I see no downside to choosing the 100. Even better if he gave me some considerable time (like a month or two) to compile the list. I would do my best to come up with a list of 100 violent douchebags, animal abusers, people whose sole purpose in life is to cause suffering to others, etc… My neighborhood’s full of those. Win-win-win.
Is this a question about what is the moral choice, or what we’d actually do? Asking for clarity, not that it matters to me.
Mr Wednesday can go fuck himself, I accept no blame for anything he does. I refuse to choose.
No you’re not. Odin is.
A later clarification specified having to name names but a page from the phonebook was deemed acceptable.
In my moral system, it’s the same. Perhaps that’s why I don’t see the dilemma here.
Not understanding this general problem either. You have the chance to minimize the damage, but some people think they can avoid guilt through inaction. 1st Law of Robotics should apply though. Big problems occured when the inaction part was removed in an experiment.
In my moral system, responsibility for an action resides with, you know, the sentient individual who commits that action. Odin can’t make me responsible for his own actions any more than, say, a Palestinian terrorist could by blowing some people up if some prisoners aren’t released, or the like.
Odin does the killing, Odin takes the blame. This might be different if Odin were a force of nature, or a runaway train. Not for me, still, but I could be made to agree that the tone of one’s inaction is different for non-sentient events.
This particular dilemma would make a positronic brain blow up. There’s no action you can take (or inaction you don’t take ) that doesn’t result in humans being harmed. There’s no “…to the least possible number of humans” rider to the Laws. That needs the 0th Law.
Nor do the Laws take the morals of the actual principal actor in this situation into account. But I can, because…
…I am not a robot.
I’m speaking about the results of inaction. Some people believe inaction in this kind of situation frees them guilt. So they would allow 10,000 to die guilt free through inaction instead of taking an action that would cause the death of 100. I find this absurd, and reference the 3 laws as an example to show how harm through inaction is no different from harm through action.
I’ve seen nothing so far that indicates Odin would not pull the same shit next week if he happens to get bored again. So for me selecting 100 for death now is no insurance against someone else having to make the same decision next week, and the week after that, etc.
Ergo, fuck Odin and the horse he rode in on. Any killing done because of my inaction is on his conscience, if he has one.
Too easy. I can easily find 100 people in prison for life here in Florida for murder that aren’t on death row. Of course, I could get a better list in a state that doesn’t have capital punishment, but let them find their own Aesir.
Tell Odin to start with the youngest and kill them in chronological order from youngest to oldest.
Others have said it, but if by “inaction” you mean simply “not stopping something bad from happening which I could”, then I’m also responsible for thousands of DUI deaths, rapes, muggings, and polution.
Preach it, bro.
Why would a hypothetical set of rules for hypothetical robots be of any interest?
Fine, we disagree. If I had such a clear-cut choice as in the OP, there is no moral math I could do to justify inaction. Whether I like it or not, I have been given a direct choice in whether 10,000 people die or 100 people die. Yes, I’m not doing the killing, and I don’t want to be part of the game, but tough shit. The omnipotent being has told me I am, and, well, I’m not an omnipotent being, so I don’t have a choice in the matter, unfortunately. I could not live with myself knowing that I could have simply chosen 100 random people–hell, 100 people at the sports stadium would be fine–instead of letting 10,000 get killed.
I choose 100 innocents. There are a lot of people I personally know that I don’t like. I’d like to be rid of them
I guess I just don’t understand morality. See if I was driving down the street, and pedestrians were crossing the street down the road, and I’m driving slowly enough and far enough away that I don’t have to do anything to avoid hitting them, and then a glitch in the car’s computer sends my car hurtling down the street at top speed, I used to think I should step on the brake or do something to stop from running over someone. But now thanks to the SDMB I realize that since I didn’t do anything to create this situation, I should just do nothing and let the car hit someone. It’s not a result of any action I took. I shouldn’t have to take any action to stop it from happening. And I shouldn’t bother because it won’t do anything to keep that from happening with some other car.:rolleyes:
It’s about obligation. In your example, the car is my responsibility; I have an obligation to drive it safely (and it’s not a thinking reasoning autonomous being like Odin is anyway). Were the OP stipulating that I was, say, the mayor, governor, or president, then I would have an obligation to act to protect the citizens I was elected to serve (although it would be a lot like negotiating with terrorists, which ostensibly is a bad thing). Were I a general forced to choose between 10,000 random civilians being killed by an enemy force or 100 soldiers I choose being killed in a skirmish to stop that enemy force, I would absolutely choose the latter. Hell, if I had summoned up Odin in some dark ritual to gain some kind of power, and his price was 10,000 random people or 100 that I choose, even then I would have an obligation to minimize the damage.
