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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ธ.ค. 2021
- Puzzle through the ethical dilemma where two ships are in distress but you can only save one, and decide: which do you choose?
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You are the captain of an interstellar cargo transport headed to port when you receive two distress calls. The first is from a labor ship, whose passengers are running out of oxygen. The other from a luxury space cruiser which has lost a thruster, sending them careening into danger. With only enough time to save one ship, which should you choose? Doug Mackay explores this classic ethical dilemma.
Lesson by Doug Mackay, directed by Avi Ofer.
This video was produced in collaboration with the Parr Center for Ethics, housed within the renowned Philosophy Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Parr Center is committed to integrating abstract work in ethical theory with the informed discussion of practical ethical issues, and prides itself on the development of innovative and inclusive approaches to moral and civic education.
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"Alright, I've decided, let's set course for."
"They are all dead sir, you took too long to decide."
...and they all died in a horrible way.
@@cristian-bull o.o
@@cristian-bull bruh that’s harsh
Students died cold and their insides splattered, intestines dangling and entangling the now floating remains. The miners died with their flesh melting off their bones, all while suffocating in the thick, dark smoke.
@@thriquinox Dude.
From a practical perspective, one might also consider prioritizing the first distress call, especially if you were already in the process of responding to it
Yeah, i was thinking it all along
This reminds me of how ambulances operate, if they encounter an emergency on the way to another, initial emergency, they don’t change their objective but continue on their way.
its what i would do
That's what a computer would do, without an AI
You all clearly did not get the point...
Interestingly, my natural line of thinking led me to choose the workers because there are likely families counting on them. So more tragedy and loss would occur if they died, because more people would be affected more severely.
But the big business relies on tourism... if the press talks bad about this incident, people won't travel anymore. If there is no tourism, a lot of folks can lose their jobs too. I mean, I understand they won't die, but if you think about it, this is how many corporations make decisions out there...
@@JasonLatouchebut the tourism business probably exploits some people and is bad for the environment too...
Don’t the college students have families too? I kinda agree with the coin flip option.
Save the workers first. The ship is already heading that direction and probably close to it. Now the college kids? They are literally on luxury vessel and number 20 people. Most ships have rescue vessels so I fail to see how the college kids are in distress. Workers on other hand...have a fire on their ship and running out of air. What's to say the only entrance to rescue ships is blocked by the explosion and literal hole in space from said explosion? In conclusion:
-Workers number 30 people on said vessel. More lives saved is better than less.
-Middle aged workers have families and work to provide for their families. Middle age workers provide more to needs of society since they build everything from ground up.
You (the captain) were already heading to first distress call. Chance of saving 30 people is higher since less distance to traverse.
-College kids of 20 are on a luxury ship. No ship either sea or space would not have rescue boats (rescue-ships). It's international maritime law to have enough lifeboats for all passengers and crew on board. Likely this being in future this law is required for space vessels as well.
-Average distance between asteroids to other asteroids in asteroid-belts is 600,000 miles (966,000 km) away from one another.
-The tourist ship only problem is thruster. Either than that ship is fine and they have plenty of time to get to life ships if they still feel in danger.
-(Bonus)
You the captain on your ship probably has his own backup ship (rescue-ships) incase you need to escape the vessel. You can have some crew members use it to rescue the college kids while you and majority of the crew rescue the workers.
In these discussions where we have choice A or B (this or that) there's always more options instead of ones on the table.
@@Banana_behind_the_slaughter Yes, but students aren't the breadwinners of their families.
Definitely first distress call.
- You're already heading there. Changing course might be the worst option which is both of them perish.
- Telic 12 have bigger problems because humans CANNOT breathe in space. The explosion causing the ships to lose oxygen whilst Pareto losing thruster, all ships have alternative control system. As long as the captain of the ships alive, you can juggle alongside the belt around the gaps. Their chances to survive is more apparent than the other one who losing oxygen at the extreme rate.
that is indeed the one that makes the most sense
@@thebrowser6758
But in this scenario the workers are in a horrible situation and the students are in a better situation.
That leaves us time to spare to save the poor people and then the rich people.
What if the students and the workers were stuck in the same spacecraft together?
or maybe, what if 5 common people and 5 family members of rich, powerful and corrupt businessmen where stuck on the 40 th floor of a skyscraper in the exact same room next to each other ?
If the firefighters saved the common people and thr rich accidentally die, what if the corrupt and powerful businessmen wreak havoc on the lives of the firefighters using multiple corrupt loopholes and tricks up their sleeves?
@@thebrowser6758
In the worker-student scenario, the survival rate is different so we can say that we will most likely be able to save both parties.
But what about the poor-rich people situation where the chances of survival of both the parties are completely equal and hence we can say that we have to make a choice because we will most likely be only able to save one party?
also asteroid belts are almost completely empty space. which would make it far, far less dangerous than the people running out of oxygen.
@@kotadreemurr8499 you missed the point.
i was saying that what if their chances of survival were equal because of being in the same situation.
The real problem comes after you've flipped the coin and you forget who was heads and who was tails
Facts
You don't have to worry about it if it lands on the side. That way the universe is clearly giving you a sign to sit back and wait.
A coin flip is not random technically
@@sachinfulsunge9977,
It depends on the coin
@@PurpleObscuration Again, Apart from Theoretical pov no coin is perfect.
As someone who used to be a lifeguard, I was told to always prioritize the one who is closer from where I'm standing. Every life is precious
I thought exactly that, I would base my decision on whatever route is safer for my own crew.
Not every life is
@@jorgeestrada8541 many lives aren’t and are the opposite of precious too lol
@@BuetifullPersun like of weebs
@@BuetifullPersun you are no one to judge. Don't play God.
You could also take the extremely selfish route of prioritization. Failing to rescue the college students when you could have will generate much more backlash upon you personally than failing to rescue the workers. The college students being members of affluent families are much more likely to leave behind grieving parents who may try to take vengeance on you in the form of lawsuits or even assault. On that same note, rescuing the college students is far more likely to result in some kind of personal benefit for you for the exact same reason. The grateful and affluent parents have the means and the motive to reward you.
Obviously from a moral standpoint, this isn't the correct way to go about making the decision, but it is another pattern of thought to consider. Such things may influence the final decision for many people in that scenario.
Or, which also feels extremely immoral, is to consider the sum value of life indebtedness when saving either ship. It is personally more valuable to have someone influential or powerful indebted to you, than someone who "only" has gratitude to offer. If you are able to leverage that influence into social change that elevates all lesser privileged to a better social and financial standing, it might be worth it sacrificing a fraction of that group.
How is it our fault that they're in a asteroid belt and are having their lives at risks, whether we save them or not their parents are absolutely non likely to sue us because first we are not the ones who launched that ship second the workers have families and wives at home and just having parents worry about you is a lot less grieving than a whole family ( I am not counting friends although)
"Obviously from a moral standpoint, this isn't the correct way to go about making the decision" this is debateable. From your moral standpoint, it might not be, but there is moral frameworks that consider egoism (thats the term for "selfish route of prioritization") to be correct
@@shanggosteen9804 Either way they’ll die without my help, and I may be potentially risking myself. Why shouldn’t I pick the one that’ll benefit me the most?
@@shanggosteen9804 karen’s with money
Save the passengers on the Teleck 12. You are almost there and they are running out of air. The Pareeto is still structurally sound and might be able to recover on its own; also, if you bounce to every new distress call, you will never save anyone.
I have a counter-offer:
Utilitarian: who is worth more
Egalitarian: flip a coin
Engineer: whats the proper utilization of force to stop the students from careening into an asteroid belt without killing them? cause I'm an engineer and I am engi-here to fix problems!
[obviously also saving the workers]
Hope you have a great day & Safe Travels!
In this scenario, both sides will die without help. There isn’t any optimistic chance that one may survive if you help the other.
Considering the fact that the middle aged men would likely have families depending on them (as is usual of those who are less well off), I think saving them would be the best option. If they die their children and wives might die or suffer heavily, as a result of losing their breadwinner. In contrast most college students don't have any dependants.
I'd save the students due to them having more potential.
