The Good Place creator: "This is basically the Trolley Problem, and Trump is taking the worst possible approach"

Twitter

"The Trolley Problem is fun, and maddening, because there's no good answer," Michael Schur said in a lengthy Twitter thread in applying one of his show's most famous episodes in reaction to the president's intention to end the coronavirus quarantine early. "You're on a trolley and the breaks fail," tweeted Schur. "There are five people on a track that will be smooshed. Should you pull a level and switch tracks? If you do, one guy on the other track gets smooshed. The actual philosophical concepts aren't as important right now as the dilemma itself. It's supposed to be hard. Either way, you're on a trolley that smooshes someone and that stinks. If there were an easy answer, it wouldn't be a 'problem.' It would be the Fun Trolley Puzzle! Trump wants us to think about it like this: The five people on the track we're on are human lives. The one guy on the other track represents the next 2-3 months of the American economy. Trump wants us to stay on this track, smoosh a bunch of people, and save the economy. But here's the thing. In this variation of the Trolley Problem, smooshing the 5 guys does not save the guy on the other track. In this 'virus' version, smooshing all those guys means the virus spreads everywhere and people are terrified and everything collapses....."