Poll: You must choose

[Slippers]

Am I calculated in the 50%? If so then option two, if not option one.

You present me with essentially two bets.

Either Russian roulette with a revolver that has 3 bullets in it or Russian roulette with a bullet between two revolvers, guess what I'm picking.

 

[plugav]

Kill half. I'm not much of a gambler.

Although... wait a second. The other option has no responsibility attatched to it. If you win, you're a hero, but even if you lose, you won't be around to feel guilty.

Yeah, I roll the dice.

 

[TacticalAssassin1]

Option one, as not only do we have such a massive global population already, but I don't want everybody to die. It's not worth the risk.

 

[NightlyNews]

Based on your picture I'm guessing you think 2.

If there's ever a choice in my life where one option could possibly end humankind as we know it, I'm picking the other option. It would be stupid and selfish otherwise.

No, it wouldn't be selfish. Nor would it be stupid. You should think things through more.

No, it would be stupid to risk an ENTIRE race just for the opportunity of there being more of that race.

A human being has a 7% chance of having appendicitis so you can think of the statistic as anyone you've ever met who had appendicitis, if picking option B, would end the entire human race as we know it.

Why would you risk the most advanced life form ever created, just to save some of them. Humans can replenish their numbers from almost any small amount. It's what we are good at we've done it before. But, we can't come back from 0.

 

[Jadak]

Don't suppose I could pick which half?

But basically, would I also have a 50% chance of being killed? If so, then it's either a 50% chance to kill myself, or a 7% chance to kill myself. I'll take the 7% please.

If I am not included in the 50%, sure, go with that.

 

[Zakarath]

...do I get to choose the half?
If not, I'd roll the dice. Otherwise, I might still roll the dice, but I dunno.

 

[BGH122]

There's really no such thing as a global population problem. Scientists have explained this already.

What nonsense is this? And who are these crackpot scientists?

http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2011/07/20/the_world_is_not_overpopulated_106247.html


http://www.agricultureinformation.com/forums/shout-box/19818-overpopulation-myth.html

When your source contains the quote:

For instance, Vice-President Al Gore and some scientists say population growth is causing global warming. But there is much disagreement in the scientific community about this. Seventy-nine scientists issued the "Leipzig Declaration" in 1995 saying "...There does not exist today a general scientific consensus about ... greenhouse warming ...."

I call baloney. This in fact seems to be a giant theme in anti-overpopulation 'studies':

Then there is ?global warming,? a propagandist?s paradise.
The gap between confi rmed relevant information on the one
hand and proposed political responses to it on the other is
mind-boggling?and you aren?t going to fi nd the facts on
page one. But you will fi nd them in abundance with just a
bit of looking. I?ll mention just one point. The Kyoto Accords
call for measures that, depending how thoroughly they
are implemented, will carry price tags running to trillions.
Yet fifty years of Kyoto-mandated Spartanism will yield an
expected reduction in global temperatures of only about
0.1 degree Celsius. What?s the point, especially when such
global warming as has been confi rmed so far has been good
for humanity, for example by extending northern growing
seasons?

Now I'm not saying that I believe that the sole cause of global warming is anthropogenic, I'm saying that I do not have the necessary credentials to honestly differ from the opinions of specialists in that field. The anthropogenic hypothesis is the scientific consensus [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change#Scientific_consensus]. I admit that, a few years back, I was deeply sceptical about the anthropogenic hypothesis. I even admit that my pre-med chemistry teacher, a very highly qualified professor, was sceptical too. However, it dawned on me that denying the scientific consensus here makes about as much sense as saying to your physician next time s/he says you need a specific medication "No! I'll take extract of arsenic instead!" Scientific consensuses exist precisely because numerous people better qualified to make the decision than you or me have decided that those hypotheses have greater credibility than their competing hypotheses.

EDIT OP: Do I get to make sure no-one I know or depend upon dies in the first option? If so then that one.

 

[TheDist]

I'd have to risk it I think, what if the 50% of the population that die were say all women or all men.

It could very easily kill off all of one sex, I think men are the lower. Even if it didn't it could well kill off enough to damage our genetic diversity.

