# Who would you kill, Tim Geithner or a newborn baby? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 7, 2010, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767 "2010-11-07T04:49:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/1 "2010-11-07T04:49:15Z")
After reading one too many of Skald’s threads, Athena, Goddess of a wide variety of things, decides to mess with with a random mortal. She settles upon you and offers you a choice. You must decide to kill one person out of two options. Your choices are: 1. Tim Geither, U.S. Secretary of Treasury. 2. A newborn child, born to a couple that makes a combined salary of $100,000 annually and resides in the suburbs of a northeastern state in the U.S… Poll coming soon. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/2 "2010-11-07T04:58:35Z")
I picked Geithner. I have nothing against the man but I followed the general principle of not killing a baby. I figured you’re taking more of a life if you kill a baby then you are if you kill an adult. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/3 "2010-11-07T05:00:28Z")
This is a terrible poll. No choice made. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/4 "2010-11-07T05:01:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I picked Geithner. I have nothing against the man but I followed the general principle of not killing a baby. I figured you’re taking more of a life if you kill a baby then you are if you kill an adult. The heck? They’re both a life, each having equal value. How is a baby “more of a life” than an adult? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/5 "2010-11-07T05:17:07Z")
I think the logic is that if you kill a baby, you’re taking away 70 or 80 years of life, but if you kill a 40-year-old man, you’re only taking away 30 or 40 years. Regardless, I fight the hypothetical. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/6 "2010-11-07T05:23:04Z")
I picked the baby. No reason. ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/7 "2010-11-07T05:43:57Z")
The baby is less of a life. It is barely sentient, it does not have a personality, it is not educated, it is not skilled, it is not useful, and it has had relatively fewer of society’s resources invested in it. Regardless of whether we’re talking about Tim Geithner or anyone else of his age - the loss of a person with 50 years of education and experience is incalculably worse than the loss of a proto-person that has done nothing but grow in someone’s stomach for 9 months. The baby is replaceable, Geithner is not. I would tell Athena to kill the baby in a split-second. ---
**Author:** ![gladtobeblazed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@gladtobeblazed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gladtobeblazed)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/8 "2010-11-07T07:40:15Z")
Geithner is 49 years old. That’s not very old, but it’s not young either. I’d say he has already pretty much lived a full and rewarding life, while the baby has a whole life yet to live. But really that’s just trying to justify an impossible decision. Either choice is horrible, but I would choose to kill Geithner because I wouldn’t feel as bad as killing the baby. Logic has nothing to do with it, it’s just the way my emotions are. ---
**Author:** ![FuzzyOgre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@FuzzyOgre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FuzzyOgre)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/9 "2010-11-07T07:57:54Z")
It comes down to who makes a tastier soup? Killing a person is bad enough; we shouldn’t be wasteful too. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/10 "2010-11-07T18:30:59Z")
I chose baby. I love children, they taste like pork. Still, I can’t think of a good reason to let Timmy live, either. Can’t we have a “Both” choice? ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2010, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/11 "2010-11-07T18:33:48Z")
> [@Lakai](#): > > After reading one too many of Skald’s threads, Athena, Goddess of a wide variety of things, decides to mess with with a random mortal. > > She settles upon you and offers you a choice. You must decide to kill one person out of two options. > > Your choices are: > > 1. Tim Geither, U.S. Secretary of Treasury. > > 2. A newborn child, born to a couple that makes a combined salary of $100,000 annually and resides in the suburbs of a northeastern state in the U.S.. > > Poll coming soon. I’m going to need you to take back the libel of my patron. ODIN would do that. If Athena felt it needful to kill a newborn, she would do it herself. Which she wouldn’t, on account of not being Yahweh, Zeus, or Odin. ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/12 "2010-11-08T03:03:03Z")
I picked baby for the reasons already mentioned. Also, who’s to say the baby wouldn’t grow up to be a murderer or otherwise complete asshole? ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/13 "2010-11-08T03:31:16Z")
