trolley-realism
Explanation
This comic is a riff on the famous "trolley problem" in moral philosophy. The classic trolley problem presents a stark ethical dilemma: a trolley is heading toward five people, and you can divert it to a track where it will kill only one person. It is designed to be a clean thought experiment about utilitarian versus deontological ethics.
In this comic, the scenario is reframed as "the realistic version of the trolley problem." A person is standing and reading a sign that says: "You are in a trolley. By altering the course of the trolley you can reduce overall harm. However, it would cause you mild inconvenience and anyway you're only half paying attention because something just happened on your phone."
The caption reads: "Somehow the realistic version of the trolley problem was far more distressing."
The joke is that real-world moral situations are rarely as clear-cut as the classic trolley problem. In reality, people often have the ability to reduce harm through small actions, but they don't because it would be mildly inconvenient, or because they are distracted by trivial things like their phones. This version is "more distressing" because it describes the way most people actually behave — passively allowing harm through inattention and comfort-seeking rather than facing a dramatic binary choice. It is a commentary on everyday moral apathy and how the real ethical failures in life are mundane rather than dramatic.