I'm sure you know the train question. If a train is going along and the conductor sees a child on the rails, but can change rails to another track, but that one has five. What do you do?
The actual answer is changing tracks has the train going slow so it doesn't derail. I have had family in the train engineering business for generations. So the actual answer is, the brakes you're going slow enough to stop easily.
I realized that yesterday while watching some old Doctor Who near a train station.
Anyway, the reason why I bring it up is I am arguing with someone that the answer is there, but not given by the original question. Also, no one thought to ask anyone in the train industry. I looked the guy up, and he's a lefty. It makes me realize that much of our society is based on the idea of false choices. There is always another answer, but the media and government act as if there is no alternatives. Then we make sure to ignore all evidence pointing to alternatives. This is society, trying to make a choice while the train stops on its own.
I'm saying my family has actually worked and dealt with these issues and already have safety parameters prepped.
Did you even read the Wikipedia article? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem
You will notice right away that in the definition of they hypothetical problem the trolley is a "runaway trolley"; that is there is no conductor or driver on board. Shouting at it won't help, as there is no one there to hear you. You will also notice that the bystander doesn't have a magical "Trolley Breaks Turn On" Switch to pull. Just the one that will divert the trolley.
The point is to construct a series of situations involving morality and personal responsibility and then discuss the ethics of each course of action.
There is a large body of thought that has come from this set of thought experiments.
Did you know that Albert Einstein constructed thought experiments? The Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment is actually making a point about the interaction between quantum scale interactions and Newtonian scale objects, like a cat.
Refusing to interact with the hypothetical thought experiment just means you don't actually understand what it is for, or you don't like what it tells you about yourself.
Yes, there are false dichotomies. Yes, it is a strict logical fallacy to present on in an argument. Yes, people who argue in bad faith do this all the time. No a hypothetical situation as the basis of a thought experiment isn't one of those.