The setup: Someone you love is on the verge of death. They are 100% certain to die within a few minutes. An entity makes itself present to you and offers you a deal to save your dying loved one. The entity promises to entirely restore the loved one’s health and let them continue living as if whatever they were dying from was completely gone (cancer, car accident, etc). The point is, they will make a full recovery and go on to live as if nothing were wrong. This isn’t going to restore any missing limbs or medical issues prior to whatever was causing their death though, so please don’t make this too complicated.
The deal: In order to save the loved one’s life, the entity has to take the life of another person other than your own, of your choosing, that has a long life ahead of them (no choosing someone you know that is on their deathbed or older than 80). It has to be someone who has had a direct impact and interacts with you on a personal level regularly in your life (acquaintances, friends, coworkers, family members… but not a celebrity you shook hands with once at a signing event, for example). This can include people from your past who you once personally knew but are no longer a part of your life.
Furthermore, if you refuse the deal, the entity tells you that they are going to kill someone “important to you” anyway. Those are the words the entity uses, and no further information is given.
You have a few minutes to choose. What do you do?
TL;DR Would you kill someone you know to save the life of a loved one, or would you let that loved one die in addition to someone else important to you to avoid having to select someone’s premature death.
Hell, I’d ask for a package deal. Save my wife for one name, then let’s go down the children’s ward and I’ll give the entity a new name to save each child there.
Would I be able to get a list of the prisoners sitting on death row?
Do I have to know the persons name, can I off a criminal without knowing his/her name?
Trade in the life of a loved one and off a serial killer at the same time? How about dictators of foreign countries? Off a few terrorists? Can I contract it out, get somebody else to pay me for choosing somebody they want gone?
Pretty much what Oak said. A lot of people I knew back in primary and secondary school turned into real bad eggs, and are doing serious time for various heinous felonies. If the loved one is my wife, I’d wipe out several large countries to save her. Maybe I’d give the entity my mother. She’s 99 after all. It’s been hard to find an ice floe here in Southern California.
This is the clincher. Not only would I take the deal, I’d immediately put my loved one back in a coma so the entity would return and offer the same deal again.
I’d so take the deal, but can I still have the blueberry cheesecake?
My loved one is so valuable to me that I wouldn’t just tell the entity to take the first person who gave me speed, I’d offer up everyone I knew who sold to kids.
I would take the deal and not even need a few minutes to think about it. If the Third World has taught me anything, it’s that you have to be cold-blooded at times.
The deal is that I have to choose someone I know, but not necessarily like, right? In that case, hell yes, there’s tons of people I know who I would rather be dead without a second thought
