Ponies versus the Trolley Problem:
So, there's a thing called the Trolley Problem. It has a few variations, but the most common version is: A trolley hurtles down the tracks towards a group of four people. You stand at a switch, able to move the trolley onto another track - but a single person stands there. Do you pull the switch, condemning one to save four?
At its heart, the trolley problem can be rendered down into something even simpler: Do you harm the few, to save the many?
In a pony scenario, one might reconfigure this into a loosely different question with the same point: Ponies are facing down a villain where it seems someone will end up hurt and/or dead in the end. However, through their action, a smaller number of ponies may be hurt than if they do nothing.
The interesting thing is that we've actually seen this scenario, or something like it: In the S4 finale, Twilight faces down Tirek. He reveals her imprisoned friends, and offers an exchange - her power for their lives. Twilight chooses her friends, sacrificing what seems to be all of Equestria to ensure their continued survival. Yet, this violates one of the core tenets of the Trolley Problem: The people on the tracks must be unrelated. Twilight's friends are not unrelated, which is why they work as hostages in the first places.
I'm not so sure it's a bad practical example, though. As I've discussed before, ponies seem to be a more exaggeratedly-social species than we are. They're far more prone to forming small, herd-like groups on whose support they are more dependent. I posit that the average pony is more likely than the average human to save the few than the many, because they are more likely to be deeply socially connected to the few.
There's a version of the Trolley Problem called the "Fat Villain": You can stop the trolley, by pushing the one who set up the scenario in front of the trolley (said villain being presumably large enough to stop the trolley). Here, ponies and humans seem to agree: It is right to cause harm to one who is causing harm, in order to spare others. Interestingly, this even overcomes the close social bonds ponies form: All canon sources are unambiguous that Nightmare Moon seizing power would be an unambiguously bad thing, and Celestia banishes her to spare the rest of the population.
This is, as a side note, a large part of why I like Celestia - she repeatedly upends the typical pony social behavior.
With all of this in mind: What do you think? Would ponies - would Twilight Sparkle, or your favorite character whoever they may be - pull the metaphorical lever? Would they spare many by condemning a few, unknown-to-them ponies?
Submitted March 15, 2018 at 10:39AM by Logarithmicon
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/mylittlepony/comments/84nvf5/ponies_versus_the_trolley_problem/?utm_source=ifttt
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