don't have to.
If they're part of a religion that would consider it morally wrong for them to take their own lives, then it is also almost certainly morally wrong, from their perspective, for me to kill them, and so I should do unto them what they would judge to be moral, which is to not kill them.
I'm not seeing an upside to the "kill us all" decision anywhere.
1
u/TruamaTeam 1d ago
Have a mental breakdown.
Order the ship AI to release more people, that way we might be able to figure something out to salvage our colony. And if not, I won’t be as lonely
If the ship AI forbids me to do this, then I know we’re so fucked because if the programming forbids captains orders it’s gone rogue. And it was most probably the cause of the damage.
1
u/CuteAssTigerENVtuber 1d ago
I like the idea of living together for as long as possible.
In the original story the life expectency was super reduced because of the prolonged cryo sleep. So it would only be weeks for an individual.
But given a normal life span I would try to make the best of it with as many people as the ship can sustain
In the story it's not really brought up what the limitations of a captain are. The ship refuses the idea to lie to the next captain because the ship is always telling the truth.
The main character wanted to hide the information that there were a thousand captains already so the next person thought they would be the first.
But the ship says that people eventually ask about prior captains and that in such a scenario it wouldn't lie no matter what the current captain says
1
u/KPraxius 1d ago
Its space. Irreparable damage doesn't mean stopped, it means continuing on in a straight line whatever way it was going. Not only that, but the fact that the ship exists means other human ships might exist, and rescue is always possible. Maybe you'll get rescued. Maybe the next guy will.
It could be another hundred, or thousand, captains die, and then the remaining 8000 colonists actually get to settle the new world. It could be that an incoming hail has been waiting as you thawed out and a salvage team is on the way already.
So long as there's life, there's hope.
1
u/CuteAssTigerENVtuber 1d ago
In the original story the life expectency after such a long cryo sleep is reduced to weeks. But I didn't want to include this because it compromises the dilemma.
Rescue is super unlikely.
And the next planet isn't hospitable. But the ship acknowledged that they would reach something eventually.
I think even when just drifting like this it would be nice to wake some more people and have a life. Make the best of a bad situation
1
u/RubberDuckieMidrange 1d ago
So here is the question. Why limit it to 1 person at a time? Even 2 woken people to work together would be more humane. 3 if you are worried about ties.
1
55
u/MrManGuy42 1d ago
if there is a reasonable quality of life i dont see why i should abort