Hypothetically speaking, if your death would save the life of one or more complete strangers that you know nothing about, how many people would need to be saved (if any) in order for you to give up your own life?

EDIT: Your death would be painless and instantaneous.

  • Izzy
    link
    101 year ago

    The situation would have to be rather intentional. Like I’m in a room next to a room with the other people and the fact that my death saves them is an absolute beyond questioning. Ideally I’d also be able to see them.

    In that situation probably just 2.

    I don’t think this can be extrapolated to any possible real world scenario.

    • Takatakatakatakatak
      link
      fedilink
      English
      21 year ago

      Here’s the scenario. You are sitting in a 40ft shipping container with a heavy steel divider placed somewhere in the structure which splits it into two unequally sized rooms.

      The container is perfectly balanced on a steel beam above a cylindrical well such that if nobody moves from their current position the container remains in place. If it were to tip in either direction, the occupants at that fallen end of the structure would be submerged and drowned.

      Inside there are two camera feeds displayed on a monitor. One shows the occupants of the other partition: X number of people of mixed age and demographic. You know nothing about them.

      The other feed shows that the door at either end of the container is completely blocked by the concrete walls of the well, but also shows a door which would provide an easy exit from the well if one side of the container were raised at the moment arm of the steel beam.

      How many people must occupy the other side of the container before you will calmly walk to the far end of yours and tip yourself into the water, freeing those that remain?

      If you answer honestly, you don’t wake up in the container tomorrow.