Poll: Which would you choose to save?

[BreakfastMan]

You wake up one morning to find that you have been locked room with no visible way out. On one side of the room is a window that looks into a room containing 100 total strangers. On the other side of the room is a window that looks into a room containing the ten people who are closest to you. Before you are two buttons, a red one and a black one.

You hear a voice from an intercom that explains the functions of the buttons. Pushing the red one releases a poisonous gas into the room with 100 total strangers (killing everyone in that room), and lets the ten people closest to you go free. Pushing the black one releases poisonous gas into the room with the ten people who are closest to you (again, killing everyone in that room) and lets the other 100 people go free. The voice tells you that you must push one of the buttons within 5 minutes, or both rooms will be flooded with the gas, killing everyone except you. No matter what you do, you will be let go after 5 minutes, and no one will know that you pressed the buttons if you choose to do so.

My question to you is this: Which button would you press? Would you save the lives of the ten people closest to you, or 100 total strangers?

 

[rokkolpo]

10 people closest to me.
Easy.

I might be a massive dick that way, but those 10 lives are worth more to me than 100 random ones.
Completely selfish and all. but I couldn't condemn the people I love.

 

[smearyllama]

The ten people closest, because they would understand why I did what I did.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.

 

[Mr.Pandah]

Lol of course I'd save the ten people. I don't give a shit about 100 people I won't know and would most likely be completely ungrateful for me saving them. Family members or people I don't know? Come on.

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

I don't want to lose those 10 people, sorry strangah's!

 

[SonicKoala]

Yeah, I'd save the ten people. It would probably be one of the easiest "difficult" decisions I'll have ever made up to that point.

 

[PixelKing]

The needs of the selfish guy.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

I can live with 100 dead, ungrateful strangers. Many more than 100 a day die, and I simply add to the statistic.

 

[Continuity]

I'd save the 100 strangers. Its logical Jim.

Seriously though, if i'm going to be responsible for peoples deaths i'm going to want a sound rationale to salve my guilt. "I liked these 10 people better so I killed the other 100" just isn't going to cut it.

 

[Cheesus333]

I don't think I'm selfless enough to give up the 10 people I love most for a hundred faceless human beings. I suppose that's the beauty of hypothetical ultimatums: you learn horrible things about yourself that you never wanted to know.

 

[Aiden_the-Joker1]

What? and give up my ten most powerful terminator/sex slave robots to save 100 puny humans?

 

[Jamash]

If you save 100 total strangers, then chances are you'll get at least another "10 closest people" out of the deal, if not more.

100 strangers would be so appreciative of your sacrifice that you're bound to get a lot out of saving them, whereas if you saved the to people closest to you, they wouldn't be as appreciative as they expected you to save them, plus some of them will probably ***** at you for not pushing the red button immediately and even entertaining the dilemma.

I'd choose self interest disguised as pragmatism and save the 100 strangers, as the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

 

[loc978]

Definitely the ten over the hundred. But I'd try to find a way to get out of the room and kill our captor before I hit the button. Actually, you know what? No. I wouldn't hit the button. I'd scream, curse, try to bite my way through the walls... in the middle of it I'd let it be known that the ten people closest to me are the ones I would save if I had to choose, but I'd make the murderer who engineered the whole thing hit the damn button if it had to be done.

 

[Johnnyallstar]

Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius
-Arnaud Amalric

Translation: Kill them all, the Lord will recognize his own.


Yes, I know it's a terrible quote for a terrible cop out.

EDIT: On second thought.... keep your friends close, and enemies closer... so 100 random people, or my 10 worst enemies. That makes this selection easy peasy!

 

[Squeaky]

The 10 closest to me, I know what there like and how can i let the people i grew up with die and save 100 hundred random people that could well be murderers etc. I may be selfish in that respect but id probly be haunted by the knowlegde i let 10 people that have got me though alot die ?

 

[nunqual]

10 people closest to me all the way. They are worth more to me than 100 total strangers. Some of those strangers could be serial killers, how the hell do I know? Also, I would never bring harm to my closest friends and loved ones. No matter what the circumstances were.

 

[Polyg0n]

10 closest people of course. I find it hard to believe that anyone would actually choose to save those 100 strangers, unless their 10 closest people are not really that important to them to begin with.

 

[Chamale]

I'd save the 10 people closest to me, and then start working for charities to save the lives of more than 100 total strangers in Africa or India. For less than $100, you can donate enough to cure tuberculosis victims in third world countries and literally save their lives.
#charitypreaching

 

[ConnorTheRed]

What? and give up my ten most powerful terminator/sex slave robots to save 100 puny humans?

The robots wouldn't be affected by gas, would they?