Poll: Another train dilemma.

[Lord Honk]

3 pregnant women means 6 lives, which is more than 5 orphans. Occam's razor, 6 is more than 5.

 

[John the Gamer]

Orphans. Then I'd train them to be deadly warriors and send them after the madman who tied them and the women to the tracks. That bastard needs to die. Such a sick, sick mind...

 

[Secret world leader (shhh)]

The women, I just have the feeling that the orphans will grow up to be chavs while the three unborn childeren will grow up to be happy and life good lives.

 

[gl1koz3]

I'd most probably do a quick questions & answers to know their backgrounds and then decide. If I don't do it in time, then they die trying.



LOL.

 

[ramboondiea]

what an odd occurrence? if such a thing happened then i think there must be a pretty good chance of the train to poping out of existence haha

 

[ComicsAreWeird]

I´d scream..."Get outta the way, people!"

If that didnt help, i guess i´d go for the pregnant women---it´s 5 lives versus 6 lives.

 

[Xanadu84]

Human life trumps all other concerns. There is 3 definite lives in the Pregnant Women group, 5 in the Orphans. Whether a 5 month old is a person or not is unknown. Letting one die may be a full ended life, it may be inconsequential, I don't know. If I were to assume a 50% chance, then the utility of a lost 5 month old is worth half a life on average. This would amount to a utility of 4 and a half lives to the orphans 5. I'm not comfortable with assuming an even 50/50 chance when lives are at stake, since 50% is just a figure I assume when getting a precise figure isn't feasible, so I will look to other factors, to at least consider. Orphans are young, and have a good chunk of there lives ahead of them. The women are older, and have less of there lives ahead of them. Since all life is valuable, I need to consider the span of it. The possible babies have only slightly more of there lives left then the orphans, and since it is only a chance of longer life, and I am naturally risk adverse, that doesn't close the gap quite enough.

So overall, I think I would have to save the orphens. Realistically, the calculations are extremely close, and I'm not sure I could do the calculations that fast in the heat of the moment. I would probably choose arbitrarily.

 

[JoshGod]

the orphans should result in more years of life saved, however once you factor in the 3 pregnant womens dent in the world + happiness, it is very close. I think i'll go for the 3 pregnant women (after all my years were based on only 1 child in womb each which is unlikely)

 

[Nimcha]

It's not confusing at all, it's perfectly natural. Almost everyone who takes care of children thinks like you do. The problem with a lot of them is that they can't seem to realize children are not the most important thing in the world for everyone.

Don't take this the wrong way though, I do not hate children.

I somewhat understand your perpective, most people of my age including virtually all of my friends have never really had any proper exposure to children and feel the same as you. However I hope you have found that your original question you asked me has been answered now, as to why I place higher values on children's lives. Morals are subjective after all.

Yes you answered it indeed. Objectively speaking it wasn't a valid answer but I'll accept it anyway.