By Molly Breckman ‘23 & Ben Glickman ‘23, Humor Editors, and Evan Breckman ‘25, Humor Writer

This past Wednesday, Philo-Psych Club held an extended meeting in order to finally solve the infamous trolley problem for good. They used seven students, kidnapping four and including three volunteers who needed community service hours. 

The students tied six of them on one trolley track, tied another person to the other track, and left the last person to make the big decision. Luckily, Mike Solomon’s ‘26 dad is a trolley conductor [thanks Mike]! 

The experiment went as planned, with sophomore Rebecca Finkelstein ‘25 in charge of deciding between letting the track run over one person or intervening to save six. Finkelstein accepted the job under the condition that world hunger was ended — for real this time.

They reenacted the experiment, and surprisingly, Rebecca decided to let the track run over the 5 students, leaving the club’s Utilitarians flabbergasted and the Relativists elated; however, every teacher was horrified. 

It was only after the catastrophe that the trolley stopped. The trolley, carrying many of the best and most important students to esteemed extracurriculars, did not start moving for another 16 minutes as they had to clean various unimportant limbs out of the engine. 

“This really sucks,” says Fred Flerby ‘26, “I’m gonna be late to my sister’s jury duty and my secret sister’s sentencing and my even more secret sister’s funeral. Honestly, it wasn’t gonna be a good day for any of us. Thanks, Finkelstein!”

One of the many aspiring surgeons on the trolley, Francisca Bologna ‘24, was incredibly excited by the event. She said, “I was on my way to tell my parents I don’t want to go to medical school. People just don’t get hurt like they used to. The business has been on a steady decline ever since they cured polio. When I saw the people tied to the track, I was begging them to pick the track with more people.”

Needless to say, this experiment was awesome! We hope to see many more like it in the future from Newark Academy’s Philo-Psych Club. Here’s hoping they do the  Stanford Prison Experiment.