Would you save 10 million people?

[Anacardo]

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Amazingly enough I don't base all my actions on what's in it for me.

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Really? Do you chip dump to total fish when you're playing cards then just because you know they're losing players and can use that money a lot more than you can?

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You imbecile, he said ALL his actions. This comparison offends me with its idiocy.

[Pete H]

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Here is the conundrum: You have the ability to save 10 miilion people by giving up your own in that pursuit. The catch is no one will ever know it. Would you do it?

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No.

But I'd seriously consider if 6.6 billion people would be killed if I chose to give up my own life.

NP: Megadeth - Wake Up Dead

[KUJustin]

The other thread got booted before I got around to making my point.

Some may want to argue this, but I believe that saying you'd choose to live is the same as saying that you would kill 10 million people to keep yourself alive. The causes behind it seem immaterial. In both cases either you're dead or 10 million people are dead.

THEREFORE, in my opinion, most people on this thread are saying they'd rather live as one of the bigger mass murderers in history than not live.

To put it in another form, let's assume Hitler had 100% control of the start and, if he chose, end of the Holocaust. Now, let's say Hitler had a neurotic anti-semitic nemesis with an open threat that if the Holocaust didn't continue Hitler would die. So, Hitler could have saved 10 million people by backing off of the Holocaust but he would have died in doing so. We've reached our exact questoin and most of you are saying you would've done just as Hitler did.

[Anacardo]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa.

Let's start smaller.

FOLLOWING TWO SCENARIOS:

You, somehow, are the executor of your four year old cousin's estate, who is the youthful inheritor of $10 million. If he dies, it all goes to you.

He's in the bathtub; you're outside in the hall, periodically checking up on him.

A) He slips, hits his head, and falls unconscious into the water. You see this. You let him drown.

B) He's perfectly fine. You go in, push his head underwater and hold until the bubbles stop.

I think we can all agree that there is essentially no moral difference between these two scenarios.

Now, change the stakes from 'you get money if he dies' to 'you don't die if he dies.' How do things change? Do they?

Now, instead of one kid, it's however X million people. How do things change? Do they?

[gimmetheloot]

No, as long as I was left with some super smart people in every department, and 25 good looking women, and some friends, I would repopulate the world myself.

[szw]

Would you give up your life for all the animals in the world?

[Hume]

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for those that think its wrong not to give up your life for strangers, even ten million. you have to ask yourself would the world be better off with ten million less. if so then you are really doing a disservice to the rest of the world.
then ask if helping others live is worth so much why wouldnt you give all your money to charities that save lives. arent you being selfish by keeping money when surely it would save many lives.

i am not refering to -personally killing them to save yourself but to not acting to save them saves yourself.

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This argument needs to be repeated. Not giving up your life is immoral but not giving up your money is moral?

[HP]

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for those that think its wrong not to give up your life for strangers, even ten million. you have to ask yourself would the world be better off with ten million less. if so then you are really doing a disservice to the rest of the world.
then ask if helping others live is worth so much why wouldnt you give all your money to charities that save lives. arent you being selfish by keeping money when surely it would save many lives.

i am not refering to -personally killing them to save yourself but to not acting to save them saves yourself.

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This argument needs to be repeated. Not giving up your life is immoral but not giving up your money is moral?

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seconded

[jjp]

More detail is needed to make a rational answer.

There are 6.5 Billion people in the world. With an average life expectancy of 65 years (makes the math simple), 100 Million people die each year. So this year it is going to be 110? Why? Am i saving starving peasants in Africa who are only going to die of starvation a year later? Am I finding a cure for cancer?

[daryn]

that is what i was talking about when i said logically none of the arguments against me have made any sense.