Who will Manifold run over in the Time Traveling Trolley Problem?
Standard
78
Ṁ28k
resolved Mar 7
Resolved
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Adolf Hitler during the Berlin Olympics in 1936 instead of Jim Jones, three hours before he kills Congressman Leo Ryan and instructs his cult to drink poisoned Flavor Aid?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Donald Trump, right before he starts his 2016 campaign instead of Ronald Reagan, as he lays his hand on the Bible to take the oath of office in 1981?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Elon Musk, immediately before his purchase of Twitter instead of Sam Altman, right before he joined OpenAI?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Franz Ferdinand, the day before he was killed instead of Mary, the mother of Jesus right before her 13th birthday?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Fritz Haber in 1894 before he creates the Haber process to manufacture ammonia, instead of Leo Szilard as he had the idea of the nuclear chain reaction in 1933?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Gavrilo Princip as he is about to kill Ferdinand d'Este instead of Stanislav Petrov, Soviet nuclear early warning officer in 1983?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Genghis Khan in 1206, before his conquests in Asia instead of Joseph Stalin on 20th January 1924, the day before Lenin died?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Henrietta Lacks in 1951 instead of Kim Jong Un in 2000?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over John Wilkes Booth in 1865 instead of Alan Turing in 1936?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over JRR Tolkien in 1930 instead of Pope Innocent III right before calling the 4th Crusade?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Karl Marx in 1847 while writing The Communist Manifesto instead of Jimmy Carter, on September 30th 2023 (one day before turning into a centenarian)?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Lee Harvey Oswald, but it's just *after* he shot Kennedy instead of Christopher Columbus in 1492, just before he sails the ocean blue?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Muhammad in 613, right before he began preaching instead of instead of Martin Luther right before he writes his 95 Thesis?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Neil Armstrong, just as he steps foot on the moon in 1969 instead of the operators of the Time Traveling Trolley before they board the vehicle, creating a time paradox?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Osama Bin Laden in 1971 instead of Mitochondrial Eve just before she has her first child?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Rosa Parks in 1955 instead of Steve Jobs in 1976?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over the first human to step foot on Mars before they do so instead of Stephen hawking at his time travelers party in 2009?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Vasily Arkhipov onboard Soviety B-29 submarine before refusing to authorize the launch of nucealear missiles in 1962 instead of Tom Brady right after the tuck call rule?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019 instead of George W. Bush in 2001?
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_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Xi Jinping, during his visit at the White House (Obama/Biden), February 2012 instead of Mao Zedong right before the long march?

If someone is run over, their name resolves Yes. If they aren't run over, their name resolves No.

Each name has been randomly paired with another name, and presented as a poll. These polls will resolve N/A, and all mana you spend on them will be returned to you. But at market close, I will tally everyone who holds Yes and No shares in each poll and use this to determine who is run over by the Time Trolley. The individual names then resolve Yes or No accordingly.

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The Fiction:

You are the conductors of the Time Trolley. There's been a terrible accident, and you've been marooned in a distant timeline. 

The only way home is via a branching series of Time Tracks through nearby timelines. Unfortunately, each Time Track necessarily runs right through a historically significant figure at a historically significant time. If the trolley runs over someone, they suddenly die of an aneurysm and that timeline has to deal with the consequences.

As the Time Trolley conductors, you must choose which tracks to take and therefore which historical figures will survive in those timelines.

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The Mechanics:

In this market, you can submit significant historical figures and the moment they will die if run over. Limit of 4 submissions per user.

When I think we have enough options, I will randomize a time of day to close this market to submissions and then randomly pair up the submissions. I will then create a poll for each pairing, asking who the trolley should hit. Exact randomization and poll format is TBD, but will be announced in advance.

I will make only small trades in this market, to show support for submissions but keep myself impartial. This is an experimental format, and I may make minor adjustments to the rules if anyone has good suggestions.

You are encouraged to argue the merits of running over each person or not in the comments, to try to win support for your bets.

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By ONE MANA @Arky !!!

Alright, that's the market! I might make a follow-up putting the survivors against each other for a round two? Open to any format suggestions people have, I think this was fun.

@Joshua It's made! I just matched up the survivors in ways I thought would be interesting this time instead of randomizing:

@Joshua The interesting matching is so much better than the random one ❤ Thanks for putting these up.

@Lion Thanks! Some of them are tough, I've got no idea who to pick between Tolkien and Martin Luthor

@Joshua One guy wrote fantasy stories and the other one made antisemitism in Germany popular and started a few civil wars.

I've a pretty strong opinion on this one.

@Lion Hmmm I should read up more on Luthor I guess

@Lion right, didn't Martin Luther regularly insult the Jews because of the death of Jesus, and say people can't be blamed for killing them because of their blasphemy/rejection of Christ? he was pretty extreme. easy choice.

@shankypanky yes, he was pretty extreme in his views, especially in his later years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_and_antisemitism

to be fair, I don't think everything he did was bad and the civil wars would have probably taken place anyways. But I prefer this option over Tolkien any day.

