Lesser-known trolley problem variations

Putting a stake in the popular philosophy thought exercise.

The Time Traveler
 

There’s an out of control trolley speeding towards a worker. You have the ability to pull a lever and change the trolley’s path so it hits a different worker. The different worker is actually the first worker ten minutes from now.
 

The Cancer Caper
 

There’s an out of control trolley speeding towards four workers. Three of them are cannibalistic serial killers. One of them is a brilliant cancer researcher. You have the ability to pull a lever and change the trolley’s path so it hits just one person. She is a brilliant cannibalistic serial killing cancer researcher who only kills lesser cancer researchers. 14% of these researchers are Nazi-sympathizers, and 25% don’t use turning signals when they drive. Speaking of which, in this world, Hitler is still alive, but he’s dying of cancer.
 

The Suicide Note
 

There’s an out of control trolley speeding towards a worker. You have the ability to pull a lever and change the trolley’s path so it hits a different worker. The first worker has an intended suicide note in his back pocket but it’s in the handwriting of the second worker. The second worker wears a T-shirt that says PLEASE HITME WITH A TROLLEY, but the shirt is borrowed from the first worker.
 

And so on. I'm not really sure what I can learn from the trolley problem, but I'm uncomfortable that the most common version always involves an fat guy. In fact, it's just referred to as The fat man problem!

Love letter to Point Break

There is absolutely nothing about Point Break that is not wonderful.  Even the bad parts (there are no bad parts).  You can watch this movie with anyone.  Your brother.  Your boyfriend.  Your crappy ex-boyfriend.  Your friends (all friends, over twenty years of your life).  Your students.  Maybe not your mother.  But maybe your mother-in-law.
 

...
 

But, this is not really what the movie is about.  Point Break is the most searing kind of love story—a love story in which its lovers only know in a very benighted way that they are in a love story.  Johnny Utah falls in love twice in the film.  First with his avatar, Tyler, a tiny, homuncular, foul-mouthed version of himself (played by Lori Petty).  Or, maybe the other love comes first—Johnny’s love for Bodhi (they call him the Bodhisattva, played with loose-jointed abandon by Patrick Swayze), the Zen-lite leader of a fierce gang of surfers. (Spoiler, he also leads the Ex-Presidents.  As Ronald Reagan).  You know that Johnny Utah has fallen in love with Bodhi when he chases him (in Reagan costume) down a series of narrow Los Angeles back-alleys, only to finally catch up with him in a drainage ditch. 
 

Leaping into the ditch, Johnny lands awkwardly on his bum knee (football) and collapses in agony to the ground.  At that moment, he catches Bodhi’s eye, small, pig-like and afraid-slash-defiant, through the Reagan mask and, ahem, unloads (his gun) furiously into the bland, grey Los Angeles sky.  Never mind that the sky is rarely bland in Los Angeles, this is the part of the movie that is the most realistic.  This is how love, when it’s frustratingly unrequited, feels.  Like you’re shooting bullet after bullet into a blank, low sky.
 

A profession of love to Point Break. Short, sweet. A love story.

Be the side(s) in your multi-sided market

Anyone who's tried to start a multi-sided market business (the most common being a two-sided marketplace, like eBay, with buyers and sellers) knows one of the first major challenges is the chicken-and-egg problem. In order to attract sellers, you need buyers, but in order to attract buyers, you need sellers. On a dating service, the two sides are obvious. And so on.

How to get out of this infinite loop of emptiness? Kickstart things by being one or more of the sides in your multi-sided market. In other words, fake it til you make it.

Seeding and Weeding
 

Dating services simulate initial traction by creating fake profiles and conversations. Users who come to the site see some activity and are incentivized to stay on. Marketplace sites may also show fake activity to attract buyers and sellers.
 

Seeding Demand
 

In the book, Paypal Wars, Eric M. Jackson talks about how PayPal grew a base of sellers who accepted PayPal by creating demand for the service among buyers. When Paypal figured that eBay was their key distribution platform, they came up with an ingenious plan to simulate demand. They created a bot that bought goods on eBay and then, insisted on paying for it using PayPal. Not only did sellers come to know about the service, they rushed onto it as it already seemed to be getting popular. The fact that it was way better than every other payment mechanism on eBay only helped repeated usage.
 

Other great war stories and tips within.

How to be Elon Musk

In response to the Quora thread “How can I be as great as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Richard Branson?” Elon Musk's ex-wife Justine offered this great response.

