Interplanetary trolley problem now that we've changed its course

I have probably mentioned this, but IMHO portal was invented by Terry Pratchett.

Discworld, Book 22, The Last Continent (1998)

The wizards looked at the gently rippling surface. There should have been several feet of solid wood sticking out of it.
“Well, well, well,” said the Archchancellor, going back in out of the cold air. “Do you know, I’ve never actually seen one of these?”
“Anyone remember Archchancellor Bewdley’s boots?” said the Senior Wrangler, helping himself to some cold mutton from the trolley. “He made a mistake and got one of the things opened up in the left boot. Very tricky. You can’t go walking around with one foot in another dimension.”
“Well, no…” said Ridcully, staring at the tropical scene and tapping his chin thoughtfully with the seashell.
“Can’t see what you’re treading in, for one thing,” said the Senior Wrangler.
“One opened up in one of the cellars once, all by itself,” said the Dean. “Just a round black hole. Anything you put in it just disappeared. So old Archchancellor Weatherwax had a privy built over it.”
“Very sensible idea,” said Ridcully, still looking thoughtful.
“We thought so too, until we found the other one that had opened in the attic. Turned out to be the other side of the same hole. I’m sure I don’t need to draw you a picture.”
“I’ve never heard of these!” said Ponder Stibbons. “The possibilities are amazing!”
“Everyone says that when they first hear about them,” said the Senior Wrangler. “But when you’ve been a wizard as long as I have, my boy, you’ll learn that as soon as you find anything that offers amazing possibilities for the improvement of the human condition it’s best to put the lid back on and pretend it never happened.”
“But if you could get one to open above another you could drop something through the bottom hole and it’d come out of the top hole and fall through the bottom hole again…It’d reach meteoritic speed and the amount of power you could generate would be—”
“That’s pretty much what happened between the attic and the cellar,” said the Dean, taking a cold chicken leg. “Thank goodness for air friction, that’s all I’ll say.”
Ponder waved his hand gingerly through the window and felt the sun’s heat.
“And no one’s ever studied them?” he said.

Aside from hats and trolleys, it's remarkable how little our PHYSICAL reality has changed in a hundred years. The city is still the city.

I grew up watching Mr. Rogers. I love in the beginning of this trailer how he says he didnt feel like he needed to put on a funny hat. He wasn't a character. He was real, and that is what I liked about it. Don't get me wrong. When trolley, would take you to the imaginary castle, that was pretty awesome too.

It's not that Mr. Roger's Neighborhood are some of my fondest childhood memories, but thinking of the show, relates to so many other childhood memories...the look of the living room where I used to watch...my family being around...watching with friends...

Great....another afternoon of crying at my desk at work.

Just on the off chance anyone actually believes in these things.... polygraphs do not work. They're really no better than random.

But still upvote because I'm with @Sagemind, Jennifer Lawrence is genuinely charming.

oh god, trolley problems? seriously??

Ordinarily, I'm willing to give bad parking the benefit of the doubt. I've been in a scenario where I've been forced to park badly because the car next to me was across the line, which forces the car next to me to do the same and so on and so on.

But in this case, that's not even possible because she's parked beside the trolley(trundler in American?) bay.

Philosophically I am conflicted, but gotta admit, I am very curious to know what I'd actually do.

but I don't think I'd get past the screening. It would be interesting to see if the people that may have a predisposition to some sort of trauma would react differently in the moment. I mean, obviously completely unethical to find out, but still interesting.

Also, did any of participants have knowledge of the trolley problem before? Were they able to recognize the scenario without the deception being revealed? Would having thought about how they'd react previously prompt them to make a decision faster in the heat of the moment, or would perhaps doubts about the realness of the scenario cause them to be passive?. questions. so many questions

First thought,

If you find the question interesting, watch the Death Note anime(not the movie), this is more the less the premise of the entire series with a teenage genius gaining said power.

I have to say I find video presenter's approach to the question is interesting. He almost only addresses the crime of passion angle. The more difficult moral question IMO is as MilkmanDan alludes with the trolley problem. If you have essentially a superpower like this, it is not ONLY your use of it that is a dilemma, but also a refusal to use that power to help victims when you could.

Go back 10 years ago, what is morally worse, using your power to kill Osama Bin Laden, or to refuse to use your power when you could end his influence?

Weird. I get the sense that from the perspective of the author of the question, he's taking the specifics too literally; sort of the opposite of how people try to weasel out of introspection when confronted with things like the trolley problem ("I'd pull the lever, AND shout as loud as I could to try to warn the guy", etc.).

To me, the idea is not to be worried about things like accidental use of the power, whether or not you know/believe that you have the power, etc. Assume that you have the power, you are aware that you have it, and that there is no risk of accidentally triggering it. Would you use it?

I can say with near certainty that I would have used it when I was younger; faced with situations like the experience he had with the bully when he was 13. I might have given it up after a single use, when firsthand confronted with the reality of it. Or I might easily have descended into the depths of utter evil, and eventually started using it casually, for offenses real or imagined.

If I got the power NOW, I think it is fairly likely that I would never use it. I'd be strongly tempted, though.

It's all about timing. If you pull the lever at the exact right moment, the front axle has passed the junction and the rear axle gets diverted. The trolley will derail.

That's why I hate the trolley problem (and by extension every other binary choice philosophical problem).

Life is almost never binary.

I actually got in trouble over this in a class during my school years. Like this video, the teacher neglected to mention anything about the people being unable to move. So I said, "I would just yell to all of them that a trolley was coming and to get off the tracks."

Well, of course the teacher was not prepared for this answer so she tried to modify the situation. I got somewhat irate, as I recall, and said she was cheating. She sent me to the office, where I got a swat for disturbing the class.

tl;dr

Don't try to think outside of the box in school.

The trolley problem. What would you do?

I think you're all full of shit. In Seattle cyclists are everywhere, they don't pay attention to stop signs or stop lights and it seems to work just fine.

I think the best idea is still banning cars from city centers and only using trolleys or bicycles.

If I'm being honest here, I don't care what you guys think, this comment section is for me not you.

It's not a train at all, it's called a Tram*. Completely different.

* or Street Car, or Trolley if you're american.