One issue that I didn't see mentioned in the article or any of the comments so far, is that all these kids who got into Ivy league schools saw themselves as overachievers / received lots of praise relative to their peers while in high school. But once you get into a top school, everyone there is like that and you are no longer special, you are just average compared to your peers.
You might have been then top student in your city/state, but when you are suddenly surrounded by top students from your _entire country_ it is statistically unlikely that you would be the best. That ought to be demoralizing to a lot of young adults whose entire sense of self-worth has been riding on being the best at academia/sports/whatever.
Like somebody else has noted, the trolley problem exemplifies that people assign different weight multipliers to proactive action vs inaction, instead of strictly comparing the direct expectation of both outcomes. Two real life applications of this that I find interesting are:
* Tech company employees who choose not to sell their vested RSUs (inaction) as opposed to selling them and diversifying into other investments such as index funds (action) even though the latter is economically more correct.
* Members of the general public who refused to receive the COVID vaccine (inaction) as opposed to getting vaccinated (action). In their minds, the risk of getting injured due to vaccine side effects is incorrectly weighted more than the risk of developing complications from COVID, because the former would be a consequence of a conscious action (i.e. "pulling the lever") as opposed to doing nothing (letting the trolley go down the default path of getting sick).
If anybody is interested in exploring this line in a virtual 3D environment, there is a standalone simulator game for the U7 line that was released by TML-Studios 10-ish years ago, and it's available on steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/283600/World_of_Subways_2...
You can drive the entire line in the game and get out and walk around each station in a first person view. IIRC the individual architectural details of each stop are pretty well modelled, and keeping the train on schedule and stopping at the right stop at each platform is a fun challenge.
Actually, it does work well! In my local Buy Nothing group, and I assume in others as well, people just leave stuff out on their porch at the arranged time, so that no physical contact is made except through the item. In that sense it's no more or less risky than delivery services or curbside pick-up at stores.
You might have been then top student in your city/state, but when you are suddenly surrounded by top students from your _entire country_ it is statistically unlikely that you would be the best. That ought to be demoralizing to a lot of young adults whose entire sense of self-worth has been riding on being the best at academia/sports/whatever.