A Few Simple Questions

[David Sklansky]

Is it OK to kill 100 random people to save the lives of 1000 random people? What about if to save the 1000 lives it was necessary to pick the 100 randomly from a specific group such as Jews or blacks or the residents of Manchester? What about if the killing of 100 results in only a 30% chance of saving 1000?

[snowden719]

no it's not.

[David Sklansky]

Perhaps you answered this way because I didn't define "kill". Suppose I am talking about redirecting a bomb to a less populace area?

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
Perhaps you answered this way because I didn't define "kill". Suppose I am talking about redirecting a bomb to a less populace area?

[/ QUOTE ]

Droping a bomb is an act of killing people. Redirecting the bomb to a less populated area is an act of saving people.

Stu

No. It's wrong for one person to take away the life of another against their will, if nothing that person did would cause the death of others.

[Darryl_P]

The answers for me are very simple. I value, in order, the lives of the following people:

1) My children
2) Myself and my wife (we are tied)
3) Those members of my race with conservative values
4) Others with conservative values
5) Other members of my race
6) All others

I didn't mention current nation-states as a consideration because those borders have been erected and are being protected by groups with whom I do not identify.

Random lives from the six groups have relative weights of approx. 2000,1000,5,3,1,0 respectively. The first two are not easy to determine and are possibly higher but for the purposes of the question we can work with these numbers.

It's true that the definitions of "conservative" and "race" can lead to fuzziness in some cases, but that doesn't change the overall idea.

Given these weightings the answer becomes an easy calculation. I will always choose whichever has a lower expected loss of life value.

How's that for honesty and political incorrectness?

[Edit]

Note that I am only saying what I would do, not what everyone else should do. If the decision were to be taken by a group of people democratically the most logical would be if everyone did a similar analysis with their own weightings and voted accordingly.

[David Sklansky]

"Given these weightings the answer becomes an easy calculation. I will always choose whichever has a lower expected loss of life value.

How's that for honesty and political incorrectness?"

Which means that you would choose to kill the 100 if your family isn't involved, except in case three if the hundred was picked exclusively from the five point category.

[mackthefork]

[ QUOTE ]
"Given these weightings the answer becomes an easy calculation. I will always choose whichever has a lower expected loss of life value.

How's that for honesty and political incorrectness?"

Which means that you would choose to kill the 100 if your family isn't involved, except in case three if the hundred was picked exclusively from the five point category.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't see how his answer solves anything personally, who would he kill if it was 100 Africans and 1000 Belgians (assuming hes from the US), he values both at zero, I guess his apathy would take over and the Belgians would be obliterated (not an altogether bad thing imo) [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]. Or if his wife and children were involved in the 100, then he would be prepared to condemn the whole population of China to save them.

Mack

[Darryl_P]

[ QUOTE ]
Which means that you would choose to kill the 100 if your family isn't involved, except in case three if the hundred was picked exclusively from the five point category.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd estimate a random group of 1000 chosen from the world's population to have about 1500 points on my scale, which is still higher than the 500 in the group of 100 you mention, so if you are asking about the 30% probability case then I say yes, but if it's the 100% probability case then I would still choose the 100 even if they are all 5-pointers.

[Edit]

Before you ask whether I would sacrifice my own life to save 1000 random people I think I should modify my first two weights to 2N and N, where N >> 1000.

Having said that, if there is a societal element to it, ie. that my sacrificing my life would become public and my children could benefit from it in a substantial way, then the calculation would involve those subjective factors being added in as well at levels that could easily change the final decision.

The pure formula-based answer assumes no societal or PR-type issues, just a decision to be made by me (or a group of which I am a member), the details of which remain unknown to anyone else.

[muckdumper]

in a situation like the 9-11 attacks,when the occupants of the airline jet overtook the terriost and forced the plane down into an open field thus killing everyone onboard and sparing the lives of possibly gov't. employees.i guess it is correct and brave.nobody wants to die.