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to weigh the potentials. As Clint’s character in _Unforgiven_ said, when you kill a man you’re not just killing him, you’re killing everything he’ll ever be. With the victim being a 49 year old man, he’s already “been” a lot of what he’ll be in life. I do believe that in the field of organ transplants a very similar logic is used. > [@](#): > > “This is the first report to suggest that the idea that younger patients do better than older patients may not be valid in 2008,” says Abbas Ardehali, one of the study authors and associate professor of cardiothoracic surgery and director of the UCLA Lung Transplant Program. “In the rest of medicine, we don’t discriminate due to age. In transplant, we have to because of the limited organ supply.” > > The team reviewed medical records of 100 patients who received lung transplants between March 2000 and September 2006 as the percentage of elderly patients getting transplants rose at UCLA. > > The study found that surgeons usually gave elderly patients one lung instead of two and that they transplanted less-than-perfect lungs into the elderly patients. The elderly patients consented to getting an organ that was often not considered good enough for a younger patient. > > “We try to take organs we would not use in a younger patient,” Ardehali says. “That is how I can morally justify this to myself.” From [this](http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-02-04-transplant_N.htm) ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/14 "2010-11-08T03:50:12Z")
I’d kill Tim Geithner. I take [tax evasion](http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/13/news/economy/geithner/index.htm?postversion=2009011320) seriously. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/15 "2010-11-08T03:55:19Z")
Geithner has information that might be useful to future historians & policymakers. The infant, by comparison, knows nothing. Kill the infant, less negative utility, lesser of two evils. ---
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/16 "2010-11-08T04:17:08Z")
A person’s value to society probably goes as a bell curve - negligible right after birth, peaking somewhere between age 35 and 65, and negligible right before death. “A whole life left to live” is irrelevant. Unrealized, hypothetical future potential is irrelevant. No one thinks twice about the millions of babies they are “killing” every time they have sex, despite the fact that each sperm cell had “a whole life left to live”. ---
**Author:** ![Lakai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@Lakai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lakai)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/17 "2010-11-08T05:02:17Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I’m going to need you to take back the libel of my patron. > > ODIN would do that. If Athena felt it needful to kill a newborn, she would do it herself. Which she wouldn’t, on account of not being Yahweh, Zeus, or Odin. Typical Athenian. Always turning a blind eye toward the antics of your Goddess. And I’d be careful about how you talk about the Norse Gods in the future. Just saying. As for the hypothetical, I’m glad I didn’t have to explain the opposing arguments at play here. I would kill Geithner, for similar non-logical reasons that **gladtobeblazed** mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/18 "2010-11-08T05:23:32Z")
Geithner is one of the guys on Wall Street who contributed to this mess. Obama was a fool for making him secretary of the Treasury, I suspect there was a LOT of pressure exerted by Wall Street heavies to make it happen, cause they knew Geithner would continue to cover their asses. The US, hell, the world, would be MUCH better off without Geithner. The newborn would have to be a serious, George Dubya Bush level fuckup to be worse than Geithner. The odds are very much against that. I spare the baby, and would PREFER the option to kill Geithner a decade ago … if killing is my only option. Neutralizing him in a non-lethal way would be my preferred route. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/19 "2010-11-08T05:33:15Z")
Acid-glue Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767/20 "2010-11-08T05:35:16Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Geithner is one of the guys on Wall Street who contributed to this mess. Obama was a fool for making him secretary of the Treasury, I suspect there was a LOT of pressure exerted by Wall Street heavies to make it happen, cause they knew Geithner would continue to cover their asses. The US, hell, the world, would be MUCH better off without Geithner. The newborn would have to be a serious, George Dubya Bush level fuckup to be worse than Geithner. The odds are very much against that. I spare the baby, and would PREFER the option to kill Geithner a decade ago … if killing is my only option. Neutralizing him in a non-lethal way would be my preferred route. You are, of course, presuming the resolution of the Wall Street debacle would have been different had someone other than Geithner been SoT, but you have absolutely no reason to do so. I contend that the outcome would have been pretty much the same, probably exactly the same, regardless of who held the position. Geithner played the cards he was dealt. The same lousy hand would have been dealt to anyone else. The self-inflicted mess with his personal taxes just gave people a little more meat to hang their ire onto, but that had nothing to do with the decisions that were made. What? You don’t think he was just as surprised as anyone else would have been when he was handed the crap sandwich and told to eat it? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-you-kill-tim-geithner-or-a-newborn-baby/559767.md?page=2)