The Rise of the Sociopath Economy
The new trolley problem
You’ve probably heard of the trolley problem. It was invented back in 1967 as part of a constipated Catholic theological argument about whether it’s okay for a pregnant woman to abort her baby to save her own life.
The original version of the trolley problem had a train bearing down on 5 people. If you did nothing, five people would die OR you could divert the train and save their lives, at the cost of being personally responsible for killing someone.
Eventually, it moved on to pushing the victim in front of a train to save those five lives, and over time, it took on a life of its own with all sorts of funny scenarios being shoehorned into this model:
