The trolley problem is repulsive, because it encourages people to think about playing God and choosing which people to kill. It is as irrelevant as the Asteroid-Orphans Dilemma, because “who would you murder in extreme situation X?” is not even a distant parallel to the issues that will likely come up in your own life. It warps human moral sensibilities, by encouraging us to think about isolated moments of individual choice rather than the context in which those choices occur. It is escapist, in that it allows us to comfortably drift into the realm of the implausible and ridiculous, so that we do not have to confront disturbing truths about our real-world moral failings. And it encourages a kind of fatalism, where everything you do will inevitably be a disaster and moral questions seem hard rather than easy. If you want to actually be a better person, you can start by never wasting a second of your life contemplating trolley problems.
The Trolley Problem Will Tell You Nothing Useful About Morality – Adrian Rennix & Nathan J. Robinson
via: The Trolley Problem is a joke – Wisecrack (video)
Addendum
This screenshot from the above video almost makes me want to start a Tumblr containing nothing but out-of-context Wisecrack stills.