@Sanguine Maybe you could make a deal : I'll save you if you look after the worker's kids. They'd have promised on their lives so you save them, the poor's childs and wifes only suffer from not having the men. No problems about economics then.
@@erdemgunduz3527 you could also flip it around and say you're threatening these people with sure death unless they take this huge ammount of responsibility which will cripple them financially. At the latest once the police hears about it it falls apart.
Ended watching the video settling on a similar line of thought, it isn't just on those two ships that is affected, it's also their families and other loved ones.
Although as usual, the answer will always still be _it depends._ I still lack context of other factors, like life insurance and the chance of survival of each ship with and without intervention or delay of help. There could also definitely might be a way to save both. In the vacuum of space the vacationers could possibly alter their course.
I was thinking the same! College student only leave their parents behind but they would definitely survive. Not sure about the families of the first ship
I adore the way this one is animated. It feels like you're reading a classic children's book, like The Little Prince, except you're actually being put in charge of whether people live or die!
It feels like a Roald Dahl book!
@@ProfessorFinessor59 True!
No
Paper bag princess
Lol is the little prince book so famous ??
I never knew
It's a part of the English Syllabus in India 😂
My answer was save the workers first since they have limited oxygen.
The people heading towards the astroid belt aren't actually in any real danger, as astroids in the belt are hundreds of miles apart from each other. Your chances of hitting one are almost zero.
You have time.
In this case, all other circumstances being equal, I would save the miners. They probably are the sole source of financial support to young family. So even if you consider lives saved/impacted, it's much more.
But you have to consider that all miners most probably have life insurance in their contracts, so the families will be taken care of, and while the students ship is much closer to your ship
@@willy4170
And the college student family's are wealthy, they ain't getting affected either.
@@pineappleudh6561 they could be poor families that afforded the college through scholarships.
@willy4170
The video actively calls them wealthy, they're going on vacation aswell.
@@willy4170
Pretty sure the worker would make more money if he was alive.
When I went on life guard corse we were tought who to Save if 3 people are drowning - the one who is closest, then the next, then the next. This way you have the highest chance of saving at least one person. If you swim to a further one, they may drown while you go there and the time lost may cause the closest one to also drown.
Obviously lmao imagine someone’s drowning beside you and you swim pass them and go “ya sorry bud just wait I gotta get this other dude first”
@@sad-7477 he mean to save the one with the higher chance first
@@Ghost-tv1yg nonetheless
Same idea for triage patients during a mass casualty situation. Help the ones who have the best chance of surviving first
What if there is 2 people drowning, a distance apart from each other.
The distance between you and the 2 people, are the same.
Which will you save first?
Based on every space movie/show I’ve ever seen, a distress signal from another ship is always a trap.
I would ignore all and proceed with my life.
Can not risk losing that docking time by changing course, he?
There’s at least a facehugger at the other end of a space distress call.
Plus, the distress signal came from a ship that is 2 light years away. They have long since died.
Skinwalker
I see that you won't be hit in the head with a golf club. But you also won't be presenting a game of the year award to yourself.
Concept. If you were to save the workers, who _will_ die without help, they may be able to assist you in saving the college students, due to their occupation as spacecraft/station repairmen.
unfortunately, as optimistic as this answer is
the way the scenario is formatted leaves no room for that
both parties are urgently in a life-threatening situation; the workers are losing o2, while the vacation ship is headed right for asteroids
even in the video, the people on the luxury ship "are all doomed" if not helped immediately
I can only think of two unbiased solutions for this:
1) you save the workers, because you received their distress signal first (and presumably are already en route to help)
2) a coin flip; the coin does not discriminate, it doesn't care which side it lands on
@@rydergolde3169 that's why I hate dilemmas it's always a 3 choice thing, either A, B or hazard, obviously in most real life situations there's always more options than that.
@@cadsquadeMoral dilemmas aren’t about providing realistic problems. They exist to illustrate a concept and make you think about which guidelines, which logic you should follow in your life.
For me for example the obvious choice is to save the college students, but others will use coin flip or keep en route to the workers.
I remember watching The 100 and the girl forced everyone to eat deceased humans to survive. She eventually said that she forced everyone so that they did not have to make that choice.
In a world where you cannot satisfy everyone, the decision maker should be empathized with, not blamed for making a decision that failed to make you happy
As a nurse, we were taught to prioritize by what would kill the patient sooner. Whichever one I must save first I should save first.
However, in a disaster event when we are forced to take in large quantities of patients, we also take into account which ones would not be able to be saved or which ones would take up too many resources by themselves to save (for a low possibility of success). In the Pearl Harbor attacks this was done and that part even made it to the movie (Pearl Harbor). We have to be quick on our feet and detach ourselves from the situation emotionally..
yup do what you must and think about it later
Wow you treated pearl harbour patients?
@@ithihaskaar I think he meant doctors and nurses at that time also had to make this decision since too many people were coming injured.
@@yoketah Just don't become a doctor, a president, a military officer, an adrenaline junkie or a spaceship captain, and you should be good.
Thats exactly what I was thinking
I think in this situation (and any situation where you need to decide quickly) you save the people from the first distress call because it came first. An ambulance wouldn't stop en route and start going somewhere else just because a wealthier person also made a 911 call.
If you have to decide who gets the donated heart or something, that's tougher, but still I think it should go to whoever has been waiting for it for the longest (first in line).
Your second idea cant do, Lets say an old man has been the longest but then a younger one came in.. Who will you save? The old man who pretty much have done everything in life or the younger one who has more to come
Even if (in the case of the donated organ) that person is middle age/older? In their remaining lifetime, they have a lesser chance of being happier afterwards, or making other people happier than someone younger will. As such, I think the youngest should take priority.
After all, a family losing a parental figure will worsen, but it's members will still have a greater total remaining lifetime to be happy and make others happy than a family losing someone younger.
The sadness of those mourning an older one will eventually be offset by the happiness the young one creates.
Adding in other variables creates too much chaos for the judgement to be reliable in my opinion. In cases with groups of more than one person, I don't think any method is precise enough to determine which group is the better pick on average.
But dispatch regularly branch off en route ambulances if the call is more urgent.
@@dzleandrew4544 Agreed
No it shouldn’t be first come first serve because realistically in an organ donation context, you want to give it to someone who will utilize it best. I’d definitely rather give it to an otherwise healthy 20 year old than a 65 year old with a whole array of other health problems.
In the time it took to make this subjective moral evaluation, the passengers on both ships died. The chance of success for saving the passengers either ship should also be a factor worth considering, as well as the risk to safety it takes to undertake each rescue mission to your own ship and crew should be considered first.
When you're still calculating the chance of success, they all already dead. Every distress call is different, also from many different occasion, so there is no way you could prepare beforehand, you need to think fast.
Personally, I prefer the coin flip rather than tedious thinking like other thoughts in this video, IF it was a real-life situation. The narrator is right when he said "nobody couldn't argue unfairly over coin flip." It's 50/50 equal chance, so eventough I got lawsuit afterward, I could just said exactly that. In other words, you can't blame me if your luck sucks.
This is why I trust my instincts, and I do have good instincts, and when it's all over I sit down and reflect on why my instincts told me to take a certain route
@@zenedhyr7612 You very much can and should be prepared beforehand. Maybe not for every possible variation, but for the base scenarios at least. Besides, you'll learn from experience, as well as through common sense. And basic evaluation doesn't take long. First you need to actually check if saving either one is even worth it. For example: maybe you're low on fuel and can't afford to risk running out, so you don't help either. Or you think that getting near an exploding ship is a bad idea and could kill you and your crew, so due to that you choose the liner. Or you asume the liner is overreacting, as losing 1 thruster is not a huge deal, and thus go in to help the burning ship. All just basic evaluations based on quickly piecing together facts with common sense that will not take any longer than a coin flip.
Logic is generally the best solution. Think fast, but think well.
