Dennis Hopper Would Like To Ask You A Question

Stop me if you’ve heard this before…

You’re barreling downhill on a runaway trolley with five other people: a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker, and two nuns. With red hair. The wind whips across your face as your fellow terrorized passengers scream in terror. You notice an upcoming fork in the tracks and you’re standing next to the lever that will switch the trolley to the other track which levels out and would slow down the trolley to a safe stop.

But wait! A man is standing on that other track. If you switch tracks, you’ll kill him. Your hand is on the lever. The other passengers are frantically smacking into one another as they alternate between praying and cursing. What do you do? Do you pull the lever and kill one person to save five?

But what if the man is the Dalai Lama? Or a policeman? Or a grandmother? Or your grandmother?

Or what if the man was a murderer, you may think. Why is he wearing a trench coat and what’s with the black handlebar moustache that he’s twisting? And why is he hunched over? What if he ties little kittens to railroad tracks? Or worse, this little guy?

Pop quiz, hotshot. What do you do?

(photo courtesy of Mike S. of Mike’s Mixed Memories. The goat picture along with others pics of Glacier Park can be found here )