Kill 1 to save 1,000?

[This name sucks]

About the killing hitler thing, if I had a chance to go back and kill him I probably wouldn't because if ww2 never happened I would have never been born and im sure russia would have gone insane if germany didn't at the time.

And you need more circumstances for me to decide the 1/1000 thing.

[Deleted]

[QUOTE=Yousend;14514130]You're given the choice to save 1000 people that would die if you were to kill the 1. Therefore, if you don't kill (save) the 1 and he kills the 1000s, it's basically as if you chose to kill them.[/QUOTE
what if a random organization that wants you to kill 1 random person or they would kill 1000 peps.
The person you need to kill doesn¨t necessarily need to be the one to kill the 1000s.

[Deleted]

kill 1 genius that does research on quantum physics to save 1000 lazy idiots that live off welfare?

it ultimately boils down to the kind of people you would kill or save.

[Dragoncurry]

50000000000 years from now, no one will remember your names, deeds, or consequences. Kill whatever you want. If I was in charge and I could do whatever the fuck I wanted (like a tyrant contrasting from if I was a democratic president and I couldn't allow stem cell research since I don't have autonomous decision making power), then I would probably allow an underground secret lab testing site where I would have scientists working on say death row inmates. No I'm not saying that it's the "right" thing to do (especially under our social paradigms of what is and isn't acceptable), but for the lives of your children's children's children, I could care less about your opinion.

That's if I was a tyrant of course. In the case of kill 1 or a 1000. If it's my girlfriend or someone I like, I'd kill a 1000. If it's not, then I'd kill 1 to save the 1000. Again, in 500000000000000 years it won't matter. You won't even become a notorious legend with a small number like 1000.

[Deleted]

About the killing hitler thing, if I had a chance to go back and kill him I probably wouldn't because if ww2 never happened I would have never been born and im sure russia would have gone insane if germany didn't at the time.

And you need more circumstances for me to decide the 1/1000 thing.

WW2 was necessary for the human race so we could learn something from it and WW2 was the result of WW1.

[Zentul]

If I'm part of the 1000 to save then I'd kill the 1. If it was 1 person I like vs 1000 people I don't know, then I'd have to go with saving the 1.

[Easo]

All people are equal. 1k people are 1k times more equal than 1 person (yes yes, bad logic). Kill that person. Primitive, but thats the way i think. Pure, cold logic sometimes is the best imho.

[Abbeel]

Earth has far too many people as it is, we could do with some thinning out. But I don't think 1000 would change much, but it's a start.

[Deleted]

All people are equal. 1k people are 1k times more equal than 1 person (yes yes, bad logic). Kill that person. Primitive, but thats the way i think. Pure, cold logic sometimes is the best imho.

Or what if every thing that has happend in your life is just happening and every one you know are just props so it dosnt matter what you do beacuse in the it does not even matter ( linkin park ). lol

[Dragoncurry]

All people are equal. 1k people are 1k times more equal than 1 person (yes yes, bad logic). Kill that person. Primitive, but thats the way i think. Pure, cold logic sometimes is the best imho.

Fall in love with a girl, then think if that 1 person was that girl. Would you kill her to save 1000 people who could give two shits about you? . Thousands of people die every day. Bad luck.

[Halicia]

In Soviet Russia, they kill one to save a thousand.... in Capitalist America, they kill a thousand to save one.

The minute a life is being valued and taken by anyone except the person that possesses it, a dark math appears and the equation itself becomes tainted.

"Would you sacrifice yourself to save a thousand strangers ?" becomes a noble question, "Would you sacrifice a stranger to save a thousand friends?" is only a gateway to evil ends.

[Sarthenis]

This is a tough moral question, and I think it depends 100% on the situation.

I'm a soldier, and I can tell you right now that if i had the option to drop a bomb on 1000 enemy targets in order to save just one of my guys, i'd do it.

But what if you have a situation where you have the one innocent man with an incredibly infectious disease that could potentially kill thousands of other people unless you kill him and contain the threat. It would be a terribly tough decision to make to kill an innocent man, and you would have to live with that decision for the rest of your life.

