Nope, it’s an offshoot of on the Internet there’s less need to tell polite, little white lies. IRL I wouldn’t automatically tell someone I was imagining their crying obnoxious baby drowning unless I was really pushed and angry, but I would definitely be thinking that.
My obligation to save the baby has nothing to do with you, its parent. Even if you have refused to save my baby, I am still obligated to save yours. Hell, even if you MURDERED mine, I’d still have to save yours. The sins of the father are only visited upon the children when an asshole or an asshole God is doing the visiting.
As my grandmother said to Senator McCarthy when asked to name names, fuck that shit.
The OP says the baby is unknown to you. Therefore you obviously don’t know anything about its parents; that’s not what unknown means. It’s more likely that the parents have been injured in some fashion, or that the baby has been abducted, than that they abandoned it.
Not saving the baby is evil. Not simply sociopathic, not simply selfish, not simply stupid, not simply vile, not simply worthy of a punch in the kidneys: EVIL.
Couldn’t you use your fortune telling abilites to tell which one was more worth saving? Maybe the baby was going to grow up to cure cancer and solve the problem of world overpopulation, and the panda is going to be sterile, or Panda Hitler.
I fucking hate panda Hitler.
I’m afraid you’re wrong, at least in my case. I accept that while the littlest Rhymer is the most precious thing in the universe to me and my wife (and possibly to my baby sister as well), she is not as wonderful to other people. That’s as it should be, in fact. But I contend that saving the baby is a moral imperative for me, regardless of his or her relationship to me. I might–no, probably would–hesitate if saving a strange baby would put me in immediate peril of my own life or limb, but I hope I’d have the balls to try to save it anyway, because frankly I’d rather be dead than live with the memory that I allowed a helpless baby to die. As I wrote earlier, that would apply even if I found that baby annoying, even if I had just reason to hate that baby’s parents.
No wonder the Resistence set up base there.
Wow, you weren’t kidding.
I don’t have unlimited resources. The guy I pass on the sidewalk, presumably in my neighborhood, is probably not in imminent danger of death; moreover, since he’s in my neighborhood, he has access to good help at my former church among other agencies.
I’ve never actually seen a car in a snowbank; they’re not common in Memphis. But if I see a car on the side of the road while on the way to work, whether I’ll stop to help depends on several factors. Daylight, busy traffic, the driver out of the car and talking on a cell phone? I can keep driving; I live in a society in which it’s more than likely that help is already on its way. Night-time, no other traffic, concerns about the driver’s safety? I have to stop, check, and proffer assistance is necessary. It’s called not being an asshole.
Are you at peace with the fact that no one is under any obligation to try to save you, though?
I disagree
Yes.
Why of course, my fortune telling abilities would say save the panda it’s an endangered species. Forget the baby, there are already too many on the planet.
Some of us, automatically assume that is the belief of most strangers we encounter.
Okay, which would you save between a unmarried pregnant woman seeking child support and an adopted baby whose adoptive parents intend to raise to call them mommy and daddy? You can’t say let them both drown, or you will be cursed to have every neighbor you ever have blare loud music every night and strange men shake your hand everywhere you go. 
I don’t assume that strangers will help me (though, thinking back to the last few times I was in need among strangers, someone always stepped up). I do hold myself morally obligated to help people in need if my help is required, within my capability, and in my judgment the best thing for that person.
I wouldn’t necessarily jump into the water to save a drowning adult. I’m not a trained lifeguard, and water rescues are dangerous when the person requiring help is of a similar size to the person attempting rescue; the odds are good that we’d both die if I jumped in the water, so the best thing for both of us is for me to find a better alternative. But I’d try to help a drowning child, and simply or even primarily for moral reasons. My motivation would be the selfish desire that I couldn’t bear the thought of letting the child die.
Fool of a –
[pauses to check expletive rotation]
ThunderCat! You said the a word around ZPG! Do you not know what you’ve done?
Fuck. See what happens when sociopaths are let loose?
You realize, of course, that none of this was in the original OP. You’ve fantasized about the back story of the baby whose death you’re gleefully celebrating, declaring that the birth of this child must have been a violation of the principles and mores of a community, who proceeded to cast them out (after a non-lethal stoning, I assume) and them abandoning their baby after it contributed to the decline of the pandas? Seriously, all of that is a complete fantasy that you enjoyed coming up with.
I know it’s a cliche, but clearly, more issues than National Geographic.
I’m not a parent and I don’t think anyone else here is a sociopath necessarily. Just ZPG.
I dunno. I feel a strange urge to follow.
Just a general note: As angry and upset as other posters posts may make you, may I remind everyone that this is not the Pit… and any personal attacks or insults be taken there and out of this one.
I gotta go with the panda. The world’s full of babies; less so of pandas. It’s all about scarcity.