# Your superhero soulmate intends to sacrifice multiple lives to ensure your safety. Dissuade her? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 9, 2015, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041 "2015-10-09T16:22:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**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:** [October 9, 2015, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/21 "2015-10-09T22:25:06Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > I need to know the odds that I die before I can assess the situation. > > Were I in her shoes and I knew that my spouse had a 99% chance of dying unless I rescued her first and came back… sorry innocents, but 200 of you are going to have deal with it. > > On the other hand, she seems a little unstable. Maybe the “unspeakable” odds of me dying are just 5%. In that case, get your skinny ass out of the car and go save some people! (at those numbers, I’d even put myself at 20 or 25% risk.) > > Also, we have 78% chance of 12 people dying if she deals with the orcs right now, but I’m not clear what the other 22% chance is. Is she implying that she has a 22% chance of losing, and thus everyone dies? or is the 22% just a different number of people who die while she stops the orcs? How does that 22% chance look if she saves me and comes back? > > I will add, though: if she can’t come up with an explanation of the odds that makes her decision seem at least semi-rational then it won’t be emotional blackmail to say that I’ll never talk to her again. I have enough crazy in my life without super powers, thanks. I would say that the 78% chance is that she can save a ton WITHOUT GETTING HERSELF. In other words, the odds are slightly less than 1 in 4 that she’s gonna get killed if she intervenes immediately, which she seems to consider an acceptable risk. She can probably come up with a rational explanation, but taking you through the math right that moment is just gonna get more people killed. Oh, and Esme doesn’t seem unstable; she is unstable. Just in one particular area, though. And who ISN’T a little crazy when it comes to the people they love? I mean, hell, I love my wife and kids and tolerate the rest of the planet so they have lsomeplace to keep their stuff. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2015, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/22 "2015-10-10T01:18:11Z")
I don’t see it as emotional blackmail if it’s the truth. How she feels about me, I feel about my family. If she doesn’t save them, then we can’t be friends. The thing that worries me is that, if she’s this irrational now, how would she be if scorned? Sure, she won’t do anything to deprive me of life, but she’s super smart. Will she manipulate me? Will she make my life worse without her than with her? And will that manipulation involve doing horrible things to other people? So I think I try to reason with her by telling her the truth, and hope to hell it works. There’s no way I can manipulate a supersmart person without them figuring it out, and I’m too scared of the consequences if I do. I try to compromise by putting me in the place where I’d be least likely to die. I also strongly suspect my likelihood of dying is not any higher than anyone else. It’s just how much she values me that makes the difference to her. BTW, if you haven’t noticed, I’m not really her friend/lover/whatever. ---
**Author:** ![jayrey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/47e85d/32.png) [@jayrey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayrey)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2015, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/23 "2015-10-10T02:14:39Z")
Like my occasional co-conspirator in postcard crime **Elendil’s Heir** , I’m going with telling Esme very persuasively that I will be one miserable person if she doesn’t do everything within her vast superpowers to mmediately save my family and friends. Like **stillownedbysetters** said, what’s the point of me surviving if I’m forever unhinged by that kind of loss? Under those circumstances, I would explain, Esme would be saving me solely for her own self, which is selfish and would make me very unhappy. Not emotional blackmail but simple truth. Now, teleport’s up. Where’s my cheesecake? ---
**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:** [October 10, 2015, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/24 "2015-10-10T03:28:29Z")
> [@jayrey](#): > > Like my occasional co-conspirator in postcard crime **Elendil’s Heir** , I’m going with telling Esme very persuasively that I will be one miserable person if she doesn’t do everything within her vast superpowers to mmediately save my family and friends. Like **stillownedbysetters** said, what’s the point of me surviving if I’m forever unhinged by that kind of loss? Under those circumstances, I would explain, Esme would be saving me solely for her own self, which is selfish and would make me very unhappy. Not emotional blackmail but simple truth. > > Now, teleport’s up. Where’s my cheesecake? Clear the damn buffers! Regarding Esme: re-reading the OP, I’m not sure she has the emotional capacity to understand why being selfish is bad. But the suggestion that her actions will make you deeply unhappy is within her reach; that’ll probably work. Does it matter to you how she goes about it, though? That is, would you be okay with her saving your two of three closest friends and hustling the lot of you into the skycar, taking y’all to safety, and only afterwards returning for the rest? Because your argument to her may lead to just that. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2015, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/25 "2015-10-10T04:13:05Z")
I’m going to be OK with just the family and a friend or two. I’ll feel as guilty as hell, but I couldn’t live with myself if I abandoned my family to save myself. It’s a tough choice, between having to look out for your family, Esme and others, and people will die no matter what you do. There aren’t any pretty answers. I think that you have to save your kids, Anaamika can’t understand it, 'cuz she’s not a parent 😉 but you’ve got to do that. We all let people in distant places die everyday. If we donated more money and time, maybe we could save more, but most of us don’t. It’s an ongoing war, lots of people die. When you are forced to balance people’s deaths against harm to Esme, you have to make what is a selfish choice in order to allow the best overall solution. I’ve buried one son, I can’t do that again. I’d probably do (hopefully minor) evil to keep them safe, as much as that makes me a selfish bastard. I think you can take a chance of forcing the rescue of the family and allow the time after for Esme to calm herself while she drives us to safety. Hopefully that allows her to regroup and reduces the risk to her. ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2015, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/26 "2015-10-10T10:27:54Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I tell her, “It’s _very_ important to me that you save my family and friends _now_, if you can. I’d feel awful if I knew I got preferential treatment and lived while they stayed here and died between now and whenever you returned. Please, Esme, do your best to save them!” > > And I would say it very persuasively, because it’s true. Yep. As she is, apparently, sentient/conscious/aware/thinking, and in that sense close enough to human to fall into that category for my moral rubric…I do not have the ethical right to thwart her free will through outright manipulation that will cause her emotional/psychological damage. Her body, her tools, her choice what to do with them. I \*do \*have the right to express myself opening and honestly regarding what her planned actions will do to me, so that she can make - to the best of her ability - a fully informed choice. And, yes, if she chooses to save a handful of my friends first, that’s a) her choice and b) fine by me. Someone’s got to be first. I’m selfish/human enough to be totally okay with favoritism in my favor. But if she’s proposing that in order to not come back and do her damnedest to save anyone else she can, we’re back to square one and I’ll explain how much that will hurt me and warp \*my \*psyche in the long run. But, y’know, really quickly. Because time is the thing we’re running out of here. It makes no sense to keep her here arguing, when that will only delay \*all \*of us gettin’ rescued. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2015, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/27 "2015-10-10T19:39:27Z")
My answer depends - am I supposed to be imagining my own RL wife-and-kids as my family here (so I have an actual intense emotional connection), or are they just generic “family”, like my RL parents and siblings (where it’s more duty and familiarity, not love as such) - in the former case, I’d use emotional blackmail. In the latter, just asking nicely. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2015, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/28 "2015-10-10T19:53:39Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I would say that the 78% chance is that she can save a ton WITHOUT GETTING HERSELF. In other words, the odds are slightly less than 1 in 4 that she’s gonna get killed if she intervenes immediately, which she seems to consider an acceptable risk. > > She can probably come up with a rational explanation, but taking you through the math right that moment is just gonna get more people killed. > > Oh, and Esme doesn’t seem unstable; she is unstable. Just in one particular area, though. And who ISN’T a little crazy when it comes to the people they love? I mean, hell, I love my wife and kids and tolerate the rest of the planet so they have lsomeplace to keep their stuff. Hmmm… if she’s looking at a 22% change of dying herself (which presumably dooms everyone) than I’m in favor of her regrouping. For her own sake if nothing else. If she’s willing to die on 22% of save-the-innocents situations, then she’s not going to make it very long as a superhero. In fact, that would mean our expect number of deaths is 78% x 12 + 22% x 1024, or about 235. So the statisticians in the crowd are telling you that 200+ people are dying here, on average over repeated trials, no matter what. Tell you what. She and I are cuddling up in the fortress of solitude. Send Legolas to deal with the orcs. 🙂 ---
**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:** [October 10, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/29 "2015-10-10T19:58:02Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > My answer depends - am I supposed to be imagining my own RL wife-and-kids as my family here (so I have an actual intense emotional connection), or are they just generic “family”, like my RL parents and siblings (where it’s more duty and familiarity, not love as such) - in the former case, I’d use emotional blackmail. In the latter, just asking nicely. I’m thinking actual love, amigo People you’d die or kill for yourself (though I know you’ believe the former is wrong). ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/30 "2015-10-10T20:54:04Z")
The important part is…she’s hawt. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/31 "2015-10-11T14:42:06Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > I’m thinking actual love, amigo > People you’d die or kill for yourself (though I know you’ believe the former is wrong). Err, no, the latter. ---
**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:** [October 11, 2015, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/32 "2015-10-11T16:33:10Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Err, no, the latter. Sorry for the typo. In atonement I will not mock pacifists for one hour. ---
**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:** [October 11, 2015, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/33 "2015-10-11T16:34:57Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > Hmmm… if she’s looking at a 22% change of dying herself (which presumably dooms everyone) than I’m in favor of her regrouping. For her own sake if nothing else. If she’s willing to die on 22% of save-the-innocents situations, then she’s not going to make it very long as a superhero. > > In fact, that would mean our expect number of deaths is 78% x 12 + 22% x 1024, or about 235. So the statisticians in the crowd are telling you that 200+ people are dying here, on average over repeated trials, no matter what. > > Tell you what. She and I are cuddling up in the fortress of solitude. Send Legolas to deal with the orcs. 🙂 Are you kidding? Any superhero is gonna consider a 78% chance of survival EXCELLENT odds. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041/34 "2015-10-11T16:47:00Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Are you kidding? Any superhero is gonna consider a 78% chance of survival EXCELLENT odds. Well, if these are comic-book odds, then yeah, probably. 5% chance of survival means “a chance of a bloody nose” in comic book lingo, but comic books also let characters do “the impossible” about twice a year. Clearly, using words and numbers for their actual meaning is not a strong suit for comic books. In real life, even a cancer patient would generally consider 78% to be undesirable odds for survival. If our fictional superheroine is in the midst of an all-out war, she can’t be taking those kinds of risks. (Which is not to say that part of me doesn’t think saving my family might be a good use of her 78% odds… but really, we have to look at this from a numbers standpoint.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-superhero-soulmate-intends-to-sacrifice-multiple-lives-to-ensure-your-safety-dissuade-her/734041.md?page=1)