The #TrolleyProblem is not abstract. There is absolutely an IRL version of it: #voting.

So, every couple years #leftists argue about whether or not to vote for the lesser of two evils.

They have a lever ( #vote ), and if they pull the lever then fewer people die. If they do nothing, more people die.

There are two basic moral foundations for this decision:
- Deontological: actions are morally good or bad, not consequences.
- Utilitarian: outcomes determine the moral value of actions.

I'm not going to get into the pros and cons of each. Instead, I'm going to address the psychological aspect of it.

People who align to Deontological ethics (which is a significant, if not outright majority, of those on the #left) view things in terms of purity and taint.

The action affects the moral weight of the person. So the person is viewed as a good or bad person depending upon whether their actions and behaviors are judged as morally righteous by the standards of their political alignment.

People who align to Utilitarian ethics don't give a shit about any of that. Furthermore they consider _not acting_ to be a morally culpable choice. There is no difference between the original position of the lever.

Now, there are some who would argue for not voting for a utilitarian reason. The argument is basically that not voting forces the parties to court your vote, and thus moving them closer to your position.

I don't think this is true in modern democracies, because politicians already do not support policies that the vast majority of their voters support.

But, I will grant it. If you are to take this to be the case, then here is your cost function:

sum(t=0, T-1, discount(t, (harm_worse(t)-harm_lesser(t))) < (p x sum(t=T, infinity, discount(t, (harm_lesser(t)-harm_better(t))))

This is basically saying that you have to be willing to pay the harm caused the the worse evil as the price for the gains after your inflection point.

Which, points to the deontological argument in favor of voting for the lesser evil: you are buying a good future by paying with lives and bodies that (likely) are not your own. You are throwing someone under the bus for your moral purity.

Personally?
I personally think that the only reason evil is allowed to exist in our world at all is because good people are so afraid of "being bad" that they constantly abdicate the reins of power to evil people. Those #evil people exploit it.

Edit: This post was inspired by a conversation here: https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/116644205722247047

If you aren't already following @mekkaokereke, I do recommend his feed.

Open source software is a very strange phenomenon in some respects.

Built for personal reasons by amateurs and enthusiasts. Professionalized as a means of extracting free labor from hopeful job seekers.

Has accidentally become essential public infrastructure; but without the coordinated maintenance support that most public infrastructure receives.

Presently a zone of conflict between multiple parties including all those mentioned above, governments that wish to control it's use, and commercial operators who want to use it as feedstock for their proprietary code generators...

Please can we turn the clock back to 2016, before November?

I think that was the sweet spot. Enough tech to be fun, no LLMs, no Trump presidency, Russian empire not actively invading its neighbours at that point, no COVID19. Some clouds on the horizon (eg Brexit) but the global oligarch coup wasn't yet in full cry.

Suck it, Malthusians,

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jun/04/world-inequality-lab-equality-academics-planetary-survival