“Pulling the Lever in a Subway Problem” by jefftk

Eleven years ago I was in a variant of the classic moral dilemma. I wrote about it on Reddit at the time: Hi! I'm the person who pulled the brake. What I saw: The train starts pulling out of the station. Someone begins shouting that their arm is caught in the door. I look over, see that the door is closed somewhere between their elbow and wrist, but it's not clear exactly where with their jacket on. People, including me, start shouting to pull the brake, but no one does. The train keeps accelerating, and it looks to me like once we get to the end of the station they're going to lose their hand. I get to the back of the car and pull the brake. After the train stops, the man manages to pull his arm into the train, with his bag still on the outside. If he'd let go of his bag I think he would have been able to do this sooner, but he was panicking as I suspect most people would with their arm half out of the train like that. I was pretty shaken up, and didn't [...] --- First published: November 10th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/FQNywBApGMfDH7GEy/pulling-the-lever-in-a-subway-problem --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. --- Images from the article: Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.