If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. -Rush

Huh, every time I hear about the trolley problem it's always "now imagine that instead of pulling the lever, you need to push someone onto the track so the trolley stops after that first collision." Some people would pull the lever but not push someone onto the tracks, and that's where it gets interesting.

Actions vs outcomes right? Like "I didn't murder someone" vs "I did what would cause the least harm".

I may be wrong but it seems like focusing on my own actions as the basis of morality is self-centered in nature. Whereas thinking about the outcome—how the people in the track are affected—is other-centered. Doing nothing seems to seek to avoid judgement of self at the cost of 5 lives. The other seeks to save 5 lives at the cost of actively killing one person.

Though, I suppose, one could wonder what terrible things the latter might choose to do to save many more.

It perhaps shows how successful the trolly experiment has been, playing its part in changing our cultural attitudes as a whole, since its' purpose (lately, I dunno about originally) was to get people to realize exactly what you just said: that choosing to do nothing is still a choice. Sort of a "wake up, sheeple!" message.

Older generations like Boomers and especially Great before that were ignoring climate change and so much else - not having access to the internet, knowledge was more difficult to come by back then.

Today's era involves different struggles, mainly against misinformation, but at least people more often have their eyes open.

Edit: NSFW video version from the TV show The Good Place that adds some new dimensions to the problem: https://youtu.be/DtRhrfhP5b4?si=zI6lV0G_VRhzjz97.:-)

Not the hardest trolley problem, I admit..