Ethics and Choice

ok based completely on Overlord insite

You know how it goes (sirens, lights etc.)
You open the door to Room 1 and the last hope for a species recovery is extingiushed.

(Just as a curiosity Overlord stated that his reasoning behind killing off the species was that it was almost dead anyway. Is there a point at which there is few enough to be classified as near extinct, but large enough to be considered worth saving that you would consider killing the human to save them?)

CHOICE 27:

Greater Loyalty

ROOM 1:

In Room 1 you have a family member who will be killed if you don’t open the door.

ROOM 2:

In Room 2 you have a friend who will be killed if you don’t open the door.

Also is your choice dependant on which friend or family member you choose?
Would you sacrifice one family member for a friend but not another?
Make a list if you feel so inclined

I... I am stuck. If I was to know who was in each room, that would be easier.

Also it could depend on what you mean by "family" or "friend".

Open room 1, the lesser of two evils.

It all depends on who finds out.

And yes, it does depends on which friend and which family member. If Darth was in room 2, I'd be into Room 1 in seconds, even if it was empty.

'Friends are the family you choose for yourself.'
Basically on that principle I'd choose Room 2; although it would depend on who it is. I'd probably be more likely to sacrifice aunties/uncles/grandparents than siblings or cousins. Parents would go somewhere in the middle.
Family friends and schoolfriends would be considerably more likely to be saved than people I've met outside of those circumstances (ie uni).

As to who finds out; the way I see it, you're always going to disappoint somebody. Being as you were the one who had to choose, you can't really be faulted for making a choice.


(re last choice: well, there's no 'point' but a sliding scale, and once again it's dependent on the people/species involved. Populations of hundreds to thousands are where things would start getting blurry for me, in most cases.

Also, I note there wasn't much description as to how eveil I am for killing a species and the kind of monstrous person I've unleashed on the world.)

flashy lights and big noises are made as you usher your bestest buddy from Room 2 as you try ti block out the scream of poor Fluffy, he may have been a cat but god dammit he was part of the family.

CHOICE 28:

Public Science

You are an expert virologist who has created an easily transferable strain of an already deadly virus in order to study it in case it naturally evolves in nature, but you have caused a public outcry as to its dangers.

ROOM 1:

If you open the door to Room 1 you say damn the public to hec they have no idea how helpful this research could be to humanity (let’s just hope it doesn’t get out)

ROOM 2:

If you open the door to Room 2 you bow to public opinion and destroy the virus

Room 1.

Room 1. The public has no idea of the complexities of my research, and how many safety precautions I have in place. If we let 'public opinion' decide everything, fire would have been outlawed as a dangerous substance.

lights flash and alarms sound as you open the door to Room 1 and scurry in to retrieve your deadly virus which you plan to use to take over the world (I assume)

CHOICE 29:

Door Knock Appeal

A Red Cross Representative has just knocked on you door and asked you to make a donation.

ROOM 1:

GET LOST!

ROOM 2:

$5.00

ROOM 3:

$10.00

ROOM 4:

$20.00

ROOM 5:

$50.00

ROOM 6:

$100.00

Room 1. If I want to make a donation, I'll make plans to do so myself.

Supreme Overlord wrote:Room 1. If I want to make a donation, I'll make plans to do so myself.

This

you heartless bastards

ok alarms sounds sirens blare (The Red Cross Appeal person has a strange look of fear and bewilderment on their face) you open the door and full on scream GET LOST! in their face before slamming it closed.

CHOICE 30:

Lost and Found

You have found a wallet on the street, it contains $150 in cash, a drivers license and emergency contact information but you realise that this wallet belonged to somebody who died recently in a car crash not far from where you found the wallet and deduce that they must have dropped it not long before the incident.

ROOM 1:

If you open the door to Room 1 you choose to take the $150 cash, after all dead people don’t need money right.

ROOM 2:

If you open the door to Room 2 you choose to call the number on the emergency contact information you found in the wallet and return the money to the family of the deceased.

Room 2. $150 isn't all that much, and I'd probably feel guilty about it if I took it. Wheras if you return it, you get a warm fuzzy feeling. Plus, the family would be grateful.

Even leaving feelings aside, I'd be willing to gamble that my increase in popularity stocks (from goodwill from the family and anyone they tell) could have a value greater than $150.

May I ask does the likelihood of you taking the money increase exponentially with the amount of money?

Dunno about exponentially (I knew you were going to ask something like this!)

Probably up to about $1000 returning it is fairly clear-cut. More than $1000 is more than I can make myself in a medium period of time, but unless you get up to $10/100 000 it's not enough to be lifechanging, so it's much greyer. $1 000 000 or above I think I'd certainly be able to distract myself from the unfortunate victim who I didn't know - it's enough to drastically change my circumstances. Particularly if there's a guarentee of no legal repurcussions.

is there a middle option like taking the money but handing the wallet in....

No you can't take the money and turn the wallet in and Overlord if you ever find a wallet with $1 000 000 in it's actually called a briefcase and you can't accidently lose a brefcase

eh then I'd turn it in $150 isn't worth me stealing from a dead guy.

lock in door 2 XD

Lights flash, sirens blare and several epileptic kids flop to the floor as you open Door 2 and in choosing ring the emergency contact information you found in the wallet and return the money to the grieving family.

CHOICE 31:

Swerve

You are driving down the road when suddenly a truck coming the other way blows a tyre and accidently swerves across the road right into your path. You have just enough time to react.

ROOM 1:

If you open the door to Room 1 you choose to swerve left up onto the footpath were a mother is pushing her newborn; if you choose Room 1 you will wipe out the mother and the baby.

ROOM 2:

If you open the door to Room 2 you choose to go right where an elderly couple are crossing the road, if you choose Room 2 you will kill the elderly couple.

ROOM 3:

If you open the door to Room 3 you don’t swerve but in doing so you collide with the oncoming truck and you die.

I open room 2! (Is it just me, or are 'rooms' not really what we're talking about here?)

First of all, saving myself is the easy choice. No two strangers are worth my life (I nearly said 'no two people', but I probably couldn't guarentee that).

Now, when analysing life value compared to age, I tend to think it peaks at mid/late teens to mid/late twenties (probably not coincidentally, that's the age of most fictional characters [or at least protagonists] and my current age). It trails off on boths sides in a way I'm not interested in going into now.

This value is due to a mix of potential and experience. Babies have bucketloads of potential, but there's always a chance that they could get killed off in some other fashion before they can realise it. Young adults have survived long enough to gather some experience, and they've still got a lot of potential. Elderly folk have immense amounts of experience, but don't have much further to go.

From this analysis, perhaps surprisingly to you, I'm saving the mother and the newborn primarily for the mother's sake. Now, if it were a single young adult for two elderly people, that would be interesting...

EDIT: I'm sure you've already come up with suitably conflicting identities for these people, to be revealed after we've made the 'wrong' choice!