Would you kill 10000 people to save the person you love most?

[CurdinHenry]

Context -

You would just have to press a button and you wouldn't have to see it happen

You would be guaranteed not to know any of them beforehand

No one would know it was you unless you confessed

Yanbu yes
Yabu no

Jack Reacher has entered the chat 🙄

Yes of course, 10,000 is not that much in the grand scheme of things.

10,000 is 0.000111111111% of the 9 billion worlds population

I’d kill my own mother or husband to save my child, 10,000 strangers…no problem

Wow, this thread sure attracted the Reddit edgelords, huh...? WTF...

I mean, just look at all these super-cool, unfazed, wannabe serial killer types, bro... 🙄

Riiiiggggght.

It’s because it was a question on a tv show that has been on recently…Widow’s Bay, it won tonnes of Emmys.

i really don’t understand why so many people are struggling with a random hypothetical. It’s just the trolley problem…we’ve all been asked it in other variations so why take offense today

This is a revolting OP. I kind of hit a Yabu/YANBU, no idea which one, as I mis-read the post. Now I don't want anything to do with this. Hideous.

This is why I'm glad I am not a parent: it plays merry hell with people's objectivity and morals.

No. I don’t think I could inflict the pain on that amount of people. Life is fragile enough.
Traumatic death has a knock on effect throughout the entire family and friends of the victim.
It is a very unlikely scenario.
No I actually couldn’t kill innocent people.

@gostickyourheadinapig don’t let this thread be any indicator of normal parenting.

We know soldiers etc suffer PTSD and yet there is a bunch of MNs who whilst not answering their doors at night can shoot 10000 people in the head and sleep soundly 🤔

🤣

@GreenCaterpillarOnALeaf · Yesterday 22:33

In a heart beat. Tbh to save my kids, husband or family members I wouldn’t care if I had to do it by hand or if I knew them.

😆

Ah so you’re one of those im referring to then.

I have two children and pregnant with no. 3.

Anyone saying they’d murder/kill 10,000 (does anyone here even comprehend how many people that is) without ‘any qualms’ because they ‘love their kids’ and is ‘shocked’ thay anyone else feels differently is cringe and embarrassing. You don’t love your child any more than anyone else.

Beyond weird, anyone who proclaims wanting to kill other random innocent people is a measure of their love for their loved ones, even hypothetically.

It’s all very performative.

If you wouldn’t slaughter every last child on this Earth with your own hand to save your own child, you can’t possibly love them. Right?

I have a sense that the I WOULD NEVER DO THIS YOU DISGUST ME posters would in practice and behind closed doors be giving it three or four pushes of the button to be certain

Chuckling at "you are a man you engage in distasteful hypotheticals and only THEY do that"

Not read the full thread, so apologies if someone else has asked this.

It seems most that I’ve read, who have said they would do it, would be doing it for their child/children only. So if the scenario is to save your child, would your answer still be yes to any of the following:

The 10,000 you kill have to be the same age as the person you are saving

The 10,000 you kill are all under 18’s

The 10,000 you kill are all under 12’s

The 10,000 you kill are all under 5’s

Curious then, if your answer changed to no for any of them, would it be a yes it the numbers were lower… eg 1 life for 1 life.

I initially voted that I wouldn’t do it. But on further reflection, I could see scenarios where I would - eg if the 10,000 were all convicted (and no ambiguity over guilt) paedophiles, rapists and murderers, or if the 10,000 people were all people who had been told they had less than 6 months to live and had willingly volunteered to be killed in this way.

Yeah, your 'sense' that people would do this ('push the button,') is wrong in the majority of cases, and certainly for me.

You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better though hun. You keep on chuckling there gurl!

I know right. Ridiculous thread. 'I wubz my babies more because I would kill 10,000 people to save them!'

LOLz

It's just that you don't have a very empathetic or thoughtful energy. It's one thing to say it would be tough but I couldn't live with myself. Quite another to say variations of "no you scum how do you SLEEP at night with your death button chat!"

The posters calling this an offensive hypothetical thought experiment would do well to think about the reasons that 10,000 or more have been killed in wars with the full support of ordinary people - it's because the justification for those wars is very often sold as "this other group is a danger to your children".

Why would you think that? I certainly wouldn’t assume that about someone so set in their morals that they couldn’t do it (not wouldn’t, couldn’t).

My initial thought was absolutely not - but I went on to think and realised in some very niche scenarios I would. I think most people that would do it would admit they’d do it in response to a hypothetical question on an anonymous forum.

You clearly have some discomfort with the thought that not everyone would do this and would judge you if you would.

I consider myself more OK than most with the idea of killing someone, but it's only specific people. Pete Hegseth or Jair Bolsonaro? I'd happily pull the trigger and laugh as they bled out. 10,000 anonymous people that I don't know about or have to think about beyond pressing a button seems inhuman on a different level to me.

I also can't imagine a scenario in which any of my loved ones would want to speak to me again if I did it on their behalf, so it's a no from me on this one.

Yes. I’m selfish. I’d feel awful about it though

No, I could not kill 10,000 strangers to save someone I love. The decision may kill me though, the grief at my loss of my daughter or my partner may also kill me.

The agony of murdering 10,000 would have me live in hell forever.

100% Id press that button if it saved a family member. No hesitation. No second thoughts.