Your Beliefs

[Colin Campbell]

I was in english class today, and my teacher, at the end of class, posed quite a good question. Here it is:

A man and woman meet in high school. They fall madly in love and get married as soon as they are out of high school. 25 years later, their love is as strong as ever. Soon though, it is found out that the wife has an extremely rare kind of cancer. There is no known cure. As this man watches his wife dying, he discovers a doctor has recently found a cure for this obscure kind of cancer. There is one problem: the doctor is charging $1 million for each use of the cure. So one night, when all is dark, the man breaks into the doctor's labs and steals the cure. The alarm sounds and he is arrested. What should happen in this situation?

This really got me thinking for multiple reasons. I tried to look at it from different perpectives. In the doctor's view, he poured his blood and sweat into this cure. Theres no way someone can steal his brain child and get away with it. From the man's of view, you are getting desparate. Your wife is dying from a horrible illness and you can barely watch her. You need this cure, but cannot afford such an expencive item. So, out of desparation, you try to steal it. A "little" wrong (steal the cure) to make a big right (save a life). From the town's perpective, they feel for the man, but they can't be letting these cases go, because it comprimises everything the law is about. Stealing is still stealing.

So, what do you think should happen in this case? Should the man be thrown in jail? Or should he be let go and the wife given the cure? Your thoughts?

[senocular]

The guy should be punished, the wife should die.

[McGiver]

:p nice opinion senocular

well, this is quite an old question.
Should a guy who stole bread to keep his family alife, be thrown into jail or even be killed?

the question should be:
is it so expensive to produce this cure (999000 Dollars each)
or is the doctor just selling it with a so high price, because he want's to get profit?
Imagine, the cure is expensive to produce (let's say it needs a rare subsance, you need to find 10000 special rare african spiders for, to get enough for one cure), perhaps someone else's wife could be healed. And her man worked all his life to afford it, working 23 hours a day and even sold his house, and his wife has to die right now, because of the other idiot!?

I would say hang him ;)

[McGiver]

an other strange question:

Let's say you are a guy who loves his wife like hell, and you ad your wife get captured by a strange insane super evil nazi-kommunist overlord (i don't think the last kombination is possible, but if you keep on reading, you will see, that the whole thing isn't really realistic. Come one it's a hypothetical question!) and thrown into jail on his evil island.
You and your wife are put in 2 rooms, one on the left side, the other on the right side of the island, with no way to communicate.
Your jail room is empty, with only one button on the wall.
The nazi-kommunist guy tells you:
if you and your partner both don't push his and her button now, you both will die.If only one pushes the button, he/she will be killed, but his/her partner will be free. if both push their buttons, both will die. There is no way to cheat or flee
would you push the button?

[CyanBlue]

Long questions, simple answers... :DThe guy should be punished, the wife should die.Ditto...would you push the button?No...

[jubei]

Cyan, i think i'm your exact opposite. Having recently been engaged, and still full of hope, i'd press the button in a second. The options of us both dying or of my saving her life is still better than the option of her dying and me surviving.

And I think the first one needs more thought too. If the cures are only a million dollars because the guy knows he's onto a good thing.. well, let the guy save his wife and give him the equivalent of a $1 million HECS debt to pay back. If they actually cost a million dollars to make each one.. i dunno. Maybe it's time we took some of the millions from defence and subsidised the cure. After all, if the cancer is as rare as all that, they wouldn't need too many..

[CyanBlue]

Well... The one million dollar in the first question sounds like some undecided amount of money that we cannot afford... That and the fact that he did commit the crime made me say that...

For the second question, I said I would not press the button thinking that I'd save her if I do not press the button, and that is obviously my misreading on that tricky question... :D
Well... The bottom line is that I won't do something that might trigger the death of my beloved one whether it is yes or not for that specific question...

Hey, congrats on your engagement...
When is your big day and you are to join us, the married... ;)

[jubei]

Cheers :) The big day is when i've saved up enough money for a wedding.. probably a couple of years. But we're moving in together on Wednesday week.. that's got to be worth something :)

[CyanBlue]

Oh, come on... I've got married four years ago, and I still don't have enough money... (I don't even have a job at the moment... :() The point is that you get to survive in some ways... ;)

Yup... That does mean something... Step by step... Easy does it all... ;)

Good luck on your journey, both of you... ;)

[farafiro]

now, Is it a reall question to answer or just fun??

[bluegel]

the guy should be punished and the wife will die - it's obviously her time

and would I push the button:

Yes - cos either way - unless my partner pushes the button, I'll die, so let it be that Ill die

[junahu]

These questions are meant to invalidate what we often take for granted. Morality. There is really no right or wrong decision for either question. For the first question it doesn't matter what we think is morally correct.
The question was what SHOULD happen. Unless the law system goes through some wacky changes in the few minutes this takes to type out, the wife would most probably die. The bad publicity from the case might force the docter to have a change of heart and save her but somehow that seems unlikely. The man would be punished but given the circumstances the punishment won't be as harsh as would otherwise be.
The second question is more difficult. At first you would want to push the button to save your wife. But wait. Evil nazi-kommunist overlord? Do you really think either of you will live? Besides that it's a simple case of whether self preservation (don't push button) is more important to you than your wife (Push button). The irony here is that often your decision reflects hers and you will both die regardless. Yup difficult.

Here's another one

a or b? (Where a and b represent outcomes unknown. One outcome is positive one negative)

or c? (Where c libirates you from the choice of a and b with incurred forfeit of half the negative outcome)

[bluegel]

c

[McGiver]

I would say A or B

(half the negative outcome? this reminds me of an old joke:
A divorced man is walking through a forest. Suddenly a fairy appers and tells the man, that he has got 3 wishes, but whatever he want's, his exwife gets twice as much.
the man keeps thinking for quite some time, then he returns to the forest and tells the fairy:
"I want a wonderful house, 50 million dollars, and hit me till I am half dead")

[junahu]

or D?

(What's D? Who knows?)

[bluegel]

did we have a d? :confused: :rolleyes: :confused:

[junahu]

There wasn't supposed to be a D. Everyone assumes they have to pick A B or C.

confused? Me too:confused: maybe I should pay more attention to what I type.

[bluegel]

just thinking - why was there a need to pick any at all??

[junahu]

hmmm. We'll call it reason E, the rest are case choices.

read case choice A-D
do reason E case choice
case A - B
negative or positive consequence
case C
1/2 neqative consequence
case D
random consequence
case else
loop
end case
enddo

can't remember how it really goes but you catch my drift. It's my(shoddy) representation of a tough decision.

.. and if it's crap then sorry