For those who say “first call takes priority,” would you divert from a call to put out a one bedroom house fire to a fire in an apartment complex with hundreds of residents, if the latter call were received second?
i absolutely would
yea and the people who say that are just going by code. this is a ethics debate not a real situation
It depends, am I the only fire truck able to respond? If I am, then the second call is more urgent because it's a larger structure with more destructive potential as well as a higher human cost. If there are other fire trucks but further away then no, I need to stay with my first call. They need my help and will not get it whereas the other will get help just slightly later.
Yeah, probably. But that’s not in any way similar to the video. Things are mostly even in the video, so it’s fair to say that who called first influences the decision.
depends on the distance, if you are being closer to one house than the other you may be able to stop the most damage of the fire and then go to the apartment complex
The coin flip really hits hard with the truth of reality.
If among the workers you realize that your struggle to survive now depends on a game of luck and with the position they are in, they wouldve lost all hope as surely luck was never on their side most of their life.
If among the students you realize that your name, money and position are meaningless in the face of imminent death
This is tragic, brilliant and beautiful
@@lillymirembe4474 +1
I think some factors can be used to make a better or worse decision, but it doesn't really matter much. As long as if you're trying to save someone, you've made the right decision.
Yes, but you can apply this method only to a certain extent. What if on one ship you have 30 workers and on the other you have all the students on Earth (possibly a few hundred millions). It wouldn't feel as easy to just flip a coin.
@@tedchirvasiu if you think about that ratio and even to be generous to bring it down to 1 million students, thats not a ship anymore but an entire space station so area of damages would be far spread out. The students would instead take it to themselves to cut their own loses by saving the ones in their own group then detaching those that cant be saved basically by ejecting the damaged sites so it doesnt bring down the whole station. almost similar to a lizard to escape it will cut off its tail
I would answer the first distress call based on practicality, since the workers are facing a more imminent problem: the lack of oxygen, which would result in the ultimate and undeniable death of all 30 people. The students on the other hand, are headed towards an asteroid belt, which although they have a broken thruster, there is a slim chance that they will not hit any asteroids ( or be hit by just a few, not enough to damage the ship completely.) Their ship is also a luxury ship, which I assume will have some form of safety measures that might protect its passengers. Although the chances of that are slim, if both ships are left without help, the students have a higher chance of survival.
The video is addressing the morality of killing 20 rich students or 30 poor workers, not whether or not a ship can survive an asteroid belt 🤦♂ Its clearly assumed that if you help one group, the other group will not survive.
Yes but he’s showing the (very slight) flaw in the dilemma.
@@thedrew3016 I understand what you're trying to say, but in my opinion, the video merely posed a question, and looked at it from a moral perspective, and I answered it from a logical one. The video did not state that you had to answer it from the moral aspect, so there is no right or wrong answer. 😂
Why make it a moral dilemma about who to save? The answer is simple, first save the workers because their danger is imminent, then you can save the students. Asteroid belts aren't nearly as dense and dangerous as you might think. The chances of being hit by asteroids in a asteroids belt are almost equal with the chance to win the lottery.
Actually given how far apart asteroids actually are the chance they would get hit by an asteroid at all is very small.
One more aspect to consider if you're thinking about the happiness generated is the future lives of both parties. The miners are likely to live a sadder future doing menial jobs while the college students are likely to live a more comfortable life in the future.
i was looking for this comment thanks
these are awesome! Keep it up Ted-Ed!
While he was using the scale to measure the happiest choice and then flipping a coin, they all perished. RIP
😂😂😂
I feel like there’s a moral/ethical argument for spending all the time debating the ethics 😂
Loooooooooooooool
The happy faces belonged to former crew members that were used in this process.
The moment you start attributing value to each distress call, you already lost.
Time is a factor in emergencies, so the right choice is to pick one (doesn't matter which) and leave the second guessing till afterwards.
This is why we need psychopaths. But truly, in this situation you realistically would already be trying to save whoever came first.
True either way people will live and die what's important is just that not EVERYONE dies and a decision is made quickly. that's why going with a coin toss does seem to be a good method.
@@MissMoontree You don't need a psychopath to perform cold, rational decisions. Even neurotypical people can fall in a state of shock, that either completely hinders them to make decisions or, contrary, makes them perform in a kind of "autmated" way. For example, most hit-and-run drivers in my country hand themselfes over to the police, but only after they have gotten home. In the time between the accident and their arrival at home their behaviour of fleeing from an accident they caused and pushing away any thoughts that revolve around the possible victims could be considered psychopathic.
Also a psychopath would maybe settle for the option that generates the most personal profit, in this case the young, rich students. What would one get from saving the workers besides a pat on the shoulder and lawsuits from the dead students' families?
As said in the video, this not just for urgencies, but also emergencies that you have a little time to think, like which should get vaccines first
I guess that's what that coin flip actually means? It doesn't matter which.
I would probably prioritize the first distress call. I would have been on my way to help them anyway, and then I got another distress call. So I wouldn’t turn back and choose a different ship because I weighed the happiness possibility. I’m already on my way to save lives, I’ll go ahead and follow through with it
it’s never said that the miners “called first” but it was a signal they broadcasted to any ship that was listening, so they arrived at the same time, it was the captain of the ship that decided to display it first.
@@willy4170 "as you approach Telec-12, you receive a second distress call" directly from the video, meaning you only receive the second SOS *after* the first one
also, unless we assume communications are faster-than-light (FTL), the distance would influence which call is received first, meaning that it would also be more practical to save the workers vs the college vacationers once you factor in distance based on the signal delay
in the case of FTL comms, however, the delay between calls would be entirely dependent on which call was sent first, and so in this case the first response would still be the workers
I don't know where you're getting "it was the captain that decided to display it first"
Love these dilemma series video
I would also say that the severity of the problems plays a role too.
If, for instance, rescuing the passengers from a specific ship requires significant intervention and would put the lives of my crew at risk, I would probably opt for the rescue mission that has the greatest chance of actually saving lives overall (including my own crew).
Thats actually how doctors prioritize saving lives too.
I think the severity of the porblem also plays a role because of the suffering of the people in trouble.
If one group would have a slow and painful death and the other a quick and painless one, thenmaybe we should save the first.
@@KCHTOfficial thats a great point, but a terrible reason to influence your decision, it may sound harsh but in most cases the severity of the problem is outweighed by a lot of other factors
Then it wouldn't be a moral dilemma would it?
Obviously the hypothesis is that the rescuing cost is the same for both
For so many reasons, I'd save the workers. 1) they asked for help first. 2) the route to help them seems a lot safer. 3) those workers have children and families. 4) there is a bigger number of them.
Plus they look like they were just having fun the other dudes had no choice but to go to work
What if the students were the ones who would make spaceships in the future and hypothetically go on to save millions. They could also grow up to be doctors, which would save lives. They could develop medicines and vaccines. One could go on to be a great philosopher that ends up realizing why the inequality is bad and ends up convincing society to fix it.
@@myrddinwyllt3383 not sure if they could do that but that is a good logic. I would probably still chose the first group since they ask first for the help. But you do bring a good argument. Both have good reasons to be help
@@myrddinwyllt3383 the issue with that statement is that it is all hypothetical and not 100% a possibility. Sure there could be some bright students with a good future, but then again there is billions of people on earth and other beings in the universe. (I'm mentioning other beings cause in the video the captain of the ship was alien). The workers do have families, and it is true that the route to save them is much safer, and then again they asked first. So I'd still think its wiser to save them.
@@kingzakkuu7844 if those college students saving more people in the future is a hypothetical scenario, then who says you're to blame if they end up not helping other people in the future? That's not your fault, that's just the way the universe works.
Prioritize needs over wants. The wealthy in this case wanted to take a vacation which ended up putting them in a dire situation, while the workers needed to go to support their families. Plus the rich may in fact survive long enough for you to rescue both. So prioritize the workers first.
From perspective of choosing which life to save. You are actually deciding which unhappy or bad event to avoid. So maybe defining how to minimize unhappiness is a better metric.
This will make you consider how many family and loved ones are directly impacted by a death.
Most measures point to saving the workers, starting with the fact that they asked for help first so your obligation to answer distress calls is already spoken for.
