The Random-Poll thread

[Arcadia]

- What nice thing people say about you that you are surprised/disagree/unsure with?

Every compliment I've ever received.

- What nice thing you think you have but people kind of don't appreciate/acknowledge/find that good?

My excellent taste in TV shows.

- What not so good trait you have?

Ducking answers to deeply personal questions.

- Emergency situation. An accident is about to happen with at least 200 casualties but you can save them if you press a button. But by pressing this button, someone is going to die. Would you do it? You have to be the one to press it.

I don't know. I think I should, but I don't know if I could. I'm pretty sure no matter the course of action, I'd end up in some serious therapy afterwards.

[T.o.b.y]

- What nice thing people say about you that you are surprised/disagree/unsure with?

 

"You're so calm". Ha! I am very far from calm. Have just become a pretty good faker. Same thing goes for "you really aren't shy."

- What nice thing you think you have but people kind of don't appreciate/acknowledge/find that good?

 

Gosh, I don't know! I think I am a little less helpless than people usually assume, and a little less clueless as well. Very often, I get the feeling the people around me cannot imagine I actually have reasons for doing what I do the way I do it.

 

- What not so good trait you have?

 

You want the whole list? :P Better not, it would probably exceed the maximum word count for a post (if there even is one, I haven't checked). I am not very straight-forward. I can smile and nod and listen to you, but the whole time be thinking "f*** off, asshole". If I pay you a compliment, it's always genuine, though.

- Emergency situation. An accident is about to happen with at least 200 casualties but you can save them if you press a button. But by pressing this button, someone is going to die. Would you do it? You have to be the one to press it.
(I read this briefly somewhere, can't remember where and exact scenario but somewhere along this line)

 

I am afraid it depends on who would die. I don't believe there is a morally correct answer to this question, so I am just trying to be realistic.

There's a computer game called "Life is Strange", you ever heard of that? The final decision the player has to make is

basically exactly this. Instinctively, I went with saving the majority and sacrificing the one person. Oddly, though, I now regret that and I want to go back and change my decision. Because in this particular case, I think it actually makes for a better story. But a game isn't real life. Fiction follows different rules. In real life, I have no idea what I'd do. Save the majority and have regrets later as well, I suppose.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Real life is rarely that cut and dried. The only way I can imagine that sort of choice arising would be if a terrorist or a kidnapper were threatening to do A if I didn't do B. And could I trust this person to follow through as promised anyhow? I'd probably tell them to take their silly little game and shove it.

 

I've seen other scenarios in movies, but that's generally because only Superman can save either the one person or the hundreds, and there isn't time to do both. But I'm not Superman.

[Van Buren Supernova]

I would probably try to find other alternatives in small time window I have, at least, even if it wouldn't affect much, I can say I tried, but at the end I would push the button because the time would never be enough in that real/fictional situation, crossing my finger that the one guys is a bad, very bad person.

 

But being life is a b*tch, most probably the guy is the nicest guy, and the other 200 people consists of horrible blackmailers, rapists and murderers.

 

Hey, this is an awful horrible question. Yikes.

[Caya]

I read a variant of this with real life applications the other day. Namely, with self-driving cars apparently becoming viable soon (finally, imo), there's the question of ethics for the driving software. Namely, if the car is in a situation like that, say, the only viable choices in a sudden roadblock situation are a] veer off the road, endangering and possibly killing a group of pedestrians, but leaving the person in the car relatively safe, or b] plow ahead into the roadblock, potentially killing the driver but leaving the pedestrians safe. When polled, most people agree that b] should be the choice programmed into the software. However, when then asked if they would buy a car that has b] in its program, well ... "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" is a lot more popular when you are not among the few, apparently. :P

[Arcadia]

Wow.