Let’s assume that it’s 74 years in the future. The world is a dystopian nightmare.
The earth is overrun by a population too large to sustain it thanks in part to the Anti-abortion act of 2035. Scientists have come to you telling you that they’ve invented a time machine that can go back in time. Or forward in time. Or sideways and slantways and longways. It may be that it’s not a time machine at all, but rather the wonkavator.
They explain to you in detail that if you go forward in time you’ll never be able to return. Likewise, if you go backwards to change anything there’s a liklihood of creating a parallel dimension in inverse proportion to the number of years in which you decide to travel back.
But then there’s a 10% chance that the machine malfunctions and destroys the earth altogether. And a 9% chance that it does nothing at all. And a 7.6% chance it takes you to a random point in time and drops you off.
You have the option of going home and packing just three things. These things must serve you well no matter which path you end up taking, even if it’s the random path. So off you go.
Now, while at home packing, you discover that aliens have invaded Earth. After destroying the White House and everyone in it, the government calls you up because you’re Constitutionally next in line for succession. You call up the Aliens and they offer this proposal:
trade in the time machine and they’ll give you everlasting life for you and 100 of your closest friends. Meanwhile the rest of the planet dies. Or you can fight them off where your closest friends will be at the frontlines and will surely die but almost no one else will.
You take this opportunty to sit down and contemplate God. Should you now pray to Him? After all, the world may end and if you don’t believe you could go to Hell. Alternatively, God, if He existed, may not approve of your choosing only a time of last resort to start believing and bring you to Hell in spite of your prayers. And what, you contemplate, would happen if there is no God? Then your whole time would be wasted.
So you ask the Aliens if you could trade in your time machine instead for the opportunity to win the lottery. The Aliens agree but on one condition: you must use those funds to convince your sister the sleep with you. Then you must kill your grandmother. Or the other way around.
Now, the aliens aren’t heartless. They have the technology to create a soundproof, shockproof, opaque room where no one but those that enter knows what goes on inside. They also have the ability to create amnesia amongst any participant who may see or otherwise know of such encounters. Thus, going through with the killing of your grandmother and sleeping with your sister (or the other way around), only you would end up knowing such a deed occurred.
And if you don’t end up choosing anything, the Aliens will place you outside a burning car where your only child is inside, trapped, and there’s no way out. They will provide you with a gun and give you the option of shooting him before being burned alive. But they will not provide you with amnesia for this act.
Before you choose anything, however, the police arrest you for the thought crime of trying to destroy the human race through Godless timetravel, treason amongst Aliens, and attempting to copulate with your sister/grandmother.
They tell you that they have your sister/grandmother/alien compatriot/God in the other room and that if you implicate them and they don’t talk, you’ll go free. But if they implicate you and you don’t talk, you’ll get 10 years. Alternatively, you can both implicate each other and serve 5 years.
But there’s a solution they haven’t yet presented. They can lay down a gun with one bullet in it and you can choose to press the trigger once and only once. You can choose to shoot yourself, or one of the two guards that are blocking the exit. The key here is that one guard always tells the truth and the other one always lies, so there’s a chance you can get out of this situation without firing the gun at all, but merely by asking the right question (of which you also only get one shot…so to speak).
Asking the right question allows you the choice of two doors. One leads to a lady, who sets you free. The other to a rampaging tiger and certain death. Or perhaps it’s the other way around.
So what do you do?