Would you kill a fellow SD.net member?

[Aaron]

Rob Wilson takes this, no contest.

[PeZook]

A survivor of this insane scenario would probably end up dead of abused further by whatever sick mind devised the "game".

I don't think I'd be able to take a life, though of course extreme situations like this one tend to change one's view. Sometimes.

However, note this: I have no training with weapons. I shot a pistolet once or twice and aren't very good at it.
I can't move quietly, I can't hunt people down and I would hesitate when faced with another, living person.

Therefore, it's ultimately irrelevant if I would or wouldn't kill when forced to. I'd be dead either way, so it's better to shoot yourself rather than loose all your dignity and humanity, turn into a primitive, instinct-driven beast and provide sick entertainment for a deranged mind - and then die anyway.

[RogueIce]

I would kill the lot of you if it meant me surviving in this scenario.

I imagine it would play out much like Coyote mentioned, which raises a question. The OP states that after a certain amount of time of no killing, you die. Can it track your intent to kill someone though? If not, then I imagine once it got down to the hardened veterans, those who it would take awhile to track and kill, even for fellow hardened vets, they might run into the problem of the time limit being reached before they can successfully find and kill one another.

[Spoonist]

Like in all scenarios like this, the only question is if there is a chance of killing someone in control of the scenario.
In Battle Royal the kids where handed their random weapon from people in charge of the scenario. The same instance that I would have been given a lethal weapon I would try to go out in a blaze of glory trying to take out as many of the sick bastards that organized this shithole as possible. Trying to win such a sick competition against all odds would come a distant second place waaay down on my list.

So I and any unlucky collaterals in my vicinity would probably be the first to go.

->RogueIce
In Battle Royal the movie, the island where divided into sections, every now and then a section would become 'hot' meaning you had a short warning before EVERYONE in that section had to leave or get their necklaces blown. So no camping.

[ArmorPierce]

I wouldn't go out on a killing spree unless those others were trying to kill me (such as a group of people deciding that I don't deserve to live because I'm young and don't have dependants and the other stuff that comes with age). What I would do is either wait out and let everyone else die (I am young, extremely healthy moreso than most, I'd gamble me outliving people just by dealing with the element) but someone or a group of people probably will start killing other people in which case I will have to defend myself.

I wouldn't say you deseve to die at all. That has a different connotation. It would be unfortunate for any of most to die. Would you say that all people are of equal moral consideration, regardless of the circumstances?

Is the only doctor in an African village of equal moral worth to the town drunk? Is the MOther of five, who, without her care, would die, of equal moral consideration to the town drunk?

It's not that you deserve to die at all. It's that a lot of dependents equal a lot more suffering if that person bites it. It's a natural conclusion from Utilitarian principles that you ought to act such that you minimize the net harm and suffering. If you have no choice but to kill someone, you shouldn't kill the person who, by killing him, would end up resulting in mor suffering.

I'm sorry, but I don't care. You try to put me down in order to reduce net suffering, I'll cause the most net suffering as possible. Moral or admirable? Maybe not but I don't give a shit.

[The Vortex Empire]

Sorry guys, it's nothing personal, but if I have to kill others to survive, I'll do it. Personally, I'd prefer to be alive and wracked with guilt for the rest of my life then face oblivion. Almost any life is better than death.

[petesampras]

I wouldn't go out on a killing spree unless those others were trying to kill me (such as a group of people deciding that I don't deserve to live because I'm young and don't have dependants and the other stuff that comes with age). What I would do is either wait out and let everyone else die (I am young, extremely healthy moreso than most, I'd gamble me outliving people just by dealing with the element) but someone or a group of people probably will start killing other people in which case I will have to defend myself.

I wouldn't say you deseve to die at all. That has a different connotation. It would be unfortunate for any of most to die. Would you say that all people are of equal moral consideration, regardless of the circumstances?

Is the only doctor in an African village of equal moral worth to the town drunk? Is the MOther of five, who, without her care, would die, of equal moral consideration to the town drunk?

It's not that you deserve to die at all. It's that a lot of dependents equal a lot more suffering if that person bites it. It's a natural conclusion from Utilitarian principles that you ought to act such that you minimize the net harm and suffering. If you have no choice but to kill someone, you shouldn't kill the person who, by killing him, would end up resulting in mor suffering.

