WWYCD: Omelas

[TheRavenIs]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

To structure a similar dilemma, from an old science fiction story:

 

You are the pilot of a spacecraft, and the sole person (supposed to be) aboard. You are flying plague virus to a plague planet, population several million. You have sufficient time to get there, but little margin for being late. You have limited fuel, and limited oxygen. When you started out, you had enough oxygen for 150% of the time the trip will take at maximum speed.

 

You have traveled 20% of the way there when you discover a small child has stowed away. This child is consuming oxygen at 75% of the rate you are.

 

- If the child continues breathing with you, you will run out of oxygen long before you reach your destination. You'll only be 6/7 of the way there.

 

- The child cannot pilot the ship. You could step out of the airlock, but that would only guarantee the child dies at the end of the trip, and the plague medication is destroyed in the crash.

 

- If you turn around, you can get the child back to your starting point easily with the oxygen remaining. By the time your ship is refueled and re-oxygenated, it will be too late to get to the Plague Planet in time to make any difference.

 

- if you kill the child, you can make it to the plague planet and save the millions of people there.

 

 

No mysticism required. Your choices are limited to:

 

- child dies

- millions of plague victims die

- child and millions of plague victims die

 

Stall your decision long enough, and you'll be too far along to return to home base, so everyone dies.

 

Yes, I know none of the "Free the child" posters will answer. They've already been provided more than ample examples of true moral dilemmas where "everyone lives" is impossible, and ignored them, unable to face the possibility of such a decision.

 

I know I wouldn't like to be the pilot. Intellectually, I know the only answer. Emotionally, I'm far from confident I could implement it.

 

 

If I was the pilot I would take the hard action, to kill the child. This would be one of the times that pure logic would be the only deciding point. The shame and self-hatred that would come after would have to be delt with.

Now if we take in the C's that I used in the first post I made then the question is moot.

 

This is from my first post, all of these C's have full life support.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Cosmic Blue Is a new to being human but she'd free the child and then stand back and make sure all the other kids are safe and then she'd go and 'nuke' the town and all the adults. She was once an android that has this really strange code of conduct, her creator/father was a black op's type, so she'd put these criminal's out of the omniverse's misery.

 

Ca'Rom Holt Is a comsic powered being that was an orphan and anyone harm a child, and this is more than just harming. He'll take the child, and the other children, and then use a bit of cosmic fire to level the town and if the adult's didn't run he'd not cry over them dieing.

 

Srorm Sard Is a ice elemental that would save the kid and then all the other kids and then take them somewhere to be safe. The adults ..... well she won't kill, but she'd use her cold powers to make the adults dig out of a small very localized ice age.

 

Nightshade A mystic ninja, would take the kid and then burn the town down. She would make sure that other kids were safe but she'd take the kid she saved with her, not to raise but to see that he was helped and then raised ina loving family.

 

The Traveler A dimensional wanderer, would send all the kids to a place were they would be safe then he'd use he's powers to find out why this started and then if it was a deal with a 'deamon' or other evil, and it sounds like it was. He'd ..... well he can be real cruel, so .... you use your own imagination.

 

Now if I, me the person on this side of the screen were the pilot, then killing the child to save untold numbers of people, God help me-but I would do the hard, terriable thing.

[Zeropoint]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

The limited resource in "The Cold Equations" wasn't oxygen, it was rocket fuel.

 

There's no way to stretch delta-V.

 

The collapsibe rocket ship was launched on a minimum-delta-V course with just enough fuel for the minimum safe margin of error given the mass of the ship, pilot and cargo, and that margin wasn't enough to accomodate the stowaway.

 

Anyway, if you're arguing for ways that the girl could have been saved, you're missing the point of the story, which is that ignorance can kill you, no matter how sweet and innocent and undeserving of death you are.

