Practical Ethical Question
 

What if the whole world was wrapped in Nukes, and if every person was given a wireless voting system?

Lets say it was implemented by aliens or something like it, in such a fashion that every human being could vote while no one could see your vote, but you could change your vote along the way.

You could vote either to blow up the world, or not. Once the counter reached more than 50%, the world would explorde to spacial smithereens.


The system is impervous to tampering, resulting in instant death of those involved in the tampering attempt.


Would you think that it would be a positive experience to Earth? I think it would. Comunism failed at denying the most basic of human facts, that we are all different. Capitalism is wrong also, because no man is a billion times better than any other given human being. Differences among individuals should not exceed tenfold or something like it.



With this device in mind, I am mostly sure charity and international aid would rise dramatically, and the inequalities that plague our world would diminish.


Do you people think that Earth would last much?

Re: Practical Ethical Question
 

Why do you think the amount of money you have determines your worth?

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I dont, where did you got that idea from?

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Oh, right. What I meant is that no one is that much better insofar as deserving a billion times more resources than some other person.

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I doubt 3 billion people would presently rather die in a nuclear fireball than continue their current existence.

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That much is true.

Also North Korea would prefer not to go to war or create a nuclear cataclysm. Yet they are fierce developers of WMD and have a formidable army.

Why is that?
Because obviously poor people would use this a bargaining chip. Why do i have to work all day for a nickel if this other guy simply spends his days on a yacht with georgeous women?

Much like those situations proposed by daniel goleman in Social Intelligence, where two people were given 10 dolars. One had the power to split the money as he saw fit (like 4 dollars for you, 6 for me, or 1-9, etc) and the other had veto power. Any proposition that differed from 5/5 would be vetoed, even if the person with veto power would lose some money. He knew that the person encharged of dividing the money would lose even more.

Amirite?


you tried a little reduction at absurdun there, didnt you?:p

Re: Practical Ethical Question
 

Not especially.

You assert that with such a device in place, we'd see improved equality. I assume that you believe this because 'the rich' would fear annihilation by a disenfranchised 'poor' and so cough up some money to effectively buy them off. If my interpretation's off here then do clarify.

My problem is that for this scenario to be genuinely threatening in the first place, half of the population of the earth must be willing to blow themselves up. That seems pretty unlikely purely on the basis that they haven't gone and killed themselves already. So if the rich perceive the threat as hollow, why would they bother changing the way they operate?

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Try it with splitting $1 million and the results would be different. Those sort of experiments are dubious becuse $10 is such a low amount of money that people wont really care about turning it down in order to spite other person. But very few people would turn down $50000 even if it meant the other person getting the other $950000.

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i'd sell my voting box to the highest bidder.

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I'd like to point out that this suggestion is even less practical than it is ethical.

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but then again, would you risk losing your 950.000 dollars by making such an unfair proposition?


Hell, i would rather offer the 500.000 and be sure to get it than riskying a little more and increasing my chances of going home empty handed:)

The higher the sum, the more people would try not to be mean to the veto guy;)

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Living in a rich country like yours, it might be hard to understand the extent of the damage (emocional, political, ethical, etc) that extreme inequalities can bring.
Considering that one billion people live well below the poverty line, out of which none is on England, excluding the pathological poor, it may become very hard for you to understand the feelings of the majority of the world ( which live under appaling conditions).



Let me ask you this:

Being a rich, and having no means by checking how much is the counter on, would you risk it?
Would you not try to help even a single soul?


i believe you would





People today dont just kill themselves becase they simply dont have anything to gain from it. Give them the oportunity to harm the perceived evil, and you got yourself a nice lil massacre.


Today most people have some acess to the rest of the world, and even the poorest have, at some point, seen a trully rich man. For this situation there is the old adage

i could live with being poor if i hadnt seen the riches.

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I don't think anything would happen at all.

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But in this scenario the one who earned and devides the money can also veto.

Do you want to take my money? I'll just veto. And Koen will veto with me.

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it wouldnt work, the daleks would transmat you out before you could detonate.

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Some people are worse than useless. They are actually of no value whatsoever, except perhaps a negative value. How much would a person have to be worth to be worth a billion times more than the worthless?

A tangible example would be:
"Would a billion Norwegian Communists be worth as much as an American Republican?"

Answer: Hardly.

Re: Practical Ethical Question
 

YES the earth would survive, because the percentage of people who are scared of dying or dont want to die is higher than 50%.

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The question though, was whether the world would earn anything on such a bizarre scenario.

Personally, I don't think it would affect my life very much. I mean, I'd be pretty damn certain that there was no way the bomb would go off, and I'd continue my every day life pretty much. Except for the interesting alien race that decided to have a strange and potentially dangerous experiment without first saying hi, that is.

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Just out of curiosity, where would you put the threshold of communism? For the record I know who this is aimed at, and I do not doubt the communism thing in that regard.

I mean, is your limit at the point where you have someone who really wants a true Marxist system? Or will you start calling me a communist if I reveal that I really like the idea of society paying for education and health care?

I think I'm probably a socialist, but I honestly do not know nearly enough about politics to be sure. Help me! :(

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didn't read this thread. had a wank instead.

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when did horn come back

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When you left.

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OR
"Would a billion American Republicans be worth as much as the huge dump I just took?"

Answer: Not even close.