I'm sorry, but I don't care. You try to put me down in order to reduce net suffering, I'll cause the most net suffering as possible. Moral or admirable? Maybe not but I don't give a shit.

Which is, of course, the problem with a totaly utilitarian based morality, such as this. It makes sense, rationaly, to place a value on someones life based on their value to society. A person with a good job and a family should rank higher than a unemployed single guy. However, such attitudes cause massive resentment among the 'under class' of your society. This is definitely a bad thing for the long term viability of your society. When a large enough part of society feels undevalued enough - you have big problems.

[Darth Wong]

Actually, if the outcome is bad due to the mechanism you describe, then a utilitarian based ethics system would take that into account. Utilitarianism is one of the few outcome-based ethics systems out there.

[DesertFly]

I think I would be in the category of those who would defend themselves, but not attack others. I would try to kill those who organized this if I had the chance, no questions and no hesitation, but as for randomly killing others in cold blood...not so much.

[Dennis Toy]

what about these collars? Can they be defeated? I would actually study one of these collars and see if i could disarm one. I would stick a piece of metal inside one and destroy it's power cell.

[darthbob88]

what about these collars? Can they be defeated? I would actually study one of these collars and see if i could disarm one. I would stick a piece of metal inside one and destroy it's power cell.

Presumably, they are "magical" technology, and undefeatable.

[K. A. Pital]

What? Battle Royale collars? They're perfectly de-activateable, several were de-activated IIRC.

[Junghalli]

Theoretically, sitting here in front of my comfortable computer, I chose to wait for my collar's timer to run down. I see no reason to play in this game.

Realistically... yeah, I'd probably do it (even though ultimately it probably wouldn't do me any good anyway). I won't attempt to defend it morally, but I fear death too much not to try to take the way out.

[Setesh]

No offense guys, but survival is rule one, and I'm not squeamish about killing you all off to do so. Afterall, if I live I can spend the rest of my life hunting down the nut who did this to us and cut his heart out with a runcible spoon.

Granted I'd start with anyone looking to off me first, since killing the better trained and more aggressive people first extends my lifespan. Of course if this was a real situation I wouldn't tell you that

[PeZook]

No offense guys, but survival is rule one, and I'm not squeamish about killing you all off to do so. Afterall, if I live I can spend the rest of my life hunting down the nut who did this to us and cut his heart out with a runcible spoon.

Why do you think he wouldn't just congratulate you, and then blow your collar? He's psycho enough to force random people to fight and kill each other - why do you think he won't kill you?

I am kind of sad to see how easily the thin veneer of humanity can get stripped off people - all it takes is to threaten them with death. Of course, it's not really a surprise, there were lots of decent, common folks who killed in war even if they didn't care for their lord or general or whatever, but it still makes me sad to see how little we've really advanced.

[ray245]

Which I find in this kind of madness, a little bit of religion to keep our humanity or morality should be good.

I think a strong sense in his or her own belief in life after death may allow a person think a little bit more about killing another human. I mean, if a person did not believe in life after death, he has much more reason to survive and live on than a religious who believed in life after death.

What do you guys think? Is that acceptable or illogical?

[PeZook]

Which I find in this kind of madness, a little bit of religion to keep our humanity or morality should be good.

I think a strong sense in his or her own belief in life after death may allow a person think a little bit more about killing another human. I mean, if a person did not believe in life after death, he has much more reason to survive and live on than a religious who believed in life after death.

What do you guys think? Is that acceptable or illogical?

Well, religion has been used as a tool to prevent warfare amongst Beduin tribes with some success by Mohammad. The real impact it would have in such a death-match is debatable, however. As would any moral system, really. Humans devolve into basic instinct awfully fast when it's survival we're talking about.

[Setesh]

Why do you think he wouldn't just congratulate you, and then blow your collar? He's psycho enough to force random people to fight and kill each other - why do you think he won't kill you?

I am kind of sad to see how easily the thin veneer of humanity can get stripped off people - all it takes is to threaten them with death. Of course, it's not really a surprise, there were lots of decent, common folks who killed in war even if they didn't care for their lord or general or whatever, but it still makes me sad to see how little we've really advanced.