[Whitewings]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

In the original story, the big ships, commercial carriers, operated on very tight schedules, too tight for them to divert to deal with emergencies. So when they recieved such a call, the crew equipped an Emergency Dispatch Boat to deal with it, then dropped into normal space at their closest approach to the problem site, let the EDB go, and returned to their regular circuits. EDBs were the lightest, flimsiest ships possible, designed to do only one thing: Get There Fast. Everything about them was designed to cut mass to a minimum. Unfortunately, the story founders on one key point: Wouldn't the EDB be weighed before launch, to be sure it could Get There Fast enough? We weigh modern spacecraft before launch, after all.

 

To be fair to the author, this was not commonly known or easily discoverable when he wrote the story.

[Kristopher]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

It just rings hollow that the whole thing rests on a whole culture of showstrings and zero margins and no reserve or backup or room for error.

 

No extra delta-V, despite all the things that could go wrong, is idiotic in the extreme. It's a culture of idiots, to be blunt.

[wagnern]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

That is a hard delemina. What I think would ultimatly decide it for Nadia is that this sutuation is making the city weak. In the long run, this is not doing anything for the people. In Nadia's eyes this sin is as bad is the child's suffering. All an invador or bandit needs to do is learn about the pact and break it, then he can take what he wants from the city.

 

So to make the people happy in the future, they must suffer now. Ok, I know this is a bit dangerously close to villian mentality, but what can you expect form a Necromancer?

[wagnern]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

The Rocket question goes, if it is a strictly A,B, or C question well, the kid has to go. But being a hero, there is alwies a D. Assuming you have the tech, you could improvise a way to induce hypothermia on the child to reduce his oxygen use. He would at least have a chance to be revived. Perhaps if you both slept a lot, you would have enough oxygen to make it.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

It just rings hollow that the whole thing rests on a whole culture of showstrings and zero margins and no reserve or backup or room for error.

 

No extra delta-V, despite all the things that could go wrong, is idiotic in the extreme. It's a culture of idiots, to be blunt.

 

So, basically, you've never encountered a situation where time pressures, or other resource limitations, forced a decision to allocate less than ideal resources to an important project.

 

I envy you that.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

The Rocket question goes' date=' if it is a strictly A,B, or C question well, the kid has to go. But being a hero, there is alwies a D. Assuming you have the tech, you could improvise a way to induce hypothermia on the child to reduce his oxygen use. He would at least have a chance to be revived. Perhaps if you both slept a lot, you would have enough oxygen to make it.[/quote']

 

I think a lot of us would look for the "maybe we can save everyone" solution. That does, of course, put every resident of the plague planet at risk, but I think most of us would be hard pressed to make the cold-blooded decision to kill the child.

[Zeropoint]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

She was already dead!

 

She killed HERSELF the moment she stowed away. That's what the story is about. It's about someone who grew up in a coddling, padded, no-sharp-corners, foolproof environment being exposed to the real world. It's about good intentions not being enough.

 

It's about a universe where the cold equations give their results with no regard to the gender, age, or innocence of the people affected.

 

Does that seem harsh? Does that seem unfair? Does it seem wrong that a girl should have to die just because she wanted to see her brother, and didn't understand the consequences of her actions?

 

Tough.

 

The universe isn't responsible for catering to your feelings. It is what it is.

[Whitewings]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

She was already dead!

 

She killed HERSELF the moment she stowed away. That's what the story is about. It's about someone who grew up in a coddling, padded, no-sharp-corners, foolproof environment being exposed to the real world. It's about good intentions not being enough.

 

It's about a universe where the cold equations give their results with no regard to the gender, age, or innocence of the people affected.

 

Does that seem harsh? Does that seem unfair? Does it seem wrong that a girl should have to die just because she wanted to see her brother, and didn't understand the consequences of her actions?

 

Tough.

 

The universe isn't responsible for catering to your feelings. It is what it is.

The problem is not that, Zeropint. I'm not arguing it. You'rce entirely correct, and the story is very powerful. What bugs me is that the situation presented in the story simply doesn't work. Given the near-zero margin for error in any EDB flight, the boat should never have been allowed to launch with the girl's extra mass on board. This isn't about security, it's about making sure the EDB can complete its mission. What would the pilot be expected to do if the mass of the needed medicines was more than listed?

