Poll: Who would you save ?

[emeraldrafael]

I save the civilians. generally if your civilian population theres someone more important the government does not want dying so they dont recruit them.

besides, if you save the soldiers you'll have the people (and this is a large amount of them) that think solduers are meant to give their lives for the civilians constnatly badgering them about why they did no insist on being sacrificed and doing their "duty as a soldier."

... and really the citizens support the military both by bodies and by money so id rather save them since they'll have more money to take. soldiers arent paid well.

 

[the December King]

Great question!

Based on responsibilities, I think I'd choose to save the four million people.

The fact is is that soldiers are prepared for war, not being flash-fried and torn to pieces by a nuclear-generated firestorm. I'd be damning four million lives if I chose the civilians, four times their amount... either way, it is a horrible loss of life.

And since this would very likely be one of my last actions as a commanding officer of any note, as one way or the other I'd most likely be imprisoned/court- marshaled for allowing this situation to get to this point, I'd then take my pants off.

 

[HalfTangible]

=( That's a shitty decision to hand someone and I wouldn't blame anyone for picking either decision. They both are terrible, horrific and would shatter a person's psyche. But me personally? I'd get someone to get in a jet and fly into the other missile before it hits anything, thus saving all 5 million of those lives.

...

That's not an option? *sigh*

Then I'd save the 4 million soldiers.

When you're the leader of a country that's about to lose at least 1 million people, you can't think about morality, you need to decide what's best for your nation. Those 4 million soldiers might be angry and desert in droves, but even if you lose half of them, they're still soldiers, and you can fight back against the next attack.

While you can make the argument that a nuclear war is going to render ground troops useless... love 'em or hate 'em, soldiers are people too, mate.

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

And so what protects the civilians after all the soldiers are dead? The opposing force (whoever they are) has clearly demonstrated that they've got no problem killing civilians. So once your military is dead; what's to stop the opposing force from marching in and killing everyone?

Because those 4M soldiers did such a great job protecting in the first place, right? I mean, they can stop nukes and all... wait...
And if I keep them alive, what's to stop the opposition sending another nuke on them again?

At least if you preserve the soldiers there's still the possibility of a counter-attack and saving however many civilians remain (plus the fact that it's that many extra bodies to repopulate the country after the war is over).

Revenge is meaningless, and as was mentioned before in another post, soldiers are mostly males, so there goes that idea.

Look, we can be discussing this for all eternity if we keep going like that; the point is, there are pros and cons to both, and neither is a great choice, but I stand by my decision.

Nobody is asking you to change your opinion, we only want to understand it better, you seem to see things in a very cut/dry violence is bad kinda way, but you don't state that in such a direct way, so I see the possibility of an entire layer of complexity under the surface appearance.

Do you just not like war, and as such soldiers exemplify something worthy of being killed, and even then, without retaliation?
Or is it a deeper philosophical issue?


I would preserve the soldiers, because at least where I come from almost all of the people in the military are quite adequately trained for civilian duties as well, and are thus more valuable in peacetime should the conflic be resolved in our favour than the civilians, because they are willing to go the extra step, putting themselves at risk for the sake of others.
Also because when it comes down to it, those soldiers likely are supporting families, usually living in the same area that they are based, meaning to sacrifice them would undoubtedly cause more collateral damage than the 1m civvies.

 

[The Funslinger]

Why are there 4M Soldiers on one base? That's just stupid.

They were competing in the international Gung-Ho championships, obviously

 

[mjcabooseblu]

The soldiers.

It doesn't matter if a person is willing to die to serve their country, their life is always as valuable as one human life, and choosing to sacrifice them because they're willing to be sacrificed seems a tad unreasonable. There are four million soldiers. There are one million civilians.

It's math.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

snip

My gut answer would be to save the civilians.

Yes, I know, you're saving fewer lives with that option. But the thing is that the civilians are innocents. The soldiers swore an oath to defend their homeland and the lives of those civilians, even if that means their own deaths. So in this case, those four million soldiers would be like the bodyguard who jumps in front of a bullet to save his or her VIP.

However, I'd also be asking myself whether or not my nation's defense could afford to lose those four million troops. Hypothetically, if I lose those four million soldiers to save a million civilians, is my country now going to be completely vulnerable to a conventional invasion the results in the loss of another five million lives that wouldn't have died if my soldiers were still around?

And these are huge numbers, by the way. Four million is A LOT of soldiers. The United States Army and the United States Marine Corps combined only have something like 765,000 active personnel, for comparison.

 

[C F]

I am the president.
My soldiers are people just like the civilians, who come from the same land as the civilians, with the sole exception being they're dedicated and honorable enough to fight for my country. You said this is a dilema about the worth of a human life. It's a joke if you think that four million of my bravest countrymen are somehow worth less than 1 million of the others.

An army of 4 million are more disciplined.
An army of 4 million have much better equipment.
An army of 4 million is four times as many of my countrymen.
An army of 4 million would be much more useful in the coming war, since whoever is responsible for the nuke scenario is obviously raring to go. The quicker I can lay out the enemy, the faster I can put the pressure on, the more heat I'm taking off my civilians in the future.