Because if he's insane enough to do this in the first place he will want me to come after him. The actions of the insane are actually fairly easy to predict. The hypothetical wacko who did this has the technical ability to pull it off, therefore works on a logical thought process, if a 'garbage in' one. That's how they catch these guys in real life, they get stuck in patterns.

As for the thin veneer of humanity, its a survival trait and like all such traits can be superceeded by more important or immediate concerns. The funny part is how many people who say they wouldn't kill or would chose to die will break that ethic if presented with the choice for real.

[Coyote]

Humans devolve into basic instinct awfully fast when it's survival we're talking about.

Someone came up with a statistic once, "Humanity is only 24 hours away from barbarism", I think the premise was if the food supply & distribution was somehow threatened and collapsed-- once people started running out of chow, and they noticed that their neighbor had some saved away, how long long would it take being hungry before our more base instincts started to bubble to the surface?

I don't know the details or source of the saying, I've also heard 48 hours, and other references, given. Either way, the important thing was not the exact countdown but just how precarious "civilisation" and "civilised behavior" is when up against an existential threat.

[PeZook]

The funny part is how many people who say they wouldn't kill or would chose to die will break that ethic if presented with the choice for real.

Which is why the only people whose opinion I put any stock in are Mess members in this thread. Their instincs have been superceded by training, so I can say that if one of them says he'd kill, then he most probably would. Others could go both ways - fight with all their might, or break down, roll over and die.

Me included.

[Losonti Tokash]

Which is why the only people whose opinion I put any stock in are Mess members in this thread. Their instincs have been superceded by training, so I can say that if one of them says he'd kill, then he most probably would. Others could go both ways - fight with all their might, or break down, roll over and die.

Me included.

I'll second that. I think if placed in such a situation I'd likely become extremely depressed and just let nature take its course. It's definitely the first reaction I get when trying to envision said scenario, and I don't think reality is going to be more gentle than my imagination.[/i]

[RogueIce]

->RogueIce
In Battle Royal the movie, the island where divided into sections, every now and then a section would become 'hot' meaning you had a short warning before EVERYONE in that section had to leave or get their necklaces blown. So no camping.

Camping, at least as it is used in the way I understand it, is basically sitting yourself somewhere, waiting for some poor sucker to come along (which might well be a viable tactic when there's still 4000 of us around, but that's beside the point).

I was talking about two people actively hunting each other, with little success. They're both moving about, they're both trying to make the kill, but they just can't get the other SOB in their sights. I guess I was asking if the auto-kill function is simply based on a timer, or if it can somehow read the fact that you are trying to kill, just having no luck at it.

Which only comes into play of discussions on who would win in this scenario, and is not that relevent to the point of the OP. But it's fun anyway.

Why do you think he wouldn't just congratulate you, and then blow your collar? He's psycho enough to force random people to fight and kill each other - why do you think he won't kill you?

You're right. I can't be 100% sure that my "reward" for winning this little contest is not my own demise.

What I do know for sure is that if I don't participate and try to kill you all, I will die, whether by someone else's hand (because there will be those hunting) or due to my collar.

That doesn't mean that I wouldn't try to find some way out if possible, but I'll still defend myself and/or actively kill others if that's what it takes to stay alive. I can't very well find a way out of this situation with no head, now can I?

I am kind of sad to see how easily the thin veneer of humanity can get stripped off people - all it takes is to threaten them with death. Of course, it's not really a surprise, there were lots of decent, common folks who killed in war even if they didn't care for their lord or general or whatever, but it still makes me sad to see how little we've really advanced.

I think survival is one of the most base instincts we have. That's not to say that none of the people in here willing to kill wouldn't try and find another way out of the situation, but if it's kill or be killed, they're not going to write it off as an option, either.

While you can try and argue the morality of not killing off the most "productive" and "valuable" members of society, I have a hard time believeing you'll be able to convince some 3500 others, many of whom are complete strangers, that somebody else's life is more valuable than their own.

In the end, in a scenario where the only two options are to kill someone else, or die yourself, quite a few people will decide their life is the most important thing to them, so fuck the rest of you. The other reaction I could see is what was described above, others being overwhelmed by it all and simply breaking down completely.