I'd make them all die because i was thinking for 4m25s
@@SleepyPanda-co3iy same tbh
my thoughts on the matter:
Utilitarian: who is worth more
Egalitarian: flip a coin
Engineer: whats the proper utilization of force to stop the students from careening into an asteroid belt without killing them? cause I'm an engineer and I am engi-here to fix problems!
[you can guess my choice ;)]
Hope you have a great day & Safe Travels!
@@TheSensationalMr.Science Engineer gaming
saving the workers is honestly the best choice here.
1. you’ve already responded to their distress call
2. if you don’t respond, 100% of them will die, compared to a chance that the students don’t get hit by an asteroid and die.
3. asteroid belts are pretty empty because of how big space is, so they have a low chance of dying.
4. those miners are probably supporting families. the rich kids probably aren’t.
5. i hate rich collage kids (DO NOT START ANYTHING THAT WAS A JOKE)
I completely disagree with the coin toss idea. I would unquestionably save the ship with the 30 middle age workers. Number one, they requested help first. Number two, there’s 50% more lives at stake. Number three and probably most important, the 30 workers most likely have families that they’re working to support. So not saving the 30 workers could potentially have devastating consequences for many additional people who are not on their ship.
I'm with you.
I agree 100% with this. Either way, the college students set themselves up for this, since schools typically send liability forms and such, so they most likely knew what may happen. Not to mention the workers most likely have families to provide for, whether it be their own or someone else’s. Plus the college students are there for VACATION, not for a good cause, like providing for one’s family. So overall, if I could only pick one, I’d go with the one that’s for a better cause.
@@AvoKiwi_1252 it’s funny watching everyone hypothetically defend which situation they prefer 😂
What if the students are studying quantum physics that may lead to a huge revolution benefiting all of humanity? "Student" isn't a very good description, because a student could be studying something really useless like art or music. Or they could be studying to become a surgeon or a nuclear reactor worker.
@@AvoKiwi_1252 I'm pretty sure thats not how liability works. By your logic, the workers would have accepted the liability and risk of their transport failing and killing them too. A side note is that though the college students are fewer in numbers, they are also 10 years younger on average. They also have more potential economic value as college students if they were to live and graduate and if we assume a positive correlation between wealth and lifespan, they would also live longer. There's a pretty good reason why there's no straightforward answer to this dilemma.
I'm for " the first distress call and the one who can be saved without making my life too much at risk" squad, but, reading the other answers, especially those that involved other more "difficult" scenarios, a thought struck me:
Maybe, we should just save who our "instinct" suggest us in that moment. We should accept our biases and just go with the flow of our mind.
I say this because, if we think about it, there is no right choice, because our universe isn't build that way. Our universe is build on death and chaos, so in this case, maybe the toss a coin is indeed the truly right choice since it follows universe rules, but, why don't we add a third option in this case? (Save nobody). After all, if we really want to follow randomness, this must be a possibility. Who says that the people we save won't become ,or they are, very bad people, or maybe, if both students and workers die, new people will take their positions and so will get a better life because of it (imagine a poor man that finally have job in this way and can feed his 10 children and one of those children will be the next Human Genius, or maybe he will kill next Human Genius' father, but thanks to that, the son with no father will become the next "HG") obviously I can continue infinitely and imagine an endless array of possibility. But, there is a problem about the "follow random", because we are humans, and we usually don't do that. When your life is at risk, do you stop and toss a coin to see if you should survive or not? After all, who knows how many lives will be improved thanks to your death?
So why should we follow it in this situation?
We have to follow our human nature, which is of course what makes us interested into helping others in the first place, but, the problem is that thinking "rationally" is our nature too, so it totally makes sense that we make "moral dilemmas" 😅
So that's why I said, "help who you think it's right to in that situation", because, in the end, in the big picture, your decisions really doesn't matter, I mean, it does, but you can't predict it, and others will be happy that you helped someone no matter what. So, the only important thing to do for us humans, is to try and save someone, without thinking too much is that was the right choice or not.
Saving no one will amount to your backlash the media or the government will surely question why you didnts saved either sides when u can clearly save one worst case scenario is you go to jail best case is you get fired
@@psychopomp9351 In fact I take note of it in my comment. I end the comment saying "for us humans what's really important is to save someone in need"
ALthough there is no way to call your comment incorrect, you have literally thrown logic, ethics and emotion out the window because...? Why would we listen to prejudice over ethics? This seems like a way to avoid the moral burden of letting at least 20 people die.
@@syntheticant8172 I'm sorry but I didn't understand your comment, if you'd like to explain it further I'd appreciate it :)
Im with you men, i think maybe we are not physically able to get an objetive answer on whose deverse to be saved. And your personal instincs is the "right choice" justified by the same fact that you felt it, and no other thing.
I go for the workers not only because I already set course towards them they have a worse chance of survival on their own
Also make sure you send a signal to state which ever one your saving so any other ships in the area know which one to save.
I’d save the workers. Here’s my reasoning:
- For starters, they’re 30 people, that’s 10 people more.
- The workers probably have families that depend on them. Let’s say on average each has one spouse and 1.5 children that depend on them economically, that’s an additional 75 people. If the workers die, their families will be worse off than they already are. Of course the students also have families that will be very sad if they die, but they’re rich and don’t depend on them economically, plus they can pay therapy. The workers’ families will suffer both economically and emotionally.
- Yes, the students are college students and they have so much potential. As some people have argued, they might become neurosurgeons, give huge amounts of money to charities, etc. and in the end contributing much more to society than 30 workers. But:
-- Potentially. They might also end up not contributing much to society. Maybe none of them end up becoming doctors or scientists or whatever. Maybe they end up exploiting workers! Maybe they end up passing laws that benefit other rich people and negatively affect most people.
-- The workers’ children also have potential. If the workers die, the kids lose a parent and their economic support. They might end up having to leave school and their potential being lost.
- They say “as you approach the Telic 12, you receive a second distress call...”, which mean I am already on my way to the workers’s ship. I’d waste valuable time if I changed courses now.
- The workers are losing oxygen and they will certainly die if my spaceship doesn’t arrive on time. And as other people have pointed out, it’s not very likely that the asteroid belt will hit the students’ spaceship. I think the workers are more of an urgency.
Your argument is good but the rich kids have much more potential than the worker's kids due to them having more access to good education.
He said the average life of middle aged was 45, not 30... And to make the calculation that every middle aged person is married and has a family with at least one kid or more is A LOT of assuming!!!
@@vegasbaby3392 Yes, but the most likely some of their kids are already adults by now since in poorer countries people marry earlier and thus they have kids earlier. And since the average age of the students is 20, they still 60 years a head of them while the workers only have 35. So I'd choose the students.
@@billcipherproductions1789 that's dependent on where they are from, I'd say.
@@billcipherproductions1789 That's likely not true. Many tradespeople produce far more goods and services than many college graduates. These trades workers are also probably highly specialized, with many likely having themselves gone to college (many trades require education beyond high school). This is surely especially true if they are building or repairing a space station.
Work in the trades is often misunderstood and underappreciated by many people who don't work anywhere in that sector. And no, I'm not in the trades, but I've learned enough about them to know they are greatly undervalued.
Its simple in my world view: you save the workers as their deaths would generate little to no media attention, turning them into a statistic and creating no change to prevent future tragedies. Meanwhile the death of the students will create heavy media outrage, promting manufacturers to fix the problem in their machines and preventing future deaths.
I like the way you think. Practical 'til the end.
I will save the students because they have the potential to build safer spaceships.
Big brain time
interesting reasoning.
Or not save both and create double to hype
saving the workers not only saves them, it also helps their families with income and can help them get out of poverty / poor areas. saving the college students would result in not only the families of the workers struggling from grief and more poverty, but also would leave the poor people with a sense of guilt about the fact they couldn't help their families. also, it helps to look at the fact of who sent their request for help first. age, wealth and status doesn't guarantee your life to be saved over others.
The part about leaving the people with the sense of guilt would apply also to the other group? And also considering that the call arrived at the same time
@@willy4170 actually, the call from the workers came first with enough time to chart a course to them. Besides, wealthy parents grieving can take time off of work to arrange funerals and process their feelings, while the suddenly orphaned children and widowed spouses of the workers will immediately have to find a new job and will not be afforded time to grieve from the governing body NOR from their employers.
