logoalt Hacker News

throwup238yesterday at 11:33 PM1 replyview on HN

All you have to do is flip the tortoise back over.

> You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, it’s crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?


Replies

Lerctoday at 1:19 AM

The point of the test is to see if the subject has had life experience enough that they could restrain their own empathy.

Wanting to flip the tortoise back over was why he failed the test.