Poll: Your own life - Or ten strangers lifes?

[awesomeClaw]

Let´s play the imaginary game.

Let´s imagine you´ve been put in a room with a big glass panel separating you from ten strangers. You can see them through the glass. They look like your average middle-aged men. There is a speaker allowing you to hear what they say.


Let´s say that there were two buttons in this room.
One button results in the room the strangers are in getting lit on fire. Complete with them screaming in agony and you hearing every single second of it. But you come out okay. Noone will ever know or believe you if you tell them.

The other button will administer a lethal injection of let´s say...poison into your body. You won´t feel a thing, but you will die. The strangers however, will live on.

So. What matters most to you?

Me? Screw them, my own life is more important! Even though i´d feel like crap.

 

[demoman_chaos]

Those ten bastards are going down if it means I get to live on.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Ten strangers?

Them, without a doubt. I'd feel terrible afterwards but I value my own life more than theirs.

Ten people I knew and actaully liked? That would be hard.

 

[suitepee7]

although you'd have to consider the fact that they may have families and friends, that is a merely a possibility. i know i will be missed, not by many, but by a few which are important to me. i would not be able to justify making people i know suffer for 10 people i do not know.

saying that, i would sure feel bad about it...

 

[Jamieson 90]

Kill the strangers and I would not feel bad either, The human will to survive is very very strong. There will be people here who take the moral highground and say what I just said was terrible.

The fact is this unless you have ever had a near death experience which I have, then you don't know how strong the will to survive is, you will literally do anything. Sure in your cosy warm house safely behind yuor computer you might like to think you would do the 'good thing' but when the adrenaline is pumping through your veins you will do anything to survive.

 

[RatRace123]

Strangers? I hate those guys!
Though, given the methods of death, I'd probably choose me, burning to death sounds a hell of a lot worse than poison that I won't feel.

 

[crudus]

I would kill myself. I don't see why my life is more important than any one of the people on the other side.

 

[BlueSinbad]

Don't think of myself too well and I'm sure if they're all middle-aged they have kids etc. I couldn't do that to the other people, even if that means pain for my family and friends they'd understand.

 

[El Poncho]

I'd kill the ten people, because mentally, it's easier to kill other people than yourself, and I don't think I have the mental power to do so. I would feel shit afterwards though.

 

[Lyx]

Can we get some more creative games, instead of the same old uncreative thing over and over in a different dress, please?

Refuse decision. No one can force me to decide. What does that mean for the poll? No one can force me to vote

 

[Spygon]

Well i wouldnt be able to feel anything if i was dead so good bye 10 random stranger actually would i sound eveil if i was okay with saying i would do the same if i knew these people.

Well i am evil and if you friends with me then you proberly deserve it lol

 

[DefunctTheory]

My job is, ultimately, to defend the lives and freedoms of complete strangers.

I'd free them. It is my duty.

Of course, thats not all. On a more selfish note, I don't think I could live with myself knowing my direct actions resulted in the deaths of people who, for all I know, were innocent.

 

[Irony's Acolyte]

I'd let the ten strangers die. It wouldn't be easy and I'd try to make it worth their death, but I'd do it. Of course if the situation was revearsed and I was one of the ten strangers I wouldn't blame someone for saving their own life as well.

I might always sacrifice myself though. The only reason why I wouldn't do it immediately is because I don't know if killing myself would be in vain if I saved a bunch of do-nothing nobodies.

 

[Daveman]

As much as I like to think of myself as a self-centred dickweed unfortunately I'm actually a disappointingly sensitive, sentimental guy. So no matter how much I would rationalise saving my own life, which is obviously the right choice from my perspective, I know that I'd end up saving the others and killing myself.

 

[Crazy_Dude]

Kill them and laugh while they are lit on fire while I walk away.

 

[Not-here-anymore]

They're strangers. I'd feel bad about it, but as long as no-one finds out it was me, I would quite willingly push the fire button

 

[CoverYourHead]

Kill them. I'd feel bad, but my life is just starting to be mine! I'm not throwing it away for the sake of some people I don't know! Sure, it sucks, but I'd like to live.

 

[delanofilms]

Kill myself. Seriously, just get it the fuck over with.

 

[Link_to_Future]

I would like to say I would kill myself to save others in a heartbeat.

But if you really put me in that situation, I would probably do what most people would do. I would selfishly save my own life and then regret that decision for the rest of my life. The guilt would probably drive me to suicide, thereby making the sacrifices of those strangers totally meaningless.

So yeah, I'm a cynic.