The Infinite Trolley Problem

Do you pull the lever, killing 1 + 1 + 1 + 1... people — one person for every integer — resulting in infinite people dying? Or do you do nothing, allowing the trolley to kill one person for every real number? In both cases, infinite people die; but in the top case, the smallest possible infinity of people die (ℵ₀), whereas in the bottom case, a larger infinity of people die (some infinities are bigger than other infinities). What do you do?

A trolley approaches two enormous groups of people, presenting a mathematical version of the trolley problem. Pulling the lever kills one person for every integer, while doing nothing kills one person for every real number; the joke is that both outcomes involve infinite deaths, but one infinity is mathematically larger than the other. EN: A trolley approaches two enormous groups of people, presenting a mathematical version of the trolley problem. Pulling the lever kills one person for every integer, while doing nothing kills one person for every real number; the joke is that both outcomes involve infinite deaths, but one infinity is mathematically larger than the other.

• @gentoomemes / 9193 2024-02-05