@@cocococop1316 Time travel is, at best, a highly theoretical form of physics which would have an unending array of consequences that may even defeat the purpose of using it, and at worst, the fantasy of a six-year-old who doesn’t even know that gravity exists. You want to make a bet on that?
@@cocococop1316 U sure bro?
Thanks and thanks for the subtitle
I'm definitely on the side of save the miners. You've already answered their distress call and given the 30 imminently threatened workers hope. It's also more likely that they're supporting families at that age than college grads and their families are likely more dependant on them surviving than the wealthy who often have a substantially more effective safety net. The wealthy graduates may have more collective prospective years, but they're also more likely to survive than the miners running out of oxygen anyway. A luxury ship drifting may not even have a serious enough collision to prevent them from all making it. So you save the workers who unequivocally will die and then haul it over to the cruise ship asap to save everyone you can. If you're able maybe get someone on the line with the college grads as there may be something that can be done to mitigate the loss of life while they're waiting for you to be able to swing around and get them.
I would assume that the miners have life insurance if they're doing a job like that so their family would likely be taken care of. Also I think the whole point of the video is that everyone is going to die from one ship and everyone will survive from the other. If I were to try and make a decision logically I would have to go down the route of who is likely going to benefit the whole of the human race more with their life? Young, wealthy graduates are probably more likely to innovate and create something that could benefit a lot of people from all different classes in the world. Also they are more likely to create jobs so I would probably pick them.
@@epjarvis1285 Most people can’t afford good life insurance. And if the workers are impoverished laborers forced to work in SPACE, they most likely can’t afford any type of insurance.
@@impish_snake3526 As they're are going to space for work their employers would likely supply the life insurance. Also there was nothing in the video that mentioned they were forced to work. So assuming that they applied for the job they would likely have health insurance provided.
@@epjarvis1285 I said forced to work in space. They have no other option. Having to work in a. DANGEROUS environment to make sure your family doesn’t starve IS being forced.
@@impish_snake3526 Yes I understand what you're saying but what I'm saying is that there is no indication that they're being forced. That's like saying a soldier is being forced to work because they're in a dangerous environment. Maybe they chose to work in space because it's more lucrative than working on earth?
Once you said “30 workers working for their families”, I knew who I had to save already.
Who else is providing for those families? Definitely ain’t the super rich
You think that, but you don’t KNOW that. You’re making an assumption, and it could be wrong.
The purpose of the exercise is to make a decision based only on what you KNOW.
@@anonymousskunk the purpose of the exercise is just to make a decision, if you want to assume anything you can
@@anonymousskunk but you can make assumptions based on what you see though. And you kind off have to think through before making a descision on the whim.
@@brainXzero well then I assume one group is full of bad people and I save the other ship.
That's still a polarized view, you would save ine group because you identify with them, but you would let your prejudice descriminate the other group. As the guy here said: it's kinda easy when you identify with a group , but when you try to take in consideration empathy and exclude your prejudice, thing gets complicated! You aren't living in the "richer" world, you lived one reality, but you didn't live in the other shoes. When you have no group to identify because you identify with all the situation gets harder and the way is to flip a coin.
So the answer is simple if you hate one grouo and have a lot of prejudices toward it, but when you dont have it, it's headache.
Of course: simpathy, empathy and etc would be a factor to help yoi decide, but your prejudice too.
Class solidarity
I would reprogram the simulation in order to rescue both ships!
I would have choose the passengers (the first distress call) because first came first serve.
+No guilt later.
I would save the Telec 12 because they sent their SOS first and I'm already on course to the Telec 12. I would also judge it on which ship is closest. You have to approach this with logic and not emotion or potentially no one gets saved. This is also a firefighters dilemma. A firefighter will approach this with training, safety and logic.
The reason I would’ve chose the one with workers instead of the kids on vacation is that after saving them I could have them work on my ship for saving them, and not have to pay as much for repairs.
@@chace6182 🤣🤣
@@chace6182 what is this mass effect you save the kids for the thousands of dollars and some very powerful allies in the government
@@chace6182 I had a similar idea, but mine came with salvaging their ship to make mine faster or to make a smaller, faster spacecraft that can get to the college students in time, considering that they lost only 1 thruster and the asteroid belt means chances of survival are certain, but not zero. Therefore save the workers 1st, then save the students 2nd, the students (betting someone know to fly a ship) can mitigate some of the damage or by sheer luck avoids all of it. With the workers saved making a mini variant of that ship, but moves much faster with repair kits, and an extra thruster to repair the student's ship, both sides can actually be saved, just requires some luck or sheer will to get both sides at once. And that's just me assuming our ship does not have a smaller faster mini vessel equipped already that's a whole 'nother story!
@@majororion2374 save telec 12. not having escape pods is on the rich kid cause the rich could afford to have it but they didn't bother
great video
My answer (as the captain/ only final decision maker):
The first one to call. Answering their distress signal, if I think my crew can save them, then I'll put in the necessary resources to save them. After that plan has been put into motion, if I'm told about another distress signal, I'll see what resources I have left and whether or not I can save them too. I'm not going to change my first decision, unless I think I've put too many resources into my first decision and can direct some of those resources towards helping out the second ship.
It's impossible for them to send a distress signal at the exact same time. Even if we do go by that assumption, I can only make one decision at a time. So whichever one I end up answering, they'll get my attention first. I wouldn't coin toss before answering a distress signal (waste of time). Instead, I'd have a protocol put in place beforehand, like letting the computer randomly generate which of the two distress calls to answer first if both placed at the same time.
the best piece of advice i was given in a long time was to simply pick a card and play it. i have often been plagued by indecision and i have found it most beneficial to pick a choice out of a handful and live with that decision. if a few decisions have pros and cons that outweigh each other and you have a time constraint, pick a choice sooner. this allows you to tackle with consequences sooner
Interesting! Can you add more to this? More things you've learned regarding this...
I'm plagued by chronic indecision in my life as well.
The best advice I've ever heard for indecision was to flip a coin.... the result doesn't matter, it's HOW you feel about the outcome that does. It may help with your decision if you are immediately disappointed by the flip.@@kepspark3362
This quite literally just leads you to bad decision making. You have to weight cons and pros and decide what's best, not leave it up to chance
@@yasininn76 do you know what indecision means?
@@jimfindlay5899 yes, and that's the exact opposite of what I said to do.
We had a service training class in college as preparation for disasters. One of our professors said that in the event of a disaster you will need to make difficult choices. He gave us a rule of thumb to follow.
In order of priority you go.
1. Save who is most likely to survive.
2. Save the one who will be easier and safer for you to save.
I always keep that in the back of my head.
I commented in agreement to this line of thought in another comment, but added that in triage there is another category...those too far gone to save, where trying to save them might cost so much in time and resources that less-severe cases might themselves die. Save the ones you know you can save over those who might already be too far gone.
@@Gilleban Rule #2 already covers that logic.
Yeah, I also learned that. It's part of "triage" training.
Saving the workers are a priority since they are the one who called 1st and they are trapped with no options and strictly limited time.
While the college students are on a one thruster left vacation space ship, usually any vacation ships cant be commercialized unless there's a "life ship" available for emergencies.
Well save the party which is most convenient to save. consider the factors like the distance, the difficult of route to reach there, the time required, the probability of number of people who can survive after the rescue mission, also as a rescuer you need to make sure that you don't get hurt in the process.
First distress call has priority, especially if it was already answered. Second vessel would be advised to board life craft and await pickup.
On a more utilitarian point, saving thirty who already provide an essential service that keeps even your own vessel safe (a station could be very vital to a vessel) versus people whose lives may amount to much or may amount to nothing at all. Saving the laborers makes far more sense.
