(no subject)

[prog]

I keep returning to this thought experiment, concocted by the part of me that's been continually angry since November:

You are presented with a button, and are told that pressing it will instantly vanish every person not in the United States. They will simply wink out of existence, leaving the whole world empty of people, except for this country.

Would you press it?

Intentionally worded to avoid words like "kill" and "destroy". If the interviewee asks if the people would die, the interviewer does not answer definitely, instead reiterating that the people would vanish entirely, as if they had never existed in the first place. If the interviewee asks if they could choose to spare certain people, the interviewer says that they could not; it's an all-or-nothing deal.

My hypothesis, which I have no intention of actually pursuing: among people who voted in the 2004 presidential election, a greater number (to a statistically significant degree) of Bush voters would choose "yes" over Kerry voters.

I would not be surprised if in fact a majority of Bush voters chose "yes" and a majority of Kerry voters chose "no", but that would be an interesting side-observation if so.

Comments

[aspartaimee.livejournal.com]

what she said.