Quote of the Day

I was mulling over a response to an article over in cygnusfap's journal in which I was quoting from an episode of Babylon 5, and was reminded of a favourite quotation which comes from that episode:

No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, not for glory, not for fame; for one person, in the dark, where no-one will ever know or see.

And that got me thinking - could I do that? If so, under what circumstances? I suspect that it's a question that could never really be answer until one found oneself in such a situation - something I sincerely hope never arises.

Let's start with the first sentence alone, that way it's easier to get a "yes". Think of the end of The Wrath of Khan: the Enterprise will be destroyed, killing all on board unless someone fixes the engines. Whoever does this will get a lethal dose of radiation. IIRC, Spock (being a Vulcan) is the only one who could survive long enough t do the job. There's our first scenario: in Spock's place, either everyone (including you dies), or you give up your life to save everyone else - I'm 99.9...% sure I could do that. Take the next step, and say you're one of n people who could fix it. You can hope someone else fixes it and possibly die, or do it yourself and die for sure. This one's somewhat harder - I'd like to think that if no-one else immediately jumped forward I would "do the right thing", but...

Now we need situations where you're not in any danger yourself - it's either you die or they do (but never both). You always have the option to just walk away. I'm going to ignore the fame and glory options - I have no particular desire for either, and certainly neither's worth dying for - so we'll go straight for the millions. There's a nice big bomb in central London, if it goes off it will kill thousands of people. You (at a safe distance) have found the remote detonator which you can disable, but in doing so will set off it's self destruct which will kill you. The bomb squad are a minute away and it's going of in 20 seconds - what do you do? Again, I'd like to think that I'd go for it - if for no other reason than the fact that I don't think I could live with a few thousand deaths on my conscience.

All that's left now is the numbers game - how many people would it take, and who would they have to be? The Selfish Gene does an analysis of what you should do from the point of view of your DNA, but I don't think that's the answer we're looking for. One feels that the answer should be two - but what if they're serial killers, or people you don't like (or Tony Blair and George W Bush)? I don't think it's possible do draw the line at any fixed point.

And finally, the full Monty - it's just one other person. Who would it have to be, if indeed there is someone. This is a hard one to answer. I can imagine there being someone - I just haven't met her yet (or possibly don't know it yet). If I had children, then yes, without a second thought and probably the same would go for their mother. Other family... I don't know, but I'd have to admit probably not. Beyond that, we again get into layers of vagueness - what if it's someone you know will be able to save the lives of many people who will otherwise die etc...

Here endeth today's moral quandary.

500k away from the latest episode of 24, but can I resist the temptation to download a DivX of The Two Towers?