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Which would you Choose?

What Is Your Choice?

  • Total voters
    19
repeter

repeter

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I'm going to give you a scenario. I would like you to answer in the poll ahove after having read the scenario.

You are the leader of your country. Your country is at war with another country. One day ago, your analysts cracked the enemy cipher, and you have learned of an impending attack on your capital city. You have also learned of a weakness in the enemy defensive line 5 days after the capital city will be attacked.

You have 2 choices as to how to respond.

1. You either evacuate or reinforce your capital. Either way, the enemy will realize you cracked their code, and they will change their code. They will also realize their weakness, and they will block the weakness. This choice will protect your capital city, but it will force the war to drag on. 10 Million people die in the course of the war.

2. You evacuate only the leaders of your country, and allow the enemy to destroy your capital city. Your armies wait for the weakness, and spring forward, and win the war. Your capital city, however, is destroyed. Regardless, you have won the war. 1 Million of your citizens die, along with 1 million citizens of the country you are at war with.

Stipulate that whatever I have stated will happen. No choices but 1 or 2.

What will you do?
 
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Win the war, enslave the conquered to rebuild the city.....;)
 
I choose #2. Winning is everything.
 
Anyone see the greater lesson behind this question?
 
The 2nd option saves nine million. It would be idiotic to not go with that
 
repeter said:
10 Million people die in the course of the war.
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This is the flaw in your question. No one can accurately predict the future. Better strategies, better tactics, better logistics, and you reduce your casualties. You save those in the current, then work to save those in the future.
 
Beat them to it, and burn your own city before they can. Worked for the Russians.
 
repeter said:
I'm going to give you a scenario. I would like you to answer in the poll ahove after having read the scenario.

You are the leader of your country. Your country is at war with another country. One day ago, your analysts cracked the enemy cipher, and you have learned of an impending attack on your capital city. You have also learned of a weakness in the enemy defensive line 5 days after the capital city will be attacked.

You have 2 choices as to how to respond.

1. You either evacuate or reinforce your capital. Either way, the enemy will realize you cracked their code, and they will change their code. They will also realize their weakness, and they will block the weakness. This choice will protect your capital city, but it will force the war to drag on. 10 Million people die in the course of the war.

2. You evacuate only the leaders of your country, and allow the enemy to destroy your capital city. Your armies wait for the weakness, and spring forward, and win the war. Your capital city, however, is destroyed. Regardless, you have won the war. 1 Million of your citizens die, along with 1 million citizens of the country you are at war with.

Stipulate that whatever I have stated will happen. No choices but 1 or 2.

What will you do?
Click to expand...


I do not think I would just sacrifice a million of my own countrymen. Especially considering the fact I do not know for sure if sacrificing them would actually end the war or not sacrificing them would make the war drag on. However many the enemy looses is no concern of mine as long as the enemy looses more lives than my side.
 
Knowing the unrealistic consequences that you enforce on us to cope with, I'd go with option no. 2.

Otherwise, I'd go with 1.
 
Skateguy said:
Call Chuck Norris---He kicks serious butt.
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Seeing the number of casualties in a non-nuclear involved war, it seems like Chuck Norris is already there.
 
jamesrage said:
I do not think I would just sacrifice a million of my own countrymen. Especially considering the fact I do not know for sure if sacrificing them would actually end the war or not sacrificing them would make the war drag on. However many the enemy looses is no concern of mine as long as the enemy looses more lives than my side.
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My point in all this, was asking whether you are willing to sacrifice x amount of people now to save x+y amount of people later.

x=positive integer
y=positive integer
 
repeter said:
My point in all this, was asking whether you are willing to sacrifice x amount of people now to save x+y amount of people later.

x=positive integer
y=positive integer
Click to expand...

Although not the same situation, it's my understanding that this was why we bombed Japan at the end of WWII (to limit casualties now as opposed to losing more Americans later).
 
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So... 10 million people die and you lose the war, or 1 million people die and you win the war?

What kind of choice is that?
 
lizzie said:
Although not the same situation, it's my understanding that this was why we bombed Japan at the end of WWII (to limit casualties now as opposed to losing more Americans later).
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As well as limit Japanese casualties. They would have been up in the low millions.
 
idk said:
So... 10 million people die and you lose the war, or 1 million people die and you win the war?

What kind of choice is that?
Click to expand...

The choice to condemn those 1 million citizens who trust and follow you to certain death. Heartless, but necessary.
 
repeter said:
The choice to condemn those 1 million citizens who trust and follow you to certain death. Heartless, but necessary.
Click to expand...

The way I see it, it's anything but heartless. Having the heart to do something is doing what is necessary in spite of the pain or hardship it will cause. It takes a strong heart to do that.
 
repeter said:
I'm going to give you a scenario. I would like you to answer in the poll ahove after having read the scenario.

You are the leader of your country. Your country is at war with another country. One day ago, your analysts cracked the enemy cipher, and you have learned of an impending attack on your capital city. You have also learned of a weakness in the enemy defensive line 5 days after the capital city will be attacked.

You have 2 choices as to how to respond.

1. You either evacuate or reinforce your capital. Either way, the enemy will realize you cracked their code, and they will change their code. They will also realize their weakness, and they will block the weakness. This choice will protect your capital city, but it will force the war to drag on. 10 Million people die in the course of the war.

2. You evacuate only the leaders of your country, and allow the enemy to destroy your capital city. Your armies wait for the weakness, and spring forward, and win the war. Your capital city, however, is destroyed. Regardless, you have won the war. 1 Million of your citizens die, along with 1 million citizens of the country you are at war with.

Stipulate that whatever I have stated will happen. No choices but 1 or 2.

What will you do?
Click to expand...

The real question is whether the leader knows the outcome of either situation. In this case, yes, we do know because you told us, but otherwise it will be a much tougher decision.

I would choose "win the war" simply because we already know the outcome of that decision, and that decision is much better than the other. The greatest good is the lesser of the two evils.

Another problem is that choosing to "win the war" will make the leader look worse if his options were ever discovered. Emotionally, choosing to win the war would be much worse because your own citizens, your own countrymen die. Strategically, choosing to protect the city would prove to be much more traumatic for, not you as the leader, but the country as a whole or the 10 million that die.

Analysis over, sorry for putting you through that.
 
DrunkenAsparagus said:
The 2nd option saves nine million. It would be idiotic to not go with that
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I thought of it in terms of civilians vs. combatants. I know a person is a person, but if I am the leader I have to make two additional assumptions: First, I am not the aggressor in the stated war. Second, I am not drafting people who are not willing to fight. So I would trade 10 million willing combatants to save 1 million innocent civilians. I know that isn't specifically stated in the opening, but it seems the likely consequence of this scenario. But maybe I'm an idiot.
 
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Tsunami said:
I thought of it in terms of civilians vs. combatants. I know a person is a person, but if I am the leader I have to make two additional assumptions: First, I am not the aggressor in the stated war. Second, I am not drafting people who are not willing to fight. So I would trade 10 million willing combatants to save 1 million innocent civilians. I know that isn't specifically stated in the opening, but it seems the likely consequence of this scenario. But maybe I'm an idiot.
Click to expand...

I thought of it in these terms as well. 10 million who had a chance to go down fighting might be better than 1 million innocents. Chances are though, that some of the 10 million would be civilians as well, so as hard as it might be, I think I'd choose to sacrifice the capital to win the war.
 
Save the city. Then nuke the entire region where the war is. (after pulling out troops of course). War ended with minimal loss on our side. Good enough for me. Not to mention that in the long run it would make other countries realize to not F*** with us, thereby saving many more millions.
 
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