Exactly. If the aliens won’t spell out in detail every aspect of their proposed deal, including the fate of the 38 million, the hell with 'em.
Bad humans. No inexhaustible clean energy. 
First off, are these six-breasted gold-skinned sexual goddess hot mama aliens, or the other kind? No? Okay, moving on.
Second, I’m extremely skeptical of any of the things proposed which would make the world “better.” Giving out free inexhaustible energy, curing all diseases, and removing all world debt would be a hammer blow to the world economy unless it were done over a long time and with suitable care. Those left behind would struggle to redefine their societies in the context of these “fixes.”
I’d say no, but not because of some adage that says sacrificing one person for your own comfort is wrong. I would be prepared to make that sacrifice if and only if there were no other choice. This is not presented as a forced deal, and therefore we have nothing to lose by saying no: the world doesn’t get worse if we turn it town. Therefore, no.
There are times when we do sacrifice people for a cause: in war, in medicine, in science. We do this when sacrificing one life now may save two lives later, or ten, or a hundred, but we don’t do it because we like it.
Ok, I’ll bite. You’re kidding right? Sure, there would be an initial adjustment, but free energy and health care – think of how much of a boost this would give to every business except the outmoded energy and health care sectors. Think of all the business models that would suddenly become viable with free energy. Think of all the research that could be done. And all those people displaced from the energy/health industries would be cheap educated labor. Sure, there might be an initial shock – for the time it took the VCs to pick up their telephones.
Nope, just pessimistic.
Society would adjust after a time, creating the infrastructure necessary: homes for the newly unemployed energy workers to live in where they can do the new jobs they’re needed for, schools to re-educate them, building and inventing the new factories where they’d work, and so on.
We’d find a way to pay for these thousands of non-tax-paying people to re-enter the economy… somehow. It just wouldn’t be pretty and it may take years to recover. Saying it could be resolved with a phone call and everything is happy is greatly oversimplifying.
And as for the debt thing, I wouldn’t trade a used ice cube for some alien paying that sucker off. Debt is something we do to ourselves, on purpose, and there’s no guarantee that governments everywhere wouldn’t use their newfound credit to go right back into debt.
I agree with you there. I don’t really get the debt part of the OP either.
Well I have to say I am with the OP. I would vote yes. Of course I am making some assumptions. That the aliens are honest folk who wouldn’t dare rip us off, that they weren’t testing us. Basically that these 38 million people are going to die (maybe as the source for our unlimited energy?) and that we get what we want, world peace, plasma TVs, whatever. The fact that the OP said ‘black people’ I am discounting, just going with the 38 million people, regardless of race, creed, or whatever. As well I was taking it more as a world view thing, not just a US thing.
Personally I think all the arguements about whether or not the aliens are testing us, or will scam us misses the point of the question. It is a pretty simple one: does the good of the majority outweigh the good of the minority?
Why would I vote yes? Well to be honest I have some very strong misanthropic tendencies. I think the vast majority of humanity is pretty bad, out for number 1 and all that. Not to mention pretty stupid. That is not the point though. Humans are killing humans for a lot less then plasma TVs for all. Ok, if you insist world peace, clean energy, blah blah blah. Might as well get some use out of all of this death, besides keeping western economies strong. As well, I don’t believe all of you who are saying ‘No’. If I had a million dollars and said you can have if somewhere someone loses a leg I really doubt most of you would say no. Particularly if you saw the million in one of those cool metal briefcases right in front of you. So what is the difference?
To me the greater good outweighs a few deaths. Think of how many lifes could be saved because of this. With plentiful energy the US might not have to wage endless wars in the Middle east, people could farm more efficiently, where its cold people could get heat, where its hot people could get cool. Not to mention the plasma TVs! All in all I think the net gain of human lifes would be greater then 38 million. Factor in the increase in living conditions, and in a few decades people will barely even remember the 38 million who died and it would hardly matter that they were sacrificed at all.
I, for one, welcome our new alien overlords.
Sign me up for beaming. Of course, I’ll probably end up regretting my decision eventually, but at least this time around I would have contributed something significant to the world around me.
My parents will think I’m nucking futz, but I never claimed to be all there in the first place.
In regards to the OP: No way.
Thinking about it, a lot of the opposition to the idea in the thread can be summed up by something that Diogenes the Cynic posted waaaay back in post #4:
With a caveat, I agree with this view.
The caveat, however, is this: There are times that so-called lifeboat ethics do exist and the personal gain does mean survival of the rest of the given population. However, what’s being offered in this deal is not what I’d consider a solution to problems that I view as being that drastic. Energy, health, and food production problems are all real, and serious. But we are not in the position of having to choose between sacrificing some persons, or having everyone risk total destruction.
There is a time for lifeboat ethics. The situation in the OP does not meet what I consider the minimum urgency for such a drastic choice.
(Though I have to admit, if they aliens changed the offer to Zoe’s choice of one person of my choice I’d be tempted, strongly tempted, to offer up Arthur Shawcross - or maybe one of those who let him out after he’d first murdered two kids in Watertown.)
Why do I think if such a deal was ever offered to a world leader those 38 million would be fed into a reality tv show or special opportunity of some kind and never come back a la Running Man, The Island, Logans Run, etc.
Win the go live with the aliens lottery!!! A world with no disease, lifespans of thousands of years, blah, blah, blah, a free migliore hovercar for every winner, the next 50 winners will get their own real lightsaber!! Just $1 per ticket and you could be selected for the experience of a lifetime…
I can see the lines at 7-11 already…
To most of the ways the question was posed so far here, I’d definitely vote ‘No.’.
However…What if the 38 million were to be taken at random after the vote were held?
That way you’re not just tossing other people into the meat grinder to benefit yourself.
I think I might actually vote yes for that, seeing as I’d be as likely as anyone else to be chosen.
That being said, I’d probably just volunteer.
The way I’d handle this exchange if I were President would be the way all governments handle everything: Deception.
Send out a ballot asking people to vote on the issue of sending people off with aliens in exchange for a paradise. Then just send the ones that voted yes.