If I lose my ability to defend myself, I'm doing little more than stalling for time. Better one city now than to lose a chunk of my men and later the entire country. What makes you think they'll let up after opening with 2 nuclear missiles?

 

[Yokillernick]

I am the president.
My soldiers are people just like the civilians, who come from the same land as the civilians, with the sole exception being they're dedicated and honorable enough to fight for my country. You said this is a dilema about the worth of a human life. It's a joke if you think that four million of my bravest countrymen are somehow worth less than 1 million of the others.

An army of 4 million are more disciplined.
An army of 4 million have much better equipment.
An army of 4 million is four times as many of my countrymen.
An army of 4 million would be much more useful in the coming war, since whoever is responsible for the nuke scenario is obviously raring to go. The quicker I can lay out the enemy, the faster I can put the pressure on, the more heat I'm taking off my civilians in the future.

If I lose my ability to defend myself, I'm doing little more than stalling for time. Better one city now than to lose a chunk of my men and later the entire country. What makes you think they'll let up after opening with 2 nuclear missiles?

This is exactly what I meant but I still don't understand how people can believe that a soldier's life equals less than that of a citizen. Sure they signed up to fight, but they didn't sign up to die needlessly. Plus if all other logic fails just comparing the numbers you'd have to be crazy to sacrifice 4 million people instead of 1 million.

 

[Pebkio]

They knew the risks of all piling into one city. Save the civilians. Besides, the whole point was to recruit soldiers so that they can then save the civilians. It'd be kinda pointless to sacrifice civilians in order to save soldiers.

...that and I think the world is overpopulated. What? No, come back! I was... kidding. Yeah, that's it, kidding.

 

[senordesol]

They knew the risks of all piling into one city. Save the civilians. Besides, the whole point was to recruit soldiers so that they can then save the civilians. It'd be kinda pointless to sacrifice civilians in order to save soldiers.

...that and I think the world is overpopulated. What? No, come back! I was... kidding. Yeah, that's it, kidding.

But are they *saving* them? With no soldiers, who saves the civilians then?

 

[hoboman29]

I say civilians because they would be completely innocent in any affair involving nukes (I guess at least) and I believe that in war you shouldn't be targeting civilians since they're not gonna fight in the war....the soldiers on the other hand are going to be fighting.

 

[Shock and Awe]

If it was 1,000,000 civilians and 1,000,000 soldiers I would have a hard time choosing, but four million to one million? Easy choice, I'd save the soldiers. This is off the simple fact that there are four times as many people at risk. Add the cold fact they are probably more useful to the state and the choice is easy.

 

[Spitfire]

Well, let's see.
I can save the 4 million soldiers, read: combatants, and continue a nuclear war, or I can save the civilians, preserve our society, and start rebuilding and repopulating as soon as possible.

I think I'm going with the latter.

 

[GTwander]

I would save the soldiers.

There is 4 times as many lives at stake, and they are more valuable to the whole in this scenario.
Nobody nukes my shit without payback.

 

[Hop-along Nussbaum]

If I may quote Spock:

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

 

[PJGlenn]

I would aim to shoot down the nuke heading towards the civilians, "miss" and shoot down the nuke headed towards the soldiers "by mistake". I would ensure plenty of media coverage is present to document the evil massacre of my civilian population and fire my secretary of defense for his gross error in shooting down the wrong nuke, of course I would ensure he has a fantastic severance package and pension for his years of loyal service.
I would appeal to the UN and the world in general to aid me in punishing this heinous crime against humanity and, in an overture of peace send several divisions of my field army to stage peaceful demonstrations at key strategic points around the perpetrators of this most evil act. If any other ballistic attacks against any of my allied, or not yet allied nations were to occur from areas extremely close to these sites of peaceful demonstration I would be sure to use our mutual tragedies to strengthen the bonds of our alliance against our common enemy. And offer my assistance to anyone who might seek revenge, in the name of peace of course.

 

[frizzlebyte]

Sorry to be *that guy*, but it would entirely depend on what the circumstances were. Just like with the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, you can't just boil it down to a binary answer.

 

[FrozenCones]

I'd save the nukes.

In a whirlpool they'd sink straight to the bottom.

 

[MyNameIsNowNotMyName]

And so what protects the civilians after all the soldiers are dead? The opposing force (whoever they are) has clearly demonstrated that they've got no problem killing civilians. So once your military is dead; what's to stop the opposing force from marching in and killing everyone?

Because those 4M soldiers did such a great job protecting in the first place, right? I mean, they can stop nukes and all... wait...
And if I keep them alive, what's to stop the opposition sending another nuke on them again?

At least if you preserve the soldiers there's still the possibility of a counter-attack and saving however many civilians remain (plus the fact that it's that many extra bodies to repopulate the country after the war is over).

Revenge is meaningless, and as was mentioned before in another post, soldiers are mostly males, so there goes that idea.

Look, we can be discussing this for all eternity if we keep going like that; the point is, there are pros and cons to both, and neither is a great choice, but I stand by my decision.

My question would be, "Who is the opposing country? And how many more nukes could they possibly have?" I NEED TO KNOW THE VARIABLES!!!