Nerd Pride Radio

If sacrificing your own life would save the lives of a specific number of strangers, how many strangers would need to be saved for you to sacrifice your own life? What if the people were friends? How about family?

I don't know how I can make this any clearer, Scarecrow. I'm not giving you my damn brain.

Why are you trying to drive me away from this place? You could just ask if that's what you want.

It's okay to face deep thoughts, Phoebe.

Actually, Pdyx and I make and drink iced coffee together every afternoon. Then we have a coffee klatch. I found this list of "deep conversation starters" and put it in a spreadsheet. So everyday I have it pull up a random one and we talk about it. Then I post it to the boards.

Help me God. The purpose of those questions was originally to show the completely ridiculous moral bankruptcy of utilitarianism, and then morally bankrupt utilitarians latched onto such questions as a serious enterprise because they couldn't see the problem with their death maths.

Okay... so... don't participate if you see it's a Deep Thoughts question? I don't understand the problem.

My answer would be more than 5.

I'm participating. That was pretty real talk from me, considering. It's a terrible question that masks a terrible approach to ethical thinking.

Oh- then I'm changing my answer. I'm trying to drive you away from the boards.

There's a great 21 Pilots song called "Ride" that digs into similarly deep thoughts:
"Who would you live for, who would you die for, and would you ever kill?"
Apparently some people even have a list of those for whom they would take a bullet, though few bullets are coming through.