The dilemna thread

All the train activity in Skyfall, particularly the runaway one in the tube made me think...

Assume you are a railway track controller.

You see a runaway train heading into a crowd of 30+ people. You have a choice of letting it smash into them, or rushing to control where you can divert it into another track, where 10 workers (unaware of situation) are working on the line.

Would you sacrifice 10 to say 30?

I asked this to a female friend who's also an attorney. She said making a conscious decision (on your part as controller) to switch tracks could amount to manslaughter.

What would you do?

Someone once said the needs of the many outweigh that of the few and Trekkisms aside I think the few perhaps are sacrificed here. Assuming say there's still a driver in the cab of the runaway train (I'm theorising) he could (in theory) sound his horn repeatedly buying some time before mowing the workers down. They can jump when they want to as I see sometimes commuting about to London.

Mow them all down.

Largo's Shark wrote:

Mow them all down.

Sounds almost evil coming with your avatar and all :)

Bit of a no-brainer really, regardless of a manslaughter charge, would you really be able to sleep at night knowing that you could have spared so many lives?

On a related note:

You're a railway track controller in East Germany, and a circus train has just passed your platform. A moment later you see a Mercedes Benz on the same track catching up to the circus train. Immediately you leap into action, switching the Merc onto another track, so that now it's headed towards an oncoming locomotive.

...the hell?

Does anyone have a logical explanation for that move?

Unless, like the two-wheel stunt in DAF, the shot was inserted because someone noticed that they'd gone from filming the car on the same track to the next track with no explanation as to how it got there, but still...

As to the original moral question:

You sacrafice the rail employees, who are aware of the risks of the job and whose families will be compensated by the company, rather than expose the operators of the line to the publicity and lawsuits brought by the families of the service users who would be killed if you, as track controller, did nothing.

I know it's not as simple as that, but critics on both sides are Monday-morning quarterbacks who think that they would have done the right thing - whatever that is - in the same situation, under the same pressure.

Brooky wrote:

Bit of a no-brainer really, regardless of a manslaughter charge, would you really be able to sleep at night knowing that you could have spared so many lives?

But try telling that to a court that's prosecuting you for making a conscious decision to kill others in the process....

Mrs Aural Sects wrote:

Brooky wrote:

Bit of a no-brainer really, regardless of a manslaughter charge, would you really be able to sleep at night knowing that you could have spared so many lives?

But try telling that to a court that's prosecuting you for making a conscious decision to kill others in the process....

It might have been a conscious decision, but those workers knew the risks. They were paid, insured, and prepared to go out on the tracks each day, knowing full well something could go horribly wrong. Their job was to prevent the kind of accidents that could kill and maim the commuters on the other track in this scenario. They made a sacrifice by proxy.

Wot I said.

AMC Hornet wrote:

On a related note:

You're a railway track controller in East Germany, and a circus train has just passed your platform. A moment later you see a Mercedes Benz on the same track catching up to the circus train. Immediately you leap into action, switching the Merc onto another track, so that now it's headed towards an oncoming locomotive.

...the hell?

Does anyone have a logical explanation for that move?

I cannot believe that having watched OP so many times I have never noticed that. No doubt I will notice that everytime I watch it from now on thanks to you :x

Sorry about that, chief.