The Trolley Problem in popular culture: Torchwood Series 3

It annoys me how people on TV or in movies who have to make tough, unpopular decisions are almost never shown to be right - there always turns out to be a deus ex machina or other third way out. From a spoiler given in another comment here it seems like this is yet another case of that - not that that's surprising when RTD is writing.

Lesswrongers will be encouraged to learn that the Torchwood characters were rationalists to a man and woman - there was little hesitation in agreeing to the 456's demands.

Are you joking? They weren't rationalists, they were selfish. There is a distinction. They were looking after there own asses and those of their families (note that the complicit politicians specifically excluded their own family's children from selection, regardless of 'worth').

children - or units as they were plausibly referred to

What do you mean by 'plausibly'? They were referred to as units in order to dehumanize them. Because the people referring to the children as such recognized that what they were doing was abhorrently wrong, and so had to mask the fact, even to themselves, by obscuring the reality of what they were discussing: the wholesale slaughter of their fellows.

... governments paying attention to round up the orphans, the refugees and the unloved - for the unexpectedly rational reason of minimising the suffering of the survivors

That's laughable. It had nothing to do with minimizing suffering, that was a rationalization. They were doing it for the same reason any government targets the vulnerable; because there are few willing to protect them and argue for them. It was pretty clear if you watched the show that the children being targeted were hardly 'unloved'.

You can't consider the scenario without considering the precedent that it would set. The notion that there are wide swaths of the population -- children, who've never even had the opportunity to truly prove themselves or do much of anything -- who are completely without worth and sacrificeable at the whim of the government is untenable in a society that values things like individuality, personal autonomy, the pursuit of happiness and, well, human life! They would not be saving humanity, they would be mutilating it.

The poster failed to mention that the sacrificed children were being sentence to an eternal fate which worse than death.

And there is a difference between the actions of the government and the actions of the main character. One of them was fighting the monsters. The others were the monster's business partners.

Edit: major plot spoiler in this comment.

You miss out a major point of the story, that those who agree to sacrifice others' children are dishonourable, and that this matters; and that the main character, who sacrifices only one child to save all the rest (his grandchild) suffers terribly for this.

I would not argue from fictional evidence, but the storytellers seem keen to point this out. Also, when deciding to sacrifice children, all possible other courses of action must be eliminated first.

Edit: for me, the main interest of the trolley problem is the emotional response. Would you kill one to save five, if saving the five was certain if you killed the one, and impossible otherwise? Er, yes, I hope so, though I think such a situation, with such certainty, is unlikely. How do you feel about trolley problems generally? Horror and disgust. Then I see that even if I am not going to be in that situation, I may be in situations where I must behave rationally, and Stoically fight down emotional responses.

There have been many similar situations historically - food supply was more or less equal to food demand, so if food supply got suddenly lower for whatever reason, there wasn't enough food for everyone, and some people had to die.

The usual algorithm was that the poor people would be priced out of the food market, until enough of them died to restore Malthusian equilibrium. Most of the dead would be children.

How is that morally different from the situation described in the post?

What if the children sacrificed are the ones who would expected to quickly die anyway? Young cancer patients, for instance, or any chld born with a defect that would have led to a very early death without modern medical care.

Their suffering would be diminished since it wouldn't last as long, and as a dark "plus", their parents were already facing the prospect of the child dying young.

I didn't see the show so I don't know if there was a caveat saying they had to be healthy children. Incidentally did the aliens describe the fate worse than death at all? Is it torture, or more like Borg-assimilation?

"Answer: in a UK-centric political twist they chose those attending the schools with the poorest exam results."

Wait, what? Why not just go with those with the lowest scores period? Why use an indirect test like that (which probably has as much to do with socioeconomic status anyway)?

What a lot of comments (and I was worried that it was all too trivial. Lesson: never underestimate the power of Dr Who) Thanks all.

@Nanani - yes, indeed, the initial round up of 600 or so was composed of waifs and strays like that, inc the ill. But when the demand of 10% was acceded to there wasn't time to handpick

@SharedPhoenix - I agree and a strength of this story was that was no easy way out. The scenario was played out right to the end with the main character forced to make a rational sacrifice. OK, he found a way for it to be jsut one child, but there was still a choice.

@mikem - I disagree. Yes there were selfish cabinet members simply looking out for their own (this was dealt with in several contexts - there was an assumption that the interests of one's own child is beyond the limit of human rationality) however the decision to accede to this, and actually make this a policy was taken by the prime minister for rational reasons. He recognised that unless he spared the children of the decision makers and enforcers, there would be no decisions and no enforcing. It was purely rational. (And 'units' yes I meant that it was a plausible that such a sinister euphemism would be employed)

@jwdink - yes, I was surprised they took that route (the rational give-in rather than fight to death) in TV-Land it was an unusual decision. That's why I wrote the post about it :-)

That's horrible. They should've fought the space monsters in an all out war. Better to die like that than to give up your dignity. I'm surprised they took that route on the show.