Yes, it’s a Rhymer hypothetical. If you don’t like it, bite me. The story’s short, though, and I just now decided I’m too lazy to include a poll. In addition, for the thirteen year old boys among you, there’s lesbians.
Today’s story is about **Demetria **Bail, top operative for an American super-secret spy agency . Her latest antagonist is a megalomaniacal quadrillionaire whose been blackmailing the world with his orbiting 1920s-style death rays. After using the power of love to persuade the villain’s Chinese moll to change sides, Bail escapes a death trap, kills the villain and all his henchmen, and disables all but two of the killer satellites.
But she hasn’t saved the day. Not completely. You see, the two remaining big fucking guns in the sky are both armed & counting down; less than 20 seconds remains before each destroys everything in the target city. Bail knows it will take about fifteen seconds to disable either. She cannot use the death rays to destoy one another, and it would take at least two minutes to tell the only other living person in the lair (the moll) how to perform the operation. She has no remaining weapons or gizmos that would be useful. One of the death rays is targeting Wheeling, West Virginia, population under half a million; the other is set to annihiliate Beijing, China, population 30 times that. The moll’s family lives in Beijing.
Which city should Bail save? What should she do about the moll?
I have answered versions of this question before and some people don’t like it but sorry Bejing. If I am the one doing the choosing then it is going to be all about how similar the people are to me. Bejing is huge city and there could be more Americans there than there are in Wheeling, WV for all I know but I am not going to obsess about nuances. Don’t get too cocky Wheeling, WV however. I don’t think I know anyone personally there so if the next choice is between you and my second cousin, you can kiss your hillbilly asses goodbye too.
Shag, are you saying that if the choice were between, say, Wolverhampton, England, and Beijing, you would still choose the smaller city?
I wouldn’t be easy about it, but I think I would have to choose Wheeling, because as an American agent I would presumably be sworn to protect US lives above all others. And I’m still not sure what I’d do; there are realpolitik reasons for saving Beijing, and unless you do, you probably have to kill the moll in cold blood to avoid disastrous repercussions.
Beijing. The Chinese are just as much people as Americans, their lives count for as much. And it’s a city, not some military base or something else overwhelmingly full of people closely aligned with their admittedly unpleasant government; the vast majority of the people there are just people.
I would pick any American city to be saved over Bejing (or Moscow or Tokyo) because it would be my job and they are a little abstract to me because I have never been to any of them. It gets a little harder in your second contest. I am of English descent and my daughters have English family but I don’t know if I could justify the imbalance in numbers based on that alone. When I say I would pick people that are similar to me to be saved, it isn’t just about race or nationality. It is more of a kneejerk reaction based on the people that I know in real-life and includes lots of different types of people.
Everyone has that trait to some degree even if they don’t want to admit it. A hundred or so Americans getting killed by tornadoes in some backwater is a real tragedy according to the news. 10,000 Indonesians getting killed is worth an offhand mention followed by fashion tips for summer.
Also, your numbers are off by a huge margin. Wheeling, West Virginia itself has a population of only 30,000 and a metro population of 140,000. Meanwhile, the Beijing metro area numbers 20 million people.
It’s unlikely our secret agent would know Wheeling’s population, but it’s equally unlikely a Bond villain would target the fifth largest city in West Virginia.
I think I would save the big city over the small town no matter what the nationalities. This is partly because I don’t like small towns. I’d save an Australian city over Beijing, though, even Perth, although it only has 1.3 million people in it and that’s pure patriotism or nationalism or whatever you want to call it.
I would save Americans, because I’m an American. How many Chinese (or any other nationality) would save foreigners over their own people? Not many. Americans, well most, always feel bad for everyone. I don’t know why. Most everyone else hates us. Even the English aren’t that nice to us when they don’t need us for something.
Also, as far as nationalistic concerns go this isn’t a matter of a war scenario, America versus China. This is America and China being attacked by a mutual enemy.
I wonder if so many people would be as willing to see London destroyed as Beijing.
That certainly isn’t my experience; most Americans I know either care nothing about anyone outside the borders or would cheerfully torch the rest of the planet if there was a profit in it.
No one else is addressing this part of the scenario, but I go with saving Beijing because of the moll and her family. If I read the OP correctly, Bail and the moll are in love, so this immediately increases the importance of the city where the family is from.
Would I save Taipei where my wife’s family is from over New York? In a heartbeat.
Would I save Taipei over Salt Lake where my mother lives? That’s a tougher question.
I’m loved every second of my time in China last summer, including Beijing. I am actively taking steps so that my career path will lead me to live in China for a few years.
That said, in the example giving, Beijing gets hit by the death ray. The job of the US Gov’t is to protect the people of the United States and their individual rights. As an agent of the US Gov’t, Ms. Bail has a duty to do just that, even at the expense of the rights and lives of the nations of other people. My answer would be the same were the large city, London, or Tokyo, or Rome. I’d fully expect were the situation reversed and it were a Ms Bai and it was some po-dunk city in China versus say San Francisco, that I’d expect Ms. Bai to save the Chinese city.
The agent doesn’t tell the moll all she knows about the weapons. Just point to moll at the one targeted for Bejing, and tell her to do what the agent does…to the weapon aimed at Wheeling. She’s an American agent, and her duty is to protect American interests. Once Wheeling is safe, the agent can try to pull a miracle on the other weapon, or start composing the story of how the moll died bravely attempting to do something noble, blah blah as she shoots the moll in the head.
Der Trihs, I have mostly avoided reading your posts, since the handful of your comments that I have happened on seem to paint you as having a pathological (whether real or pretend, I have no idea) hatred of all things American, as well as an apparent fear and loathing of all women, no matter their nationality, but just out of pure, naked curiosity, how many different countries have you spent time in over your lifetime?
Have you ever had a serious relationship with a woman?
(I assume you are heterosexual, but I may well be mistaken)
Does the agent actually love the moll, and plan to make a future with her? Or did the agent fake her feelings to get the moll to fall in love with her, and it’s all “just business”?
I don’t understand why her employment matters. Should a McDonald’s employee save a McDonald’s building with 4 people over a Wendy’s building with 200 people?
Agent Bail’s occupation isn’t comparable to working at a fast food franchise. I wouldn’t expect any employee of McDonald’s or Wendy’s to attempt to save either building. I would, however, expect Bail to save the American city. She has (presumably, based on the scenario) sworn an oath to defend the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Also, that Wendy’s is probably way over it’s maximum occupation limit.
Furthermore, think of the net positive impact to the environment if Beijing were to get obliterated. That’s 20 million less people producing carbon for the atmosphere. When you look at it that way, even if you want to argue from the standpoint of a responsibility to the entire human race, you have to let the big city eat the death ray. You’re improving thing (even if only marginally) for billions then.
If you want to get really really cynical about it, Bail should save Wheeling, not only because it’s her mission to protect America, but also because the destruction of Beijing would knock the US’s chief rival down a large peg, without dirtying our hands.
Not necessarily advocating for this view, which I recognize is pretty sociopathic.