Extreme success results from an extreme personality and comes at the cost of many other things. Extreme success is different from what I suppose you could just consider 'success', so know that you don't have to be Richard or Elon to be affluent and accomplished and maintain a great lifestyle. Your odds of happiness are better that way. But if you're extreme, you must be what you are, which means that happiness is more or less beside the point. These people tend to be freaks and misfits who were forced to experience the world in an unusually challenging way. They developed strategies to survive, and as they grow older they find ways to apply these strategies to other things, and create for themselves a distinct and powerful advantage. They don't think the way other people think. They see things from angles that unlock new ideas and insights. Other people consider them to be somewhat insane. 
 

Be obsessed.
 

Be obsessed.
 

Be obsessed. 
 

If you're not obsessed, then stop what you're doing and find whatever does obsess you. It helps to have an ego, but you must be in service to something bigger if you are to inspire the people you need to help you  (and make no mistake, you will need them). That 'something bigger' prevents you from going off into the ether when people flock round you and tell you how fabulous you are when you aren't and how great your stuff is when it isn't. Don't pursue something because you "want to be great". Pursue something because it fascinates you, because the pursuit itself engages and compels you. Extreme people combine brilliance and talent with an *insane* work ethic, so if the work itself doesn't drive you, you will burn out or fall by the wayside or your extreme competitors will crush you and make you cry. 
 

The whole thing is great. However, if you're reading this, perhaps you already have no chance.

They are unlikely to be reading stuff like this. (This is *not* to slam or criticize people who do; I love to read this stuff myself.) They are more likely to go straight to a book: perhaps a biography of Alexander the Great or Catherine the Great* or someone else they consider Great. Surfing the 'Net is a deadly timesuck, and given what they know their time is worth -- even back in the day when technically it was not worth that -- they can't afford it.

Game theory of thrones

Peter Antonioni uses game theory to analyze the situation in Westeros to see if he can determine who will end up on the Iron Throne.

Game theory doesn’t look at behaviour so much as it looks at outcomes, assuming that people will choose the highest payoff if they can.

Martin even helps on a couple of occasions by spelling out those payoffs. Advising Joffrey, the fearsome Tywin Lannister gives a great example of what to do in a repeated game:
 

Joffrey, when your enemies defy you, you must serve them steel and fire. When they go to their knees, however, you must help them back to their feet. Elsewise no man will ever bend the knee to you.
 

This is a pretty good distillation of a what game theorists call tit-for-tat. If you start off with equal participants in a repeated game, the best overall strategies combine punishing transgression with forgiveness; there are variants, but all of them get better results than “all or nothing” punishment strategies such as the grim trigger.
 

Tywin’s strategy works in this case because it assumes a capability for punishment. In advising Joffrey, he’s not telling him how to gain the Iron Throne but how to hang on to it. The equilibrium stays stable as long as the Throne can dominate all of the potential competitors, as Aegon I could with his dragons. Then, rebellion is easily put down, and whatever the consequence to the smallfolk of Westeros, at least they don’t get the kind of devastation inflicted on the Riverlands by the War of the Five Kings.
 

The strategic maneuvering and statecraft are the most intriguing aspects of Game of Thrones. I'm less interested in the economics or religion, though I was amused by this proposal for a central bank in Westeros.

Overall, the rulers, religions, and other institutions of the known world all seem to lack the fundamental characteristics necessary to function as a central bank of Westeros. The difficulty of creating long lasting, independent, and benevolent institutions, I would argue, is why the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros use a commodity currency and lack monetary policy. But I don’t think a central bank in Westeros is impossible. In fact, there is one institution in the realm that does have these characteristics and could potentially serve as a central bank: the Night’s Watch.
 

The watch operates independently of the crown, has existed for thousands of years, and is dedicated to the public good. The longevity of the Watch is undebatable, as it was reportedly founded 8,000 years before the time of Game of Thrones.   Their staunch independence is evidenced by the nuetrality they maintained during the rebellion that unseated the Targaryens. The Watch’s military might ensures they can maintain that independence. Their dedication to the public good is seen in the mission of the Watch, which is the protection of the Seven Kingdoms.
 

Members of the watch currently serve in one of three groups: Rangers, Builders, and Stewards. It’s easy to imagine adding Economists as a fourth group, and adding price stability and full employment to oath that all members must swear to. Public acceptance would likely require the crown mandating that Night’s Watch currency be accepted as legal tender. But after that, the Night’s Watch could independently determine the money supply and even conduct monetary policy.
 

Sawmell Tarly, Westeros Fed Reserve Chairman?