Though funny thought as a man, it kills all men but you, what price would you put on your sperm? ;p

 

[NightlyNews]

-snip-

I said race not humans because it would be dumb to do with literally any species. If you don't care about people or the world (removing an incredibly dominant species from the world would change it - who's storing and maintaining nuclear weaponry and all domesticated animals would die) what do you care about?

Are you just selfish and want a higher chance of living 7% over 50% or do you not understand a universe without humans would be more boring.

 

[ShindoL Shill]

Well I kind of want to kill half of the human race anyway...

So I have to go with option 1.

is that why you have pinkie as your profile pic?
OT: i would go with option one. but, do i get to kill those people myself without getting arrested? as in, it isnt counted as a crime and i get the weaponry supplied to me.

 

[Vrex360]

But that would only result in the deaths of 75 percent of the original human population, so you'd basically be doing option 1 over and over until the human population got so small it could no longer support itself and maintain genetic diversity.

I actually think I prefer that option then... for Sportmanship reasons.

 

[rokkolpo]

I don't want people I care about die, so unless I have a choice of who definitely gets to live, I have to say 2.

 

[purehatred89]

Option one please, I'm not a gambling misanthropist. 3 billion guaranteed dead is better than 7% chance of all.

 

[Broady Brio]

2nd option.

I'd be dead if it went wrong, so oh well.

 

[Doclector]

Wait, 2.93% chance of saving everyone, 7% chance of killing everyone? What happens in the other 90.07% of possibilities? Humanity becomes the living dead?

I'd kill half. I don't like those odds. have some people in mind if I can choose...

 

[DSK-]

Kill half. At least that way you know 100% what the outcome will be. I'd rather not risk it for a biscuit.

 

[thtool]

Tough question. I would decide it on the basis of the end result of the all life. I see the ultimate goal of life as learning as much as possible about the universe.

If we chose the second one, we might wipe out all human life. You can't ignore that, because 7% is huge. There will be no more super-powerful animal species that has the full monopoly over everything else. Maybe another species will evolve over millions of years to form another creature on the same intellectual level as humans. But that's not a certain outcome, maybe life will never again achieve high intelligence. But life on earth may be better off, without the greedy destructive bastards who burn forests and wreck everything.

The first option means humans will definitely remain the greatest species. We will also lose a whole lot of polluters, better for earth. It may also wreck the economy and change society in drastic ways...

I'm going to go for option 1. Can't take the risk that all human life be erased.

 

[NightlyNews]

-snip-

I said race not humans because it would be dumb to do with literally any species. If you don't care about people or the world (removing an incredibly dominant species from the world would change it - who's storing and maintaining nuclear weaponry and all domesticated animals would die) what do you care about?

I think being able to read is kind of important, I care about that. And not making petty distinctions like between 'race' and 'humans'. Note: I didn't say I didn't care about people. I said I don't value the species as a whole over individuals. That's a pretty obvious difference so it's rather disingenuous to pretend I said I don't care about people or the world. And also, changing the world != bad. I'd say that from the point of view of most surviving creatures it doesn't make much of a difference.

Are you just selfish and want a higher chance of living 7% over 50% or do you not understand a universe without humans would be more boring.

Are you really so bad at reading that the word individuals doesn't parse?

And more boring? Yeah, way to make a case for humanity. "It would be boring without us". And a terribly thought out argument too since for all you know no one else knows about us. Lastly, it says you're the selfish one.

I understood the first part. I don't believe it and personally think your a pseudo intellectual because you use flowy prose to talk on the internet.

The second point honestly didn't make sense. What didn't I understand about individuals. What are you placing value on yourself or your friends and family. Individuals is kinda a shit word, which is why everyone out of eighth grade English class stops using it. It's like using one instead of you, it doesn't make you smarter it just makes your writing colder and incomprehensible.

 

[Sgt. Dante]

We are on the brink of overpopulation so 1 is the only sensible choice. 2 is never worth the risk as even if it were a 1% chance of killing everyone then it's quite frankly not worth completely unrecoverable.