I thought the same thing. The workers called first, they have more people in it, inside their space ship and the college people didn't have as much weight in immediate usefulness in the moment, and they might even not even come tk be useful to tge society in the future, I rather stick to the more people who can be more useful now, the fact that they are less fortunate just make me wanna help they even more tbh
I feel like it's a bit of a gamble when you consider the usefulness of the people on each ship. The workers are guaranteed to be useful in the moment; but one or more of the college students, with their opportunities, may become an innovator and responsible for the next technological/scientific breakthrough. Assuming this is the case, if you save the students, you'll ensure humanity develops further. Assuming none of them actually become scientists/engineers/innovators/etc., you've thrown away a perfectly good batch of laborers, AND discouraged more from applying as they've seen the fate of those before them.
Knowing the students' histories and classes would help you make this sort of decision, but there's no time to access all their records even if you'd be allowed. In addition, the workers are mostly manual laborers. While we'd be lacking this group, and such an event would discourage further applicants, there'll still be some laborers willing to apply, and far more people can do manual labor than be a genius.
Think of it this way: You go back in time to 1875, and a random group of college students from Graz faces the same dilemma (facing certain death alongside more workers than them, relying on you to make the choice). You can save the workers, ensuring their labor skills are around. You can save the college students, with the hope that one of them becomes an innovator. Now, saving the workers may mean that a child gets to grow up with their father, or there are more hands to complete a project, while you sacrifice the students that didn't really amount to anything significant overall. At the same time, Nikola Tesla may have been among those college students you sacrificed, dying before he could make his contributions to the world.
More than ethics is at stake here. At the same time, without the ability to see the future, one wouldn't be able to know which choice to make pragmatically. Without knowing the students or the workers, one can't make an educated guess as to how either option turns out.
@@Legacy-sw7bv while your point may be a valid one, I do not gamble on the Maybe or Could Be of a young person.
I've seen geniuses become useless addicts, bright stars burning out. I've watched promising talents squander their gift over a trifle. I've witnessed brilliant and driven young people end up throwing it all away for a moment of passion, there to work a dead end job for the rest of their days.
I've also seen mediocre people become successful. Unremarkable folks become concert pianists or flutist. A poor girl go on to start her own radio broadcast station. A mild mannered mouse of a girl go on to work for JPL. I've seen hillbillies become heros, saving babies from burning buildings, and well brought up youths of influence go on to do unspeakable things to children.
I don't put stock in Maybe. I care little about Could Be. Show me the output of a life, then I'll wager.
@@Legacy-sw7bv They are rich students, meaning useless spoiled brats. One out of those 20 might pass exams by themselves while the others probably paid their way in. Their parents are the ones that might have worked smart and built something, and they can have more kids or already have. They have every chance to create a new genius if they so choose. While the workers have actual use, they're objectively more valuable than a "possible genius" (unless all the students had the best scores at any health career)
@@christophera4527 Well someone's bitter.
Did you read the transcript of each student that comes from a wealthy family to determine their grades and whether they're trying or not? Did you unlock the secret to two people breeding a genius mind or changing one of their kids into one? If so, do share! Humanity could definitely use it!
I'd have thought it a lot easier to find a man that can do manual labor than to have someone who can easily understand complex physics, calculus, engineering, and other physics of the universe.
"The flip of a coin.. the only TRUE justice!"
Didn't know TedEd had started taking philosophy advice from Two-face.
I agree not always everything can be done, but in the exposed case u can actually save both
In a ship, there are life boats, life ships because space, so thinking outside the box, considering one ship has lost one of his thrusters u could use one life boat as a thruster for that ship while rescuing the other one
But yes, as I said, not always is an option, and tbh, it's a difficult choice to do, but being realistic, if I only have resources for one, I would rescue the one who send the sos first
Also prioritizing the safety of the crew under your command would be important. Rescue missions often carry some implied level of risk for those doing the rescuing as well. I'd go for the workers, while extending the distress call from the students in hopes somebody else can catch it and maybe help them as well.
Practicality also has a part. Saving those running out of oxygen would be more prudent as it's an actual result if left unaddressed. Those college student are heading toward a danger, but no assured result is set. Improvised adaptation of what isn't broken can be used to at least mitigate the threat to them.
But there is also the counter argument as if you break one thruster, there is nothing you can do, since it’s outside the ship, while an oxygen leak inside the ship, most of the time is fixable with some jury rigging.
@@willy4170not in space it ain't. Also, movies have lied to you. Unlessthe asteroid belt was made yesterday, there will be next to no asteroids actually inhabiting the space with a few hundred kilometers of wherever the ship enters as asteroid belts are actually usually sparsely populated.
@@willy4170 I would assume a luxury spacecraft should be able to live without 1 thruster. It's just 1 less way to control your flight. Same as an aircraft losing a single control surface (rudder, airleon or elevator), should still be capable of basic manuevers.
@@jojomaster7675 Not to mention that it should also have escape pods and multiple redundant life support systems. If anyone dies, it's the fault of the designer/manufacturer of the luxury spacecraft that prioritized style over safety.
@@alanxu3936 Yup. But even if you fully priritise style and comfort over safety and durabillity, I still fail to see the loss of a single thruster having that much of an impact. Sure, if you're manuevering in a tight space it could make you crash, but if you have enough time to send a distress signal, then there should be nothing to worry about. Just lower engine thrust and adjust course with the other thrusters you have left.
The likely hood of success could also play a role.
If a dr. has 2 patients who both need surgery but one needs a type of surgery that has estimated 10% chance of success and another surgery has a nearly 85% chance of success you focus on the person with the highest chance of survival. Remember we care about results not effort, a life we did save is far more important than a life we tried to save.
That's also why six-month-old babies are cuter than both younger and older individuals. Younger babies are less likely to survive, so parents have less of a incentive to take care of them. And older individuals are less dependent in their parents. Six months is when humans are likely to survive, but also vulnerable. It is better to take care of them than other ages.
When you're still thinking... which one to save, they all both already dead. Every distress call is different, also from many different occasion, so there is no way you could prepare beforehand, you need to think fast.
Personally, I prefer the coin flip rather than tedious thinking like other thoughts in this video, IF it was a real-life situation. The narrator is right when he said "nobody couldn't argue unfairly over coin flip." It's 50/50 equal chance, so eventough I got lawsuit afterward, I could just said exactly that. In other words, you can't blame me if your luck sucks.
"Each person is deserving of equal concern and respect... the best way to decide which passengers to save is to flip a coin."
But aren't there thirty people in one ship and twenty people on the other??????????
I think in the law of the sea, the first distress call gets the priority, and you try your best to request a nearby ship to help the second call.
This problem was illustrated several times in “The Dark Knight,” including some coin-flipping as well!
Lol true, and apparently ,using some hindsight, he made the right choice but was tricked into the wrong one.
nice catch
Where specifically in the movie?
@@sheilakijawani2526 it’s been awhile since I saw it, but the Joker repeatedly creates situations where Batman(or others) has to make choices. The big ones are with two boats, or Rachel/Dent.
@@sheilakijawani2526 In the end of the movie. When 2 kind of people who seperated in 2 ship (prisoner & general people). And each other have the remote to detonate other ship respective
Before saving anyone you should look into if there are others who can help. we often try to shoulder everything on our own. Don't. Call the ship with college students and see if you can instruct them remotely to move to safety themselves. Or call another ship in proximity.
Personally, society has the most importance to me. The workers have been sent up there for the sole purpose of serving society, meanwhile the college students were there for their own leisure. I think that, as a space ranger who's supposed to help and protect, I should help the most working and moving ones in society. This is way of thinking is more based on the now, than on the potentials and the ifs.
Give this narrator his own Netflix series.
There are a couple intangibles about the coin flip that are actually kind of helpful. First...it doesn't take a lot of time, but Second, more importantly--once you see the result, you'll likely have a gut feeling or emotional response to that result. If the choice forced on you feels wrong, you could elect for the other one.
I do this with a dice in my pocket for day to day things. Whenever it rolls on a number I shirk at, I choose the opposite option instinctively.
I probably would help the first ship because the second scenario would be putting your ship at risk as well. Also you did answer the first call first and could relay the second message to earth (or closest planet/ship/satellite/ space station). Also would both ships have life boats that could be used.
