What would you do

Ask him to remove the children then flip the switch.

a reply to: XTexan
Id choose death.

Now, question for you. Say you were in a position to save every innocent person on the planet, but in order to do so you would have to endure unimaginable torture for 24 hours...Would you do it?

originally posted by: Tucket
a reply to: XTexan
Id choose death.

Now, question for you. Say you were in a position to save every innocent person on the planet, but in order to do so you would have to endure unimaginable torture for 24 hours...Would you do it?

Yes

2nd line

I wouldn`t do it, no matter if they were going to die for sure.

People who fly US drones have to do it, anyone who`s doing that would also flip the switch.

It reminds of my thread of yesterday and the choice of this guy :

www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: DAZ21

Could not agree more!

a reply to: XTexan

I would fight and try to get a gun away from the officers and fight to the death.

a reply to: XTexan

I am wondering...what is your reason for asking this question?

I am thinking...how do I know...that if I choose to have myself executed instead of all those people...that the commander wouldn't execute them anyway...after he executed me.

Still...I would choose myself...because I know the next realm I enter into will be better than the one I left; and with the hope that I did save all those people.

a reply to: XTexan

These types of questions are really pointless but to answer the question first I have to ask...why do these type of situations always involve "women" and children. Are women babies that need coddling or are men of less importance in terms of living vs. dying. If it was a room of men would it mean less in the grand moral scheme of things?

Either way, if my commander ordered me to flip the switch or die I would shoot him with my gun and then grab one of the women and use her as a human shield as I Rambo my way out of the complex using my two in one grenade/ak47 rifle/launcher.

I would live, the "women" and children could fend for themselves at that point, and to protect myself I only had to risk one casualty. In this case, she was a rather large woman and was a murderer in a previous life.

Some of the "women" in this story magically find a cache of super weapons lurking just outside the door, which they then would use to blow up everything in sight. Coincidentally they found an Arby's on the street corner and decided to order a roast beef and cheese.

We would all like to think we have high moral standards and would never kill another particularly for the reason of being 'told to'. There was a study in the 1960's "The Milgram Experiment", that asked that question. Following the shock and horror of WWII, no one understood why so many Germans stood by or actually participated in torture and genocide.

The Milgram study showed that 65% of those participating in the experiment, would kill if told to. The lives of the study participants were not threatened. They were simply told they had to.

Milgram summarized the experiment in his 1974 article, "The Perils of Obedience", writing:
“ The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.
Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

en.wikipedia.org...

I know that wiki is not the greatest source, but the study is real. My hope would be that I would choose death, in reality, this study says, maybe not.

a reply to: XTexan
I would die. Plain and simple. And if it only contained one guilty man I'd do the same.

Well the situation in my case ends in Murder either way.

You kill the evil commander.

You kill the innocent women and children.

Quick blow to the left side of the commanders neck, tie him up
with his shoe laces. Set the women and children free.

Whisper in the commanders ear... Your internal organs will
begin to shut down within 3 minutes. Good Luck

Meh .. laugh at the stupid bastard and go to the pub .. I dont take orders from anyone ..

It depends on my mental state at the time. If I had just returned from the battle field where I fought alongside my brothers and saw men close to me brutally killed, only to be ordered to retreat and go home feeling defeated. Then upon debriefing I am pulled aside and told that there is a room full of enemy sympathisers just waiting for a man like me to push the button, I would probably be easily persuaded to do such a thing.

On the other hand, if I were a cook at the base. I would most likely not feel that it was my place to make such a decision... depending on how thick the propaganda was.

Makes me think of that bit of script from full metal jacket, where the journalist asks the door gunner "How can you shoot women and children?" and the door gunner replies "Easy, you just don't lead em as much"

It all depends on what you "know" before hand.