@Lion I agree that not everything he did or stood for was inherently bad (bold move to stand up to/attack the predominant religion in his era!) and I tend to think civil wars are somewhat unavoidable because of who we are as a species. I find it curious that he was anti-Catholicism and antisemitic but despite his rejection of Islam he still wanted to see translations of the Qu'ran printed and circulated.
I just checked the market to see if there was someone on the run-over-Tolkein side of the argument but alas

@Lion I go to a regular philosophy Meetup and we met last night. interestingly, I have a friend there who is really knowledgeable about history/religion so I told him about these markets, and he would run over Tolkien without hesitation! basically he says even with Luther's clear downsides, he sees a lot more value in the on effects of his contrarianism and the civil wars (though he seems to question the actual impact of Luther's texts on WWII) and that Tolkien "just wrote stories."

@shankypanky I don't mind other opinions, I just have a different one ;) [I think this is why these polls are great; people have different ethics and priorities.]

One important question for me when answering these questions was, as well as for your friend: How would this change the world we live in?

For example, in the Parks/Turing question, I'd choose Parks (if it were impossible to choose suicide). I think Parks is an amazing person with high morals and is a hero. However, as stupid as it sounds, she was historically replaceable. Turing was hard to replace.

The questions about Luther are: Was he replaceable? What would be the outcome? What would be the difference in the world we live in today? Considering his rich sponsors and the reasons behind it (the Catholic Church was way too powerful at this time) and the size of the movement, I'd say he was. (That is my personal interpretation and thesis of history. Everyone is encouraged to disagree.)

The problem with antisemitism in Germany isn't that it was a temporary problem, it is and was an ongoing problem. Germans have a long history regarding this. However, this would be a real deep dive into German history because Germany didn't exist as a country until 1871 and was always more like an umbrella term for principalities that all acted independently and differently.

To end on a positive note: I think the world would be a better place if everyone accepted other religions without any hate and judged people based on their intentions and actions.

@Lion I saw @RobertCousineau yesterday and we talked about this trolley problem as well, and he also has the "definitely Tolkien" perspective. I just sold all my positions in the other market not necessarily because I've changed my mind but because I'm still not entirely settled in my perspective on this one (which surprises me a little, given I obviously think stories > antisemitism).

The arguments I've gotten about Luther were about the on effects of the civil wars and his role in the Protestant reformation, though I'm not qualified to speak in depth about them (I'd love Robert to chime in here if he feels like it).

Related to antisemitism in Germany, I'm curious to read more about Luther's role and who else played a part. He was obviously very vocal in his violent views against the Jews, but was he the first? I don't actually know.

tbh I haven't participated much in this market (and pt2) but it's one of my favourites from my short time here.

Seconding your tag to @PlasmaBallin if they feel like joining this exchange.

@Lion The replacability argument is a pretty good one. Tolkien is sort of inherently unreplacable because no one would have written the stories he wrote if he hadn't have lived. So if Martin Luther was replacable in the sense that someone else would've done something similar even if he had died, then maybe we should go with running him over instead. But then again, if you run over Luther, it will probably prevent Tolkien from ever existing anyway since it would change history from that point on.

The main reason I don't want to run over Luther is because I think religious plurality was important to the development of ideas like freedom of religion and separation of church and state. And before Luther, there wasn't very much religious plurality in the western world - almost everyone belonged to the Catholic Church.

Am I missing something? This should resolve 'no' right? I admit I have a profit motive, but I thought I knew how this worked

@Arcmage7000 Oh geeze wait it's entirely possible I mixed something up, let me double check.

@Arcmage7000 confused me too ha

@Arcmage7000

I believe this is a majority of positions in the poll for running over Musk, so he was correctly run over.

Uhh but separately, I seem to have accidentally resolved one of the polls to yes 🤦

I think I did the rest correctly though?

@Joshua Ahhh, my mistake then, I thought the resolution depended entirely on the poll percentage rather than number of positions. Makes sense to handle it democratically as opposed to plutocratically

_Poll: Should the Time Trolley run over Elon Musk, immediately before his purchase of Twitter instead of Sam Altman, right before he joined OpenAI?

Brutal. I had a feeling. Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@BlueDragon I tried to save you Sam Altman!

@BlueDragon I could be wrong cause I'm new to this, but didn't Altman get more votes than musk? Somehow I won on a musk 'yes' tho

@Lorelai Oh yay! @Joshua‘s clarification above makes it all make sense. Fun market 😊.

1: Changing things that happen before you're born means you almost certainly don't exist

2: The lack of biological/nuclear etc attacks on major cities has been pretty nice and may change in unpredictable ways if things are changed

3: Everett branches

4: factory farming

Really any one of these has the potential to utterly outweigh every other consideration in weird ways, depending on what you value/believe

Most old changes create a completely different world history, and in many of those worlds we don’t get as lucky with atomic bombs. Ig we re probably luckier than average about ai bc hardware is centralized more than would have been expected if we reran history? hmmm