[McCoy]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

I've always found the science fiction story in question' date=' about the medicine supply run, to be [i']very forced[/i].

 

It seems to imply interstellar travel that's fast enough that no "cold sleep" or similar tech is required, and fast enough that a quick medical run will make the difference between life and death for an entire population.

 

Yet, it's slow enough that turning around to take the girl back will doom everyone on the plague planet?

 

And who in their right mind builds an interstellar ship with a life support system that has no backup and no reserve, or sets up such an important trip as the one in question with no contingency for delays?

 

In other words, the whole thing seems entirely contrived simply to allow the author to posit his oh-so-clever moral question to the reader. Meh.

I've heard that Tom Godwin's original draft the pilot did manage to save the stowaway, but John Campbell asked him to change it.

 

Someone reworked it a few years ago, did manage to save the stowaway.

 

And no, I don't think it's unrelistic for a shuttle designed for a single pilot to not have enough delta-V to allow for a second person.

[Zeropoint]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

I would imagine that she snuck on board during the narrow window between weighing and launching.

[Kristopher]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

So, basically, you've never encountered a situation where time pressures, or other resource limitations, forced a decision to allocate less than ideal resources to an important project.

 

I envy you that.

 

Yes, I have, but none of them were so blatantly contrived by an author to set up an ethical, moral, or philosophical dilema. None of them were so starkly black-and-white and life-or-death.

[McCoy]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

Yes' date=' I have, but none of them were so blatantly contrived by an author to set up an ethical, moral, or philosophical dilema. None of them were so starkly black-and-white and life-or-death.[/quote']

Come to think of it, a couple years ago didn't something like 3/4 of the planet's supply of flu vaccine turn out to be contaminated, and had to be destroyed, with no chance of replacing it until after the flu season? If the flue had been more virulent that year, and thousands of people who normally got vaccines died, would that have been blatantly contrived?

 

Really think you vastly underestimate the ability for a bureauacy to be penny wise and pound foolish.

[David Johnston]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

The problem is not that' date=' Zeropint. I'm not arguing it. You'rce entirely correct, and the story is very powerful. What bugs me is that the situation presented in the story simply doesn't work. Given the near-zero margin for error in any EDB flight, the boat should never have been allowed to launch with the girl's extra mass on board. This isn't about security, it's about making sure the EDB can complete its mission. What would the pilot be expected to do if the mass of the needed medicines was more than listed?[/quote']

 

In fact with safety margins that tight, the moment he launched he'd note that the acceleration he was achieving was detectably short of what was expected and the mission should have aborted right then and there until they identified and rectified the problem. Some people take from Cold Equations the intended message, that the universe has no mercy and sometimes you have to resort to lifeboat ethics as a result. But other people can't help but think "Boy, that's a bad design for a lifeboat."

[Kristopher]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

In fact with safety margins that tight' date=' the moment he launched he'd note that the acceleration he was achieving was detectably short of what was expected and the mission should have aborted right then and there until they identified and rectified the problem. Some people take from Cold Equations the intended message, that the universe has no mercy and sometimes you have to resort to lifeboat ethics as a result. But other people can't help but think "Boy, that's a bad design for a lifeboat."[/quote']

 

That pretty much nails it.

[Robyn]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

Yes you can. the evil is implicit: you guarantee one individual to have their freedom taken away' date=' their life utterly destroyed. One person is singled out, unfairly, no due process, no wrong on their part--so that others may benefit.[/quote']

 

Umm . . . of course that person hasn't done anything wrong, that's part of the system. When everyone is without sin, you must pick someone arbitrarily.

 

My character, Kaja, a druid, would be intrigued by the magical spell, and seek to learn as much about it as he could, with an eye to replicating it (possibly with modifications, of course) elsewhere. He'd also send a report to his superiors, requesting assistance, and stay in the city either until he'd learned everything there was to learn (not just everything he could learn; that's why he'd ask for assistance), or he failed to receive a response, in which case (of the latter) he'd leave the city and try to get in touch with them again, hoping he could find the place again.

