21

I watched '21' yesterday and I found one questioned posed quite interesting. The Monty Hall problem:

"Suppose you're on a game show and you're given the choice of three doors. Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. The car and the goats were placed randomly behind the doors before the show. The rules of the game show are as follows: After you have chosen a door, the door remains closed for the time being. The game show host, Monty Hall, who knows what is behind the doors, now has to open one of the two remaining doors, and the door he opens must have a goat behind it. If both remaining doors have goats behind them, he chooses one randomly. After Monty Hall opens a door with a goat, he will ask you to decide whether you want to stay with your first choice or to switch to the last remaining door. Imagine that you chose Door 1 and the host opens Door 3, which has a goat. He then asks you "Do you want to switch to Door Number 2?" Is it to your advantage to change your choice?"


Without giving much thought, one would simply answer that there is no probability difference in switching or remaining. People would ordinarily choose to stay with the same door as they assume that the host is trying to influence their decision. They would be wrong.



As the matrix above shows, in 2/3 of the possible scenarios, switching leads to the car. Hence in the situation described, it is always more beneficial to switch - probability wise anyway. Which door is chosen first is inconsequential.

E

So I have a question for you today.

You're driving down a road at 100km/hour. You're breaks are gone, you can't stop. In the distance you note that there are 3 lanes.

Lane A - A child sits in the middle
Lane B - An old man lays sprawled on the floor (he fell)
Lane C - A cripple stands motionless

You cannot stop the car. And you are going to have to kill one of them. Which of them do you choose to kill?

Do not scroll down until answered.
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I hypothesize that no one ever kills the kid. People either choose to kill the old man or the cripple. The determinant is which fear is greater: the fear of getting old or the fear of being helpless. While the question frames the reader as the driver, the reader often projects him/herself as one of the three characters; the character we fear the most. The reader then chooses to kill that character off; kill off the representation of helplessness / age.

People who choose to kill the cripple are often unaware of their driving fear and rationalize it using simpler terms of productivity i.e. the old man could probably contribute more to society.

People who choose to kill the old person are fueled by the fear of getting older. This fear stems not so much from the simple progression of years, but from the loss of youth and that which is associated with it.

The child holds the master status of innocence. Accordingly, none would (ordinarily) chose to kill the kid.

Recently watched Independence Day again, I simply loved the presidents speech in the end. If only they don't write em like hollywood in real life!

"Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in this history of mankind.

Mankind -- that word should have new meaning for all of us today.

We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore.

We will be united in our common interests.

Perhaps its fate that today is the 4th of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom, not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution -- but from annihilation.

We're fighting for our right to live, to exist.

And should we win the day, the 4th of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice:

We will not go quietly into the night!

We will not vanish without a fight!

We're going to live on!

We're going to survive!

Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!"