Anything From the Trolley, Dears?
A trot through the exhausting nature of impossible decisions and their value to election marketing.
There comes a time, usually every 2-4 years, when we are faced with a serious decision. You’ve heard it before, in serious circles and meme fiefdoms, a train is barreling down the tracks. A switch in the tracks places the lives of 1 man on one set, and 5 on the other, squarely in your hands.
The decision, on paper at least, is extremely simple. There are many fine rationalities for people to make for either decision: switch the track to willfully squish one, or take no responsibility for the encounter and watch as the train rolls over 5.
Too complicated? Too much conflict? Let’s change that.
4 of the people on the track with 5 were never tied down. They get up and shuffle off. Now it’s one-to-one.
Are you now more concerned with the moral character of the individuals? Your friend Marco hits you on Discord to remind you that one of them was the one who sold you that laced Zaza back in high school that made you see God and hit the Griddy out onto the 405, resulting in a 34-car pile-up, an inordinate amount of medical bills and the loss of the use of your right testicle.
His voice lowers, knowing the gravity of the decision before you in ways you had just begun to comprehend. He whispers, for fear of being overheard…
“But the other one… is literally Hitler”.
You should have guessed it from the sharp military attire and increasingly verbose German profanity coming from track 2. Damn it. You should’ve paid more attention in history class.
One of the many things that makes us unique is the way that we rationalize our decisions. It’s a messy process, and the nature of it is integral to our growth and journey through life. Sometimes, as we work through our thoughts trying to solve a complicated problem or define our reality a bit, we hit snags; bits of information we feel are true that directly butt heads with another, perhaps even more deeply seated belief. This is cognitive dissonance.
Everyone has it, and most of us suffer from it. The ones who don’t range from the downright weird to the outright horrific; they never seem to be burdened by any information that could bring their worldview into question.
It’s not to say that a normal person doesn’t struggle with it. CD can make you irritable, angry, or flat-out awful to be around, frequently in proportion to the importance to you of the information or belief being questioned. Impartial facts questioned by other impartial facts? NBD. Core memories or dogmatic axioms standing challenged by some idiot with paltry evidence? BEGONE HERETIC!
One might say that the absence of cognitive dissonance implies not only the existence of perfect truth but also that the individual in question has a perfect command of it… In a word, omnipotence. Would we even know what this looks like if we saw it? Is it a man or woman in a navy blazer, wrapped in the stars and stripes, blaring into a microphone? What perfect vision do they have for the future of America? A happy-go-lucky guy from Greenbow, Alabama who happens to be offscreen for every major event of the mid to late 20th century? Naw.
I think it might be more like the horrifying and surreal concept of a biblically accurate angel:
Or maybe closer to reading the Necronomicon or an Elder Scroll. Suffice it to say that raw dogging pure truth may drive the average human to catastrophic think-meat implosion (TM).
Maybe this is why humans lean heavily on the heuristic, a simpler code that can be utilized to categorize and judge the world around them without the latent and ever-present risk of spontaneous cranial combustion.
What may have started as a series of rules chosen to protect life, limb, and property back when humanity was still trying to go IPO has certainly evolved into something far larger, scarier, and honestly… FAR more profitable.
Today, the ability to modify the judgment and threat heuristics of another has become insanely popular as a career choice. So cool in fact that you would be completely right to think that they would have some cool name for it, like bailiff, barrister, or barnwright. Nope. We went with “influencer”.
Influencers are just one of the latest trends in the infinite march of those seeking to “market” less and less marketable things. Some things are quite easy to sell… like toilet paper or fentanyl. Some things are harder, like choosing the single person who you want to run the country or direct a runaway train to give a multi-ton hug to.
From a purely academic standard, the decision could be made much more easily, but cherry-picking my rationality and excluding important aspects of the decision doesn’t make for a happy mind. Adding in the other metrics by which we judge quickly turns all outcomes into either horrid solutions or impossible flights of fancy. For example, when faced with the “Trolley Problem” how often are we convinced to switch the tracks to a third set of rails with nobody tied to them? Impossible, they would tell you. You have to run over someone, bro… it’s a canon event.
It feels impossible to choose, our society desperately wants you to see the decision as incredibly simple, black and white, life and death. It never was, and I sincerely doubt it ever will be. This polarizing and aggressive election cycle is nothing new.
, an outstanding writer and very funny individual, spoke about the 1924 New York Governor's race on a recent episode of his podcast “I Might Be Wrong” during which Eleanor Roosevelt, cousin of Theodore Roosevelt Jr., followed him on the campaign trail in a car fitted with a giant paper-mâché teapot. It was an allusion to his role in the Teapot Dome Scandal. She countered his speeches with her own at every campaign stop. This is not new. There are countless references throughout history where we have attempted to make every political campaign seem like a final battle for the Soul Of America (TM).Remember that when you come back from your stressful day at the train switchyard, choosing who lives or dies when the 8-o’clock news runs an emergency headline titled “Beloved Oscar-Winning Hitler Impersonator Crushed by Train, Drug Dealer Faces 25 Years”
Almost nothing in life is a duality. Unless we want to be simpletons and think of everything as black and white. Not even true colorblind people see in just black and white
Definitely agree with the importance of finding that 3rd track. This election is a perfect example of why that is so important. It may be too late this time, but I sense a change coming in how approach future red vs blue conflicts. Fun read. Great work!