Skin your ship into the lixury cruiser making sure not to lose anything yourself, this will send it spinning off somewhere else, then go save the workers and then come back for the cruise, thought this all depends on the distance that you get the distress call.
It's a trick question. Asteroid belts are actually quite empty, so veering into one is far from certain death.
Also, I think a question worth considering is whose deaths will be worse. For the workers running low on oxygen, the depletion of the oxygen supply isn't instant death; the air in the compartment will continue to deteriorate until it's too bad to breathe, which could take hours. On the other hand, if the students' ship is hit by an asteroid, they will either be killed by the collision or be ejected into space, where the lack of oxygen will cause them to pass out in about 15 seconds. In either case, their deaths will be far quicker and less painful. Really, the only reason I can see for preferring the students over the workers is fear that their rich parents will sue.
I had a professor that was teaching us first aid and he exclaimed: "If I were to choose how will I be executed or die, I would choose a bag over my head. Why? Oxygen level slowly go down and you find yourself sleepy and drowsy, you wake up, go back to sleep and repeat slowly until death. There would be no bleeding and no pain whatsoever." How much truth is in that sentence, I do not know, but I think it's very good argument.
@@BobanGucu I think he meant in a solid place without recycling air. A bag would collapse and expand making it hard to breathe and hurts the lungs
@@BobanGucu If it were me tbh Id prefer to get a super lethal dose of poison that would kill quickly. Bag is certainly easiest to pull off though!
You’re the smartest one in class, totally forgot asteroid belts are mostly empty. Duh when you think about it
True, but remember, the workers' ship is also ON FIRE. Which means a) death by burning is also on the menu and b) since fire also needs oxygen the air would become unbreathable faster than normal (most casualities in fires are from smoke, not from the flames).
On the other side the cruise ship has lost "a thruster". Shouldn't that mean, that there is more than one? So, shouldn'they at least be able to steer away from the densest areas of the asteroid field? As you said, asteroid fields aren't like in the movies. There is a lot of space between the larger rocks.
As an aside: Where are the crews of the two ships? Why are we talking to the passengers?
While we can rightfully argue about the merits and demerits of each decision pathway, I think the video highlights something more important: When a decision-maker is faced with a tough call and they go through the aforementioned thought process 1) An outcome acceptable to everyone is impossible to achieve 2) The decision-maker should be empathized with rather than vilified or burnt on the stake owing to the complexity of the decision. Unfortunately, we as a majority or a court of law can argue against the discourse taken by the decision-maker and even pass a harsh judgment against them. We should review our approach so it has some bearing on legal or moral interpretations of situations like these.
@@wendellparham5545indeed. If you were to let the miners die, I don't think their families would be able to sue you, as they would likely be more focused on surviving. Meanwhile the families of the graduates absolutely can afford to sue you into the ground. Which also means they could have afforded the best emergency measures, which based on what has happened, they didn't purchase. Basically, they likely cheaper out and want you to take the fall.
@@idcgaming518how can someone sue you for not saving them ? 🤨
Love the C. S. Lewis quote. Great video!
as I pondered who to save, there is a third spaceship with 10 dogs, me: say no more...
It's interesting to see that, beyond what choice we make about whom we save, our intuitions are guided by the stereotypes that we have about certain groups. The students are stinking rich, will probably live a long life of pleasure, while the workers are poor, have miserable lives, families to support, etc. I'm not saying these are wrong, as averages over certain groups of people they might be quite correct, but still they are and remain stereotypes.
I totally agree with you
Stereotypes intended as biases are best estimates under the condition of not knowing anything else, so what's wrong about using them? (again, under the hypothesis of not knowing anything else)
@@agnato6838 As I said, I'm not saying it's wrong to think that way. I'm saying it's interesting that we do.
One moral stance, for example, could be to say that unless you have sufficient information about those people to decide who to save (or even whether to save anybody), you can't make intelligent assertions about the consequences of your actions. Thus the "flip a coin" solution might the best; or, even more radically, not to do anything at all! Although I do doubt that anyone has a moral intuition of not acting in this circumstance.
@@odysseus231 I think little information is better than no information. So, the expected gain of flipping a coin can't be higher than the expected gain after taking a rational decision based on the few information we have. I think the value of flipping the coin is in avoiding any responsibility, that probably outweights any weak reasoning about whose life is worth more
@@odysseus231 By the "moral stance" you suggested's logic, we can't know if all the people abort one ship have terminal brain cancer (without knowing it themselves either), and thus we can never make an intelligent decision about who is best to save.
You might say that this would be extremely unlikely, but then we're back to odds.
It all comes down to chances and expected value, so the stance that "we can't be sure if the stereotypes are right, so let's flip a coin" is bad in my opinion, unless you know for a fact that the uncertainty is extremely high. Even still I think it's best to go with the option that has the highest expected value
Flipping a coin is only reasonable if you've really tried to weigh the two situations by other metrics first and find them equivalent. If there was 1 student and 100 workers, clearly you shouldn't flip a coin to decide which to save. The difficulty then comes when deciding whether the two groups are equivalent enough to warrant flipping a coin.
Perhaps. But I’d consider maybe the conundrum is not necessarily “the situations are equivalent and I need to differentiate them”, but “I can’t find a method to discriminate them”.
So in practical terms, if you can’t establish the priority case in a reasonable time span making the decision randomly is a viable approach to avoid paralysis by analysis.
If it's just one dog or one cat against 100 people you shouldn't flip a coin either. The answer will always and obviously be the animal. 🤔
They wanted vacation, they happily took the danger. Save the workers.
I would choose the workers.
Think about it; if people are being sent to work, then there’s more people to prevent situations like this, which overall saves more lives down the road. While saving vacationers will get you a “thanks” and those saved will go on to ignore the issue because “there’s already someone who’ll help you… I think.”
It would also depend on how far away each ship is. If the 30 middle-aged workers are farther away than the 20 students, some of the workers may die in the time spent reaching them, so effectively the number you could actually save would be fewer. There are a lot of variables here...
how would some people run out of oxygen and not all of them ?
@@krad1314 Some lungs absorb oxygen better than other lungs. For example, some of the workers may be heavy smokers and their alveoli couldn't absorb the same amount of oxygen that nonsmokers could per breath. Or some of them might have atelectasis or another physical problem
I dont think its about the technicality
You missed the point
@@littlefox8352 I mean, then what is the point? I don't think there's a single correct answer in this situation
Reading the comments is so amazing. The human brain is so fascinating, same neurons but every brain thinks so differently and everyone has their unique perspectives about the situation.
Blows my mind. What a wonderful thing the brain is.
Probably prioritize the first signal because it came in first, and there are more people on it. I don’t really have a major reason to believe that the college kids aren’t capable of doing manual labor, and I have no reason to think the workers can’t eventually get educated. I’m not going to start trying to quantify who has had more hardships. You can’t start measuring that and trying to rank people by worth. First signal came in and I was already in the process of charting a course, and there are ten more people on board.
"The needs of the many, outway the needs of the few."
--Spock
In these situations, I think going by instinct is somewhat undervalued. Do what feels right in the situation and live with it. I’d probably pick the 30 workers, for reference. I can give a load of reasons why, but they’d just be justifying a conclusion that’s already been made.
This moral dilemma in reality though often isn’t up to a single person, and requires a defined decision-making process. Take organ allocation or any form of medical triage on a larger scale, and we’d have to actively think about how the system is designed and justified.
I'd go for the students since they have their entire life a ahead of them still while the workers have already spent half of their lives.
How I would look at it would be students if there are a fair amount of doctors/scientists since a lot more people are effected by not having them anymore and if they don't have careers affecting lives positively then save the workers since most of them have families that would fall apart without their support. Guess I would be along the lines of greater happiness thought.
It's a tough decision.
Those workers are likely the backbone of their families,which too likely has children that are completely reliant on the pay of their parent worker.
The death of a lower class worker is economically far more devastating to their family than it is for the families of those well off children on a vacation for whom it would be an entirely emotional loss and are more than likely insured with private funded monetary backings.
