hypothetical button-pressing murders

[belenen]

icon: "bloodcurdling (photo of me w wide-eyed snarling wild expression wearing "Red Queen" makeup: searingly red lips, darkened pointed eyebrows, black eyeliner, deep red & black eyeshadow accented with gold & silver, and black-outlined silver hearts & diamonds with red shadows on my cheeks)"
prompt from webgirluk: Imagine you are placed in a room with two

Comments

[webgirluk]

Oh my goodness, I feel anxiety after reading this thread as I did not expect it to be such a loaded question, even if it's what I was asked for, when you consider many choose a new phone or a healthy dinner over helping more the starving anyhow. I did not use the word *murder* in the original question anyhow. I am sorry if I offended people in the way I worded it.

[webgirluk]

No I realised you were most likely not offended by it. I was just doing a gasp and wtf at you over other replies as you're a friend lol and also to say no not a community, I just asked Belenen a challenging question for them on their journal that was difficult to answer or I would find it and they replied fine with a deep response.

[bobby1933]

These ethical dilemma games are bullshit and set us up for dangerous mindsets. Of course there is always a third option (or more if one is creative). It is my finger, and i hope i would not use it to press either button. If the person in charge of the experiment chooses to kill me, so be it. But i should not be a party to either murder or suicide. I do believe in self defense however, so the experimenter had better not get too close.

[belenen]

Well, I see the intention of the question as a means to help illustrate how a person perceives their life worth relative to others. I thought it was a useful thought experiment.

[bobby1933]

I grant your point, but i have heard of such dilemmas being used in high school classes where students were penalized gradewise for refusing to choose.

[medesign]

id rather just walk away from the buttons.

[belenen]

Sure, but that doesn't answer the question!

[medesign]

its hard to pick what is less selfish. i feel killing yourself is selfish as it can cause trauma and pain to those that love you. however saving yourself and killing two people close to you would be painful as well. for me i guess i would pick button b, i have lost many close people in my life and though it would be a devestating thing i think i would rather carry the sadness then to have others have to take it .

[ragnarok_08]

I would only kill people who I was certain were harming the world by being alive.

My sentiments exactly.

[belenen]

*nods, points to my eyes, then your eyes, then my eyes* you get it.

[call_me_katya]

Thing is, in the rules of this question I would have to press button A and kill myself eventually anyway. I mean, I'm assuming you can never just leave the room? So in knowing I'm facing sudden death I actually think I might press B a lot, not to save myself [as I'm dying anyway] but in a half-assed attempt to save the population problem? I mean, as I understand it even if I pressed B frequently the birth rate would still outstrip my pressing, but that's what I would be trying to do. For the Earth's resources.

[belenen]

that is a totally unique take on it that I hadn't even considered! I love the way your brain works <3