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Comment by snackoverflow | Hacker News Reader

I believe the comment was in reference to the frequency of school shootings in the United States vs the rest of the world.

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457 deaths in US history.

1200 deaths a day from diarrhea in India.

Put it in perspective.

No way it’s that low in India, either.

A larger number of people dying from an unrelated cause in another country doesn’t make these deaths insignificant. By that logic, virtually no problem deserves attention because you can always find something that kills more people.

You must not be familiar with the trolley problem.

The "trolley problem" is literally never a valid argument for anything because it purports to create an analogy for a real world problem but does so by creating a scenario that cannot exist, hence any argument based on it is nonapplicable to "real" problems.

You think that kind of scenario cannot exist? That is your reasoning for dismissing it? You’ll hafta do better than that.

The true version of the trolley problem requires perfect knowledge of the future. This can't exist in the real world.

So you’re being pedantic? Future forecasts and estimates can’t mesh with the trolly problem? If that’s your stance sure, you are correct. I do feel like you missed the whole point of the exercise though, and are hiding behind an absolute that is never achievable.

Look, nobody brings up the trolley problem because they're concerned about what they're going to do when a train car goes out of control.

They use it as a metaphor to attempt to make an argument about a different, actually real, situation. My argument is this is pointless because no real world situation will ever meaningfully resemble the trolley problem.

The correct answer to the trolley problem is STOP THE TROLLEY. "You can't do that!" "Why not?" "because magic" "well how do I know this magic is there?" "more magic!" etc etc.

What do you do if the dragon demands a sacrifice or it attacks the town? You fight the dragon.

The idea that "stop the trolley" or "slay the dragon" is cost-free is a wish. You've merely added a third horn to the dilemma. "Someone brave attempts to jump onto the moving trolley, risking their own neck" might well be the preferred choice; the expected outcome may marginally improve; the shape of the problem remains.

I hope you're arguing out of perversity, not conviction - such is valuable, and i did have to think for a minute. I agree that lateral thinking can be productive.

At no point did I say anything was "cost-free" or even make any reference to cost. It's extremely rare for the cost of an action to be at all relevant to its morality.

> Someone brave attempts to jump onto the moving trolley, risking their own neck

This is a completely different problem. The whole point of the trolley problem is to attempt to justify the sacrifice of the few for the good of the many.

The entire framing is about other people dying, not whether or not you would sacrifice yourself.

Spoken like a non-parent.

The real elephant in the room is that 60% of our school shootings are streetside minority violence spilling into schools, not angry white incels mowing down classmates.

As someone from a country where neither happens, I don't think this distinction matters a lot.

It does if you're looking to solve the problem at the root, rather than treat the symptoms.

According to UNICEF, globally, Diarrhea causes 444k deaths of children under 5 or ~1200 per day.

Globally, 1.2 million people (all ages) die of diarrhea every year.

India accounts for 120k deaths of children under 4 or roughly one fourth of global D related deaths or 328 deaths per day.

Assuming a similar ratio across all ages, India must account for 300k D related deaths every year of roughly 820 deaths. Not great (obviously) but at least it only accounts for 1/4 of all D deaths, not 1/3rd.

Edit - worth pointing out that India has 1.4B out of 8B humans globally or a little more than 1/6th.

https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-health/diarrhoeal-diseas...

https://www.joghr.org/article/75428-evaluating-india-s-inten...

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