Meanwhile those students are more than likely growing up to be professional assets to a growing economy.However how this effects the people within is dependent completely on National policy and as such is redundant.Even the child of the worker may be growing up towards a professional field on the backs of the capital earnt by their worker parents.
@@crowsarebros2645 not to mention the wealthy families are more likely to mourn and move on, while the poorer ones might loose all their income and struggle much much more. And aren't the wealthiest ones on earth generating that wealth from underpaying those very same endangered workers?
I’d save the first group. He said the second group was heading towards an asteroid belt and I wouldn’t want to head that way
I would choose the workers because they would have a more painful death. an asteroid belt isn't as bad as dying by not having enough air
@@Lynnie_2510 being deprived of oxygen actually just makes your head fuzzy and you die peacefully
@@steroacorn Are you sure, if it's like holding your breathe or drowning than I think it would be pretty painful.
@@youtuberewind3287 It’s a slow descent to no oxygen, compared to almost immediately running out of oxygen for the average person. Like Acorn said, it’s slow and gradual enough that you can’t feel it unlike drowning.
Also, Muscle Man, the thing is they have no thruster but you do, so you’d be safe
Well if I was already on route to save the workers I guess I’ll choose them. Though if I have a conscious I might feel guilt so flipping a coin is a good way to minimize guilt for not saving one of them. Best option would be to save them both
As a sociopath, I think saving the luxury cruiser is more likely to result in reward and/or avoid backlash from the more affluent families if you didn't save them. I hate that my brain works this way...
I'd make the rich people sign a verbal contract agreeing to donate a lot of money to each of the miners' families before saving them.
The answer is pretty easy. Pick the one you think is easier to save. Go for the harder one, and you might find it too hard for you to save, and you've lost both. Just like in planes you put your own oxygen mask first. Since its easier, you're more likely to succeed, and later be able to help others. Attempt to do the harder thing of putting the mask on your child besides you, you might just pass out even before you've successfully put the mask on.
That's not what this thought experiment is trying to get you to think about. Assume you have a 100% probability of saving either ship.
What a weird feeling it was to change my mind so often between the decision to save one or the other. Food for thought indeed!
The first one. Assuming that this bases the asteroid belt on the one in the Sol system, you'd have to actively seek out a chunk of rock if you want to hit it. There would be a better chance of being able to save both in this way.
This example jus reminds me to the recent Titanic submarine expedition and the views of people based on their economic advantages undermining the fact that they were someone’s love one and they are ultimately humans who died in a tragic way…
I’ve always approached this stuff as ‘save whoever has the most potential’ or in ‘you have to escape this thing and only save X number of people’ then I’d go with ‘take enough to save myself, then the ones with the most potential’
Well, you're not in danger, so you don't need to "take enough to save myself" (In fact, take what? Time...? If you did nothing, the other 2 ships died but you'd be safe).
Also determining who has the most potential is hard. The workers have more life experience, work experience and know how to fix your ship if it somehow gets damaged while trying to save one or both. But the college students are, pretty much by definition, literally potential. (I mean, many college students even begin working in their field in lower positions/intern and the only thing separating them from a real worker is they're 1 month away from their degree).
And similar to the utilitarianism approach, this one also has the same issue. Does more people = more potential? Or does having longer lifespans = more potential?
I guess if this was a survival scenario, in the jungle, where you and other survivors are in danger your approach would make sense...but this is more akin to the trolley problem, where you're never in danger (and won't be). You just decide which group of people die and which live.
The workers also provide for their children so a lot of potential is cut short when they're lost.
I prefer finding a way to save both not surprisingly.
@@majororion2374 that defeats the purpose of the dillema
@@majororion2374 Well duh, we all do (Unless...) but usually, these are: by the time you rescue one of them, the other has already perished.
a trick i use when people find difficulty in making a choice between 2 or more things is writing the options on small pieces of paper, folding them up and letting the person who will make the decision pick one at random. the trick here is to never let them open it, instead ask them what option did they think of when picking up the paper
I've heard this but with a coin, where you flip and then hide the coin to see which side you wanted it to land on
save and sacrifice.
choose to die or to save yourself.
rules from the original game applies, except if both chooses to save/sacrifice, then i will do a coin flip
The moral shows that equality is in the corner
Putting other comments aside, perhaps I would save the workers because they actually produce value because they are workers, and, therefore, they are more useful.
Also you were heading to the workers first.
Losing a thruster is not as much of a problem as losing oxygen because there is still one thruster and maybe backup steering.
Yeah, a tough thing to get through. But I think the coin flip is one of the best, because it can save a lot of time, in these situations time is essential. And also, my personal thoughts, the party, which sent the signal first, should get the help first. It is also quite fair. It is a kind of a coin flip, but it was flipped by the cosmos itself. But there is one thing I am certain of. Take the decision which is closest to your values, so you can live with it. It is not about you being fair, because fairness is subjective by nature. It’s about you living with your choice.
These thought experiments are kind of silly to me because they leave out important real life details, like were you already responding to the first distress call when the second one came in, which one are you closest to, how much resources do you have, etc... It's easy to come up with scenarios like this and say whatever you want to make it seem like difficult problem to solve. But, in real life, the detailes aren't as convenient, and there may be a clear choice or protocols in place for these situations
Someone is drowning, lemme' flip a coin real quick
that makes sense, actually The only wrong option would be not saving anybody.
Actually, you make a VERY good point.
@@Operation3Sixty Even if you factor in everything it's still up to you to decide. Whatever you come up with, nothing will be of interest to the family you have to explain that you couldn't save their family member.
If you can save one of them 100% but not both in any way, whatever explanation you come up with, is only important. At least for your own mental state.
just love these animators
3:18 is a reference to the famous photograph "lunch atop a skyscraper". The worker on the left takes out the burger but realizes he is still wearing the space helmet
My immediate thought was "first come first serve". You're already responding to the first call, so you should follow through.
You may want to consider saving whoever is closest because I don’t think anyone has enough time to think of all of this-
The heads or tails solution seems to be the most logical, but I wonder if that’s just because the number of lives in each spaceship is almost equal in this scenario? Like, if there were 30 aboard one ship and only 1 aboard another, I’d be more inclined to save the first ship. Side note: the animation was so satisfying to watch
No, the numbers don't count, even in a 30:1 situation; The 1 person may be a famous doctor that at least 50 critically ill people who need surgery to survive depend on (in space, doctors are scarce!). There may be hundreds of "what ifs" and "maybe"s, where a coin would do justice.
@@SunnyKimDev what about 7 billion people vs. 1 serial killer
You’re transforming it to the trolley problem
Me too.
@@SunnyKimDev exactly! u cant know anything. mabey 1 of the 30 will become the biggest murderer in history. mabey they will anyways die the next day. u are not god u cant know anything about any of these people. thats y U ALWAYS GO WITH THE OPTIONS THAT SAVES/HELP THE MOST POEPLE!
if its 1/2 ALWAYS save the 2. if its 1,000,000 to 999,999 ALWAYS save the 1,000,000
Plot twist: You spent so much time thinking that they all died anyways
There are two crucial points missing:
1) apart from age/groupsize/firstcalled etc, whose survival most impact the rest of humanity?
Perhaps those workers are scarse and only a limited amount of people are able to physically/mentally/skillfully perform the required tasks to keep vital machinery going.
Perhaps those students are promising in the fields of eliminating certain diseases, discovering new life forms or inventing unlimited energy.
So do you select the sure shortterm solution (workers) or the possible longterm solution (students)?
2) how far away from both parties are you?
If the chances of making it in time at either party differ greatly, you would never attempt a rescue at those with significantly lower survival odds (effectively risking losing both parties)
In any way, I'd say that a burning spaceship is pretty much doomed in a matter of minutes, while I presume that the drifting towards an asteroid field will take longer
The best way to approach the entire situation would actually be to save the workers (assuming you can get there before the fire consumes them), as they have zero chance if you leave them alone.
Whereas the drifting spaceship can possibly still drift between the asteroids, a sure hit is not guaranteed, they have a chance of surviving on their own, or at the very least enduring longer until you can swing around and attempt to save them as well.
The best approach is to stay and watch them.