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The lengths to which people will go to defend the #TrolleyProblem are both hilarious and terrifying. Bonus points if they accuse you of "not understanding thought experiments."
No, sweetie, I understand fine. I just don't want to be part of your circle jerk.
@FeralRobots exactly this. And they pretend philosophical thought experiments like the trolley problem are in the same class as scientific thought experiments like Einstein's "what would the world look like if I rode on a beam of light?", when they're just not. Drives me quietly nuts. Or not so quietly, as the case may be.
@medigoth I did a lot of reading in philosophy of mind for a while in the late 80s, & the way they were used there drove me similarly batty.
@medigoth
Went to a Philosophy dept seminar once; prof I'd studied with was giving a paper involving a thought experiment (phil of mind, '80s). Physics prof in the audience started grilling him about thought experiements - basically: how is this an experiment? where's the data? how is it falsifiable? etc.
At the time I felt he was missing the point but 28 years later I'm a bit more sympathetic. People treat them as though there's rigor involved just because the word 'experiment' is invoked.