NationStates Jolt Archive

Alright, I am told that this is done often on many boards, but apparently not so much on NS. The point is to give a certain scenario, mine is:

Would you save your house from a fire or all of your neighbor's houses?

(If you save your house, the others burn, if you save the houses of your neighbors then yours burns!)

The next person responds and explains why they did what they did, and perhaps gives a dillema of their own, for example:

Would you rather have the cure for cancer or become so rich that you'd have so much money that you could not physically spend it in two lifetimes?

Again, someone responds and hopefully gives a dillema of their own... you get the idea! So answer my dillemas!

This kind of stuff should be posted in the General forum.

well if it gets moved so be it, i always loved these in philosophy classes, until i bugged my teacher for arguing with them.

my question re: E's dilemma is, do i know that saving my house will mean the others burn down? is there anyone else in my house, or something of unique value that isn't in other houses?

as for my dilemma, let's start with the classic utilitarian dilemma:

you are visiting a remote village in south america and you, in a stroke of bad luck, walk in on a government death squad (trained at the School of the Americas) about to execute ten rebels. the captain of the death squad is so enthralled to have an audience he gives you an option. you can kill one man, and if you do so the others will be set free and pardoned, but if you don't all ten men will die.

all ten men are essentially identical, all have families, no one is retarded, none is more or less righteous than his peers. do you kill one man or not?

kill one but let the ten of them decide who

I agree...partly. I'd kill one, but it is up for me to decide which one. Since more than likely all ten will die anyways.

yes, but WHY would you do it? also, the dilemma is that you have to choose, not one of the ten guys.

I would ask for one to volunteer.

As for my question, all houses are identical, with the small exception that your house is... well your property while the others are the property of your neighbors. If you save their houses then you can save all of them (lets say there are ten houses total, so you'd save the other nine, but yours would burn to the ground!) If you choose to save your house then yours will survive unscathed but ALL nine other houses will burn to the ground!

As for your question, there is no need to save anyone. I know little or actually nothing of what crimes these rebels supposedly committed and since all ten are identical (more or less,) no one deserves to live more than anyone else. Therefore they all die!

I'd kill the retarded one...