alignment is bad and you should feel bad

[Florian]

The trolley problem is bad, and you should feel bad for either bringing it up, or engaging in a debate about it, instead of just dismissing it as bunk and moving on.

What it actually tells us about human morality is:
- some people mistakenly believe stupid hypotheticals tell us something about humanity morality
- some people mistakenly believe a contrived experiment will tell them something about their own, or another specific humans, morality
- some people are more than willing to let themselves get sucked into the morass of a discussion on a pointless hypothetical, especially in an online forum debate.

Nah, debating the "Trolley Problem" in all of its forms (which really don't matter) actually has some merits. Either one has a grasp on what morality (and the interplay with law and punishment) is and can "solve" it, or they're stuck debating the individual actions and results and try to weight these against each other, without the greater context of actual morality. So what it does is separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to having a serious discussion.

Even when used in its harshest form (Decide: You kill 1 or I kill 5, you have 3 seconds), it´s senseless to discuss the action before discussing the fundamental morality to weight the action. This, and the mix-up that follows, makes alignment discussions at once worthwhile (people reveal a lot about themselves) and totally fruitless.