 

I'm amazed noone else had a similar response. It's like the Active Heroic Mindset: the determination to classify each and every single thing you come across as Good or Evil, black or white, so you can fit it into the two simple categories that govern your life: "Do I hit this or not?" I oversimplify, but not with the personal AOE - every answer I've seen so far, and I apologize if I've missed any, has listed the character's thoughts and motivations and history to justify whatever choices they made. Even if your PC's wouldn't be inclined to research the city itself further, are they so self-righteous that they would assume their own judgement to be right on this one, instead of acknowledging that it was a complicated situation and contacting a trusted, experienced NPC for advice?

 

Moving farther away from answers to the original question posted, and more into the realm of (this thread's) debate, I see many of the people who replied here twisting in the wind on the rope of this false dilemma; for example, a question posed in early college ethics is "A man threatens to shoot (and kill) two of your friends, unless you select one to die." You are not evil for making such a choice (sometimes known as "the magician's choice", to give an audience the appearance of affecting the outcome, when in fact you then respond with "Very well, by your choice shall this sheep be spared!" or "By your words has this pig been doomed!"), the evil lies in the existence of such a choice. But since evil, as we popularly consider it, lies only in human choices (a hurricane, for instance, or tornado, would be considered "a force of nature", not "evil"), we can only deem the resulting choice evil if it was brought about by a human agency - which, in this specific example, it was; the evil entity is the man that forced such a choice upon us. Thankfully, the universe is generally not a hostile one; in the absence of human factors, we are usually not confronted with such a decision.

 

I would be curious about the change to existing answers if the order of the posted situation were reversed; that is, instead of looking at the situation as something that already exists, what if we took it from the perspective of the human that created the city? This fundamentally alters the certainty versus uncertainty of the whole equation; now, instead of looking at the certainty of rescuing a child and the possibility that additional suffering may result, you are looking at the very definite, very real, happening right now suffering of many children, not to mention adults and others, within your city. For all your power as superheroes, you cannot stop all of it - this is a fact. You know it, from personal experience. Now, rating the level of suffering from 1 to 10, and with more than one child at each level, you have the option of forcing a child to suffer at, say, a 6. Maybe a 7. One child, though. If you have any personal doubts about the follow-through, rest assured that results are supposed to be immediate, and if there aren't any, you can immediately cease the lone child's suffering. WWYCD?

 

Another variation, that may call into play the heroic side of ourselves - if you are the stowaway on that vessel, to switch to another example, but you are in the cargo hold, and neither you nor the pilot can travel to each other (nor can the pilot pump the air out from you), would you choose to sacrifice yourself so that the pilot, and millions of people, could live?

 

(I'm reminded of the old Sword and Sorceress story, or something from a compilation anyway, where the devil shows up to a girl's family in disguise, and secretly reveals to her that, by the time the night is out, she must select the life of one of those there for him to take. If she does not, he will kill her entire family. At the end of the night, she turns to him and swallows, and says: "I've chosen. Take your own life.")

[Badger]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

Robyn, maybe the smart thing would be to figure it all out first. But I know (and probably mentioned when this came on back then) that all my characters would act impulsively and save the child. Just a gut reaction. My namesake Badger, although he does have his flaws and doesnt necessarily care (or pretend not to care) about the general human population, would not stand to allow the active suffering of a child in his presence. He would act before thinking. It really isnt necessarily a matter of being self-righteous on the matter or not. Just hardwired into the brain: Child in danger, save, hurt/kill/stop the abusers (not heroic to kill abusers? I did say he has flaws). He would have done it before realizing what he had done. Most of my other characters would be similar.

 

Truthfully I do have to say this would probably be an Iron Age situation. Most Golden/Silver Age heroes would have the knee-jerk reaction to save the kid. Part of that particular genre.

[Badger]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

Oh, and not to be argumentative. True, you cant stop all the suffering and crime. But it doesnt stop the superhero from trying. If you come across suffering you try to stop it.