In the OP’s example, I’m a random shmuck who’s been picked for no other reason than to amuse some god’s sadistic sense of humor. I have no obligation and do not have to be involved just because he says so.
To use a much, much less extreme analogy, there is a spot in one of Christopher Titus’s stand-up acts where he says, “I believe that if someone, anyone, would just stand up and apologize for what white people have done to black people in the past, then the healing can start.” He then points to a random member of the audience. “Go.” It’s done for humor, and it’s certainly not a life or death situation, but it’s still one person trying to impose obligation on another without consent, and there is absolutely nothing that says that random audience member has to oblige.
I’m not saying I wouldn’t go with the 100. But I would have to think about it, weigh it, and decide whether I’m going to shoulder the burden of the guilt of accepting that obligation and actively condemning people. I think I probably could. But it’s not so cut and dry to me as it evidently is to you all. The scenario is asking me to go from being a random shmuck to the next minute being someone with the power to choose who lives and who dies, and that’s not something I’d necessarily be prepared for. shrug Sorry I’m not a selfless hero like everyone else apparently is.
See, I feel like it’s everyone else who feels that they’re being a “hero” by standing up to the god and showing “no entity will be the boss of me!” What is selfless about bearing the guilt of 9,900 people dead vs 100 people dead? I feel that selecting 100 random people to die is the more selfish, less guilty-for-me choice than letting 10,000 people die, when I know I can absolutely prevent it at no cost to me. I don’t at all present choosing 100 people as being “selflessly heroic.” Are you kidding me? That’s the easy choice. For me, of course. Much, much less guilt.
Oh hell no. We’re selfish as fuck. We’re saying our mental well-being is more important than 9,900 people. At this point I’m only trying to argue that it’s not necessarily cowardly as well as selfish.
And, honestly, it’s not that unreasonable. Monkeyspheres can only stretch so far before people become an amorphous mass. 10,000 people is an abstract idea, a statistic. I may never meet those 9,900 people I saved, but I’ll have to live with myself every day afterward. That’s the cost you’re ignoring, or that maybe isn’t a factor for you. I don’t see how it can’t be, but I guess we’re all different.
Heroes are those who take on burdens so that others don’t have to. The knowledge that I chose the people to die is the burden. In my specific case, I think it’s a smaller burden than 9,900 people dead, but only just so, and I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t exist.
Push the monkeysphere far enough and it wouldn’t even ping my meter. If I had to name names to be killed, I’d tell Odin to off the first hundred "Wang"s in the Beijing phone book. 9900 Americans saved at the cost of 100 Chinese I have no knowledge of. No brainer. No guilt at all.
Possibly, but for the moment let’s assume Odin’s being a sadistic asshole and wants you to tell him each name of the people you’re willing to kill. That act of looking up each name confers a greater link to each Wang than 10,000 people you don’t know will be killed since Odin’s going to go have his fun without you. Right there, Lo Wang isn’t a statistic, he’s some person you’re telling Odin to kill.
If Odin accepts “the first 100 Wangs in the Beijing phonebook,” then perhaps that’s enough abstracted distance to avoid guilt. But considering he’s setting up this scenario for his own personal amusement, I really doubt he’s going to let anyone slide the way they think they will. I’ve been assuming that the people dead, regardless of what I choose, will be in the same city and will have to be individually named.
It’s easy. I’d pick the 100 people. They are the only ones I would not be responsible for, because 100 people are going to die either way. The idea that you are not responsible for inaction is a complete and total non-starter, as there is no rational reason why inaction is somehow different from action. And responsibility doesn’t help, as you became responsible once you were made to be involved.
And, unfortunately, I can’t name myself. I’m the only one who knows what happened. I have to spread the knowledge far and wide what happened. Heck, if Odin exists, then likely the other gods do as well. A quick look at Wikipedia makes it seem like Frigg would be willing to at least shame him, and the Latin Gods (which I assume means the Greek gods with new names) are sufficiently powerful enough to cut off all his godly attributes. And Jove has beaten beings more powerful than him before.