a button dilemma

[holy king]

so you are abducted by aliens. they bring you into a room where there are two buttons.

the red button will kill a 60 year old woman who spent her life working for doctors without borders in ghana and is now suffering of breast cancer which has already developed metastases that were recently found in her lymph nodes.

the blue button will kill a 15 year old boy that you, since the aliens gave you psychic future telling powers on the way to the room, know has a 48 percent chance of running over and killing the woman mentioned above at the age of 16 while drunk driving. you also know he has a 0.5% chance to invent a cure for the common cold later in his life.

the aliens make you press one of these buttons with their mind force ray, which leaves the decision which of them you press to you, but absolutely denies you the ability to not press a button.

which one do you press and why?

 

[Silurian]

Red button because the woman is likely to die soon anyway and the chance of curing the common cold which would save some lives.

 

[Brighteye]

The woman has at least a 48% chance of survival until next year. That's not bad, but I'd still kill her, for Silurian's reasons.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

She has lived a full life. Red.

 

[Yeekim]

Red button because the woman is likely to die soon anyway and the chance of curing the common cold which would save some lives.

This.

Also, how do you come to invent such hypotheticals?

 

[Silurian]

If I knew nothing about the people, apart from age, I would just flip a coin.

 

[warpus]

I'd press both buttons to be a jerk and mess up their experiment

 

[Cheetah]

Haha. Aliens don't exist! Stupid question.

 

[NickyJ]

Haha. Aliens don't exist! Stupid question.

*cough*

Because I want to get rid of that bad cough, red.

 

[Mise]

I can't see a reason not to kill the teenaged boy.

Also:


Link to video.

 

[Benefactor]

Am I missing something, it seems whichever button I press will result in a 0% chance of the boy running over the old woman (as I will kill one of them first.) Doesn't that make that part of the hypothetical kind of redundant, or is it just meant to give the impression the boy is a reckless drunk, prone to running old ladies down?

 

[Quackers]

I hate both of them, can I push both of them?

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I'd push them both to see what happens.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Definitely the red one. The woman has a year at most to live, and she's already lived a full life. The youth has a relatively good chance of curing the common cold.

 

[Verarde]

I think I would push the red. 0.5% chance of a cure is slim, and there is a 52% chance the woman will survive the car hit.

 

[rugbyLEAGUEfan]

Am I missing something, it seems whichever button I press will result in a 0% chance of the boy running over the old woman (as I will kill one of them first.) Doesn't that make that part of the hypothetical kind of redundant, or is it just meant to give the impression the boy is a reckless drunk, prone to running old ladies down?

Well spotted

Red , obviously

 

[Glassmage]

Kill the woman. Breast cancer AND 48% chance dying from car? No matter how much good you did for the unfortunate bye bye!

 

[Save_Ferris]

WTH are these aliens even doing?

 

[Benefactor]

Out of interest; when pushing the button do I have to watch the consequence of my action, or do they just die quietly somewhere out of the way where I can't see them?

 

[Cheetah]

*cough*

Because I want to get rid of that bad cough, red.

I know, I know.

I'm allowed to be intentionally stupid from time to time, right?

Anyway, I would, like most people, push the red button. The reasons have already been given by others.