The existence of the bottom track would imply an infinite density of people, which would create a black hole and kill everyone involved, regardless of the trolley's presence

If the tracks are scaled to the same unit (presumably one where one human width equals an infinitely small number), everyone in the top track would die of exposure before the trolley even reaches its first victim due to there being infinite distance between integer milestones, whereas everyone in the bottom track would be killed instantly due to any distance traveled having an infinite number of infinitesimals*. So I choose the bottom track to be merciful.

If the tracks don't share the same scale then we don't have enough information to make a judgment.

* Even though we already established the one human width rule. Could someone check my logic here? Infinities break my brain.

Slip the switch, like always

Has anyone tried just asking the trolley to stop?

Some infinities are bigger than others but those are both the same sized infinity, ℵ₀. Same if you multi-track drift.

This comment section is politics in action! :-P

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 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.

Assuming that it takes some amount of energy to kill one person, and that the trolley doesn't have an engine with infinite power, choosing the bottom track would save lives. The trolley would have to expend an infinite amount of energy to move any distance from the starting point, so it would just get stuck there while trying to crush the unimaginable amount of people bunched up in front of it.

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.

I would take a sledgehammer and smash the trolley to bits, thus solving the problem and saving infinite number of lives. There's always another option available.

Multi-track drifting, baby. Double infinite.

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.

Shit man if there's an infinite amount of people there must also be an infinite amount of track. So forget philosophy, I'm getting rich!

Invent a new number system that provides aneven smaller infinity

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

I take the square root of the negative trolley, then use my imaginary streetcar to establish a complex track so I can start killing in an additional dimension.