[Roia]

I voted, don't kill, let the 1000 die. What right do we have to condemn 1 person to die to save the rest of us? On the flip side, you could ask a similar question, would you die to save 1000? or would you live and kill 1000 people?

[banur]

[...] and he kills the 1000s, it's basically as if you chose to kill them.

True, but he won't kill them, he has no connection to the 1000. It is a random guy chosen to be killed or spared.

[OrcsRLame]

Without a perfect, omniscient level of context, it's impossible for me to say. Even something that appears to be good could end up being very bad.

Someone mentioned Hitler earlier, well I have a better example, albeit a fictional one. Anyone that's seen the anime Code Geass is intimately familiar with the life of Lelouch Vi Britannia. To anyone not familiar with the anime, spoilers ahead. Lelouch was a person that from the ground up, started a rebellion against an evil oppressive dictatorship, (it was basically an imperial America that ruled one third of the world and took social Darwinism to an extreme) in the end, through a strange series of events Lelouch ended up abandoning his secret identity and his rebellion. He killed the emperor, and took over Britannia, the empire he'd been fighting. During his rebellion he marketed himself as a freedom fighter, someone that stands up for the weak against the strong.

When he became Emperor though, he threw the world back into war. Through his utterly ruthless tactics, brilliant strategic genius, nuclear weapons, and a bit of magic, he crushed all opposition and became Emperor of the world. At this point in the show there's a 3 month timeskip. No one knows exactly what he did during these 3 months, but he was the single most hated man in the world, and supposedly he put Hitler to shame. He was so bad, people forgot all about the previous dictatorship, which was quite harsh.

At that point, if any random Joe Bob citizen had the opportunity to go back in time and kill Lelouch before he started his rebellion, they most certainly would have. However, that's not the full story. The world had no clue what had actually been going on during that war. Lelouch was a true hero, he saved the entire human race from extinction, and crushed 3 evil dictatorships. Then he intentionally took all the blame for every terrible act of the war, and just when his rule seemed absolute, he had himself assassinated. Not to mention fate took a dump on him with the worst luck EVER like 10 times in a row.

The result of his actions, is that for a time, all evil everywhere had been crushed, and there was true world peace. The world however, would only remember the role that he acted out, they would never see the truth of his incredible heroism.

Killing Lelouch would have quite literally meant the death of every man woman and child on Earth. If I was given the choice to kill someone bad like Hitler, I wouldn't do it. I have no way of knowing what kind of impact their death could have on the world. No matter what I think I know, no matter how sure I am that what I'm doing is right, I have no way to truly know what the consequences of my actions will be.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

Another variant. You've been placed back in time with all knowledge erased except this: Two passenger planes will be flying into the WTC buildings on September 11th, 2001. It just so happens you've been placed at that very day in time with a 2 shot missile launcher capable of destroying the planes. You know that the missiles are programmed to seek out and destroy the planes.

Basically, you've got the option to stop part of the 911 attacks, but you must destroy the two planes in order to do it. You know that the planes will be full of passengers. You have no idea what has transpired since, so Afghanistan and Iraq should not be in your decision-making process. Do you shoot down those planes?

[shadowkras]

I would kill 1000 to save 1.

But your poll doesnt have the option.

[Ogretron]

I can't stand the saying "playing god". You are playing god no matter what answer you choose. It is up to you to either kill 1, or kill 1000. Whether or not you want to believe it, the choice is yours.

[banur]

I can't stand the saying "playing god". You are playing god no matter what answer you choose. It is up to you to either kill 1, or kill 1000. Whether or not you want to believe it, the choice is yours.

You don't kill the thousand, they are dying or being killed by another force. Your choice is to kill the one or not to.
Picture it as killing the next random guy will save thousand dying people, if you don't they die anyway.

[Purlina]

You don't kill the thousand, they are dying or being killed by another force. Your choice is to kill the one or not to.
Picture it as killing the next random guy will save thousand dying people, if you don't they die anyway.

You can picture it like this.

A terrorist demands that you kill (insert random person they hate) or they will blow up a building with 1000 people. There is no other way to rescue the 1000 people.

What do you do?