Suppose an evil genius invented a program that could block ALL threads in ALL discussion forums that present ridiculous moral dilemnas that couldn’t possibly happen in real life. The program is 100% accurate, so you would never have to see a hypothetical moral dilemna thread again. But here’s the catch: The evil genius says you can’t have the program unless you torture a puppy - and it’s a REALLY CUTE puppy, too, and it’s looking at you with those sad puppy eyes. So on the one hand, you have to do the puppy torturing thing, but on the other hand, you would never be annoyed by stupid moral dilemna threads again, EVER. So, what would you do?
All dopers are required to answer this OP exactly as presented, and may not point out how silly the question is.
I would instead shoot the fellow holding the thread-killer button, and press it myself, then take the puppy to the park in a bid to impress the hotties with my sensitive side.
OK, here’s a suggestion; every time such a ridiculously extreme hypothetical dilemma rears its ugly head, we respond with (at least)equally far-fetched hypothetical solutions.
Mr2001 got quite wrongly hauled over the coals for responding to a ridiculous hypothetical with ridiculous speculation, and anyway, I think the giant squid forcefield plan has great merit really.
This question as stated is formally undecidable in all western moral systems without the answers to a few pertinent questions:[ul]
[li]Is the puppy theoretically capable of developing weapons of Mass Destruction ?[/li][li]Is the question posed in the context of the world as it is or in a minor variant, such as that timeline where intelligent beings from epsilon Eridani convince Hitler to delay the invasion of Russia until after his conquest of Switzerland ?[/li][li]Are we talking about a fuzzy pit bull puppy, or one of those weiner dogs here, and is mustard involved ?[/li][/ul]