[Robyn]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

Oh' date=' and not to be argumentative. True, you cant stop all the suffering and crime. But it doesnt stop the superhero from trying. If you come across suffering you try to stop it.[/quote']

 

Interesting thoughts:

 

Was the person who created Omelas, then, a superhero?

 

They came across suffering. They tried to stop it. Their solution was a bit more convoluted than simply "find the person responsible and stop them", but perhaps they realized that no single person was responsible; since it was the actions of every single person in the city that led to this suffering, any solution had to address them all collectively.

 

An interesting side point from this - not every situation can be reduced to a single person, or even group of people, on whom to place (the) blame. If the need to act is a compulsion, will the PC create a villain, finding someone to blame, a scapegoat to be an outlet for the evil in the world? And, if they do, how is this different from the person who created Omelas, finding an innocent child to suffer?

 

I think the reason it was a child, and had to be one of the citizens, was to present the dilemma of an innocent victim - when heroes try to intervene, it's not heroic (I speculate) unless they are not only saving a good person, but only hurting a bad person. This is why the person who made the original deal to create the city of Omelas wouldn't be considered a hero; instead of hurting an evil person to save the city, they hurt someone who was, without question, good. This is too much like the decisions that face us in daily life (help one good person, or another) to be easily answered. It perhaps says something about the heroic spirit, or rather, the spirit in games we play, that we require a villainous aspect to be present in any of our "victims" to fulfill the heroic conditions.

 

This is getting out of order and a bit confusing, so I'll stop here for the night. Which, by the way, is late.

[nexus]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

She was already dead!

 

She killed HERSELF the moment she stowed away. That's what the story is about. It's about someone who grew up in a coddling, padded, no-sharp-corners, foolproof environment being exposed to the real world. It's about good intentions not being enough.

 

It's about a universe where the cold equations give their results with no regard to the gender, age, or innocence of the people affected.

 

Does that seem harsh? Does that seem unfair? Does it seem wrong that a girl should have to die just because she wanted to see her brother, and didn't understand the consequences of her actions?

 

Tough.

 

The universe isn't responsible for catering to your feelings. It is what it is.

 

Its not about catering to anyone's feelings. The story itself delivers its message clearly and powerfully, but when you think about it, the situation comes across as contrived. Frankly, many stories meant to present moral delimas or messasges are at least somewhat contrived as they are more or less set pieces to communicate their moral. "Those who walk away from Omelas" itself contrived. I loved "The Cold Equations" but even I thought the situation rang false under the surface

[nexus]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

In fact with safety margins that tight' date=' the moment he launched he'd note that the acceleration he was achieving was detectably short of what was expected and the mission should have aborted right then and there until they identified and rectified the problem. Some people take from Cold Equations the intended message, that the universe has no mercy and sometimes you have to resort to lifeboat ethics as a result. But other people can't help but think "Boy, that's a bad design for a lifeboat."[/quote']

 

Or some times they think both.

 

Rep when I can.

[nexus]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

The Rocket question goes' date=' if it is a strictly A,B, or C question well, the kid has to go. But being a hero, there is alwies a D. Assuming you have the tech, you could improvise a way to induce hypothermia on the child to reduce his oxygen use. He would at least have a chance to be revived. Perhaps if you both slept a lot, you would have enough oxygen to make it.[/quote']

 

In the original story the problem was fuel, not oxygen. One thing I always wondered was, and forgive me if this is brutal sounding, but why didn't the pilot shoot the girl before spacing her? It would have been a much more merciful death than exposure to vaccuum.

[nexus]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

Here's an interesting bit from Wikipedia on it

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cold_Equations

[McCoy]

Re: WWYCD: Omelas

 

In the original story the problem was fuel' date=' not oxygen. One thing I always wondered was, and forgive me if this is brutal sounding, but why didn't the pilot shoot the girl before spacing her? It would have been a much more merciful death than exposure to vaccuum.[/quote']

The pilot had a gun? And didn't jettison it along with every other non-essential piece of equiptment in an attempt to get the mass down to save the stowaway?