YUP- that'd be my reaction, too! I mean really, logically,- 6 BILLION people on the planet- I know -at a REACH- maybe 200 of them... If you take that out to how many THEY know and how many THOSE people know, it's still a microscopic chance that the person who bites it will be anyone I have any remote knowledge of or connection to. AND there's no guarantee that they wouldn't have died that same day, that same way- if I HADN'T pushed the blasted button...
I think I'd pound the offerer to death with it, because they're presenting the classic "BUT WHAT IF THERE WERE AN ATOMIC BOMB AND TORTURING THE DARK-SKINNED GUY WAS THE ONLY WAY TO STOP IT" scenario, and that makes *them* terminally fucking stupid.
According to Wikipedia (and that's how all good stories start), the estimate is $88 for enough rotavirus vaccine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotavirus_vaccine) (note that one brand is currently not available due to contamination issues) to save a life. The number for measles might be a bit higher, but then the measles initiative (http://measlesinitiative.org/) have already picked the low-hanging fruit by saving 4 million lives.
So, about 5,000 lives. I'm not trying to endorse your reaction, just, uh, making this an even harder problem to think about, though I like theweaselking's suggestion.
This has inaccurate implications about human nature. Replace "a million dollars" with "ten bucks" and leave everything else the same and the implications are more accurate.
To depict corporate nature, replace "a million dollars" with "three tenths of one cent" and replace the man doing the clicking with a machine the pushes the button one hundred times a second.
A prior girlfriend had one of those mystery switches on the dashboard of her car. When people asked, she claimed that it controlled whether someone in a South American prison was being tortured or not. Then she'd flip it back and forth at random during the drive...
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(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-26 11:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-27 12:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-26 11:41 pm (UTC)I mean really, logically,- 6 BILLION people on the planet- I know -at a REACH- maybe 200 of them... If you take that out to how many THEY know and how many THOSE people know, it's still a microscopic chance that the person who bites it will be anyone I have any remote knowledge of or connection to. AND there's no guarantee that they wouldn't have died that same day, that same way- if I HADN'T pushed the blasted button...
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Date: 2010-04-27 04:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-04-27 12:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2010-04-27 01:08 pm (UTC)So, about 5,000 lives. I'm not trying to endorse your reaction, just, uh, making this an even harder problem to think about, though I like theweaselking's suggestion.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-27 01:35 am (UTC)To depict corporate nature, replace "a million dollars" with "three tenths of one cent" and replace the man doing the clicking with a machine the pushes the button one hundred times a second.
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Date: 2010-04-27 05:38 am (UTC)(no subject)
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From:Yes...
Date: 2010-04-27 06:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-27 10:37 am (UTC)and "somone will die" with "a child will be disfigured for life"
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Date: 2010-04-27 06:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-04-27 10:40 am (UTC)The Third Man
"Really, Old Man, would you say, 'Keep your money'
or would you begin to think about how many of those dots you could live without?"
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