I imagine what would happen in this situation largely depends on what type of person you are, and your training/experiences in life.

[Sikon]

This isn't actually a situation of someone choosing between personal death or killing someone. It is a situation of someone choosing between apparently sure death versus only a 0.0003 or 0.03% * (X * Y) chance of survival by trying to kill the opposition. X is the probability that the organizers of the event actually leave the final survivor alive ... without any clear motivation to do so but some possible motivation to eliminate the last witness. Y is a factor to represent a particular person's degree of combat willingness and effectiveness making their probability of being the last survivor be either greater than or less than the 1 in 3000 average if they fight.

Psychologically, some might be object to thinking of combat in terms of probabilities when it is determined by individual actions. But facing many opponents in a chaotic environment involves an element of unpredictability. Of course, a few people like experienced soldiers could have a vastly better chance, e.g. a high value of Y, though they still sleep someday, but the average person's chances are low.

So, to an order of magnitude, there is perhaps somewhere on the order of 1 in 10,000 chance of the average individual without exceptional combat effectiveness becoming the last survivor. For general perspective on a probability that miniscule, outside this scenario, taking few dozen ordinary airline flights amounts to as much changed probability of death, as does on the order of 100 hours on the road for the average driver.

The intent of the opening post is presumably what would people do if they knew absolutely that the collars could not be defeated, i.e. knowing they were perfect devices, like magically effective. And probably people are expected to know with absolute certainty that the organizers of the event would let the last witness survive.

But nobody really could know all of that with the level of perfect, absolute certainty significant when dealing with these orders of magnitude. Regardless of whatever people are told, very little could be literally 100.000% known, if this is set in the real universe practically at all.

If a person is 99.9% sure that any technique messing with the collar would result in death sooner or later, the remaining 0.1% guessed chance is still better than the probability of success in the alternative combat attempt for the average person. For example, most people wouldn't even have much to lose if they tried to get the collar pried or cracked a little to attempt to have seawater leak into it in immersion, trying to short out or eventually corrode its batteries and circuits.

After all, it is not known how good were the criminal engineers making the collars and the laborers assembling them. Even regular products manufactured by the millions and well-tested sometimes have deficiencies and fail. And/or a number of other things could be tried, just in case, when on the order of a 0.01% chance of success is relatively good enough. If nothing else, eventually diving into the ocean from the shore might see if the collar really explodes when it likely loses radio communication with any control computer due to a little depth in seawater stopping ordinary radio waves. (If the collar explodes, a person would also tend to have a faster, cleaner death than getting shot possibly by an inept rifleman or RPG shooter, but that's off-topic). If someone did manage collar tampering without it blowing up, they might have as an option the nice gesture of leaving their broken collar in plain sight as proof to the next person seeing it, along with scratched instructions. Of course, the event organizers might monitor it too closely and counter that before many escaped the collars, but that isn't known with 99.999% certainty.

The preceding is considering from a perspective outside of ethics or moral concerns, since those would mostly be obvious.

In a way, this thread is interesting from the standpoint of asking what would it take for an organization willing to threaten people with death to control them. This scenario has never exactly occurred in the real world, but there are dictators and criminal organizations using the threat of lethal force to control people. And there is some suggestion that in some scenarios such could have its effectiveness without people really knowing they would survive by cooperating, with them rather motivated by a seemingly slightly greater chance of survival.

[J]

Then it gets down to the hunt. And, to be perfectly honest, once it boils down to a handful of those of us in the Mess who've gotten to live out 'people hunting' for a living, frequently sanctioned by various government agencies, things get really fucking interesting-- and bloody.

My money's on Wilson, personally.

What about Jake99 and his ability to make headshots with a pistol at 200 yards? I think he'll be a very formidable opponent.

[Batman]

Then it gets down to the hunt. And, to be perfectly honest, once it boils down to a handful of those of us in the Mess who've gotten to live out 'people hunting' for a living, frequently sanctioned by various government agencies, things get really fucking interesting-- and bloody.
My money's on Wilson, personally.

What about Jake99 and his ability to make headshots with a pistol at 200 yards? I think he'll be a very formidable opponent.

Well if we're taking into account ridiculous claims like that, there's me and Clark for starters to account for, there's Connor...