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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.
___________________________________________________________________
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.
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.
___________________________________________________________________
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.
posted by Gabriel at
2:36 AM
2 Comments:
Actually, my thought process was driven on the basis of which guy will be hit less. You'd mentioned that the old man was sprawled on the floor and based on the assumption that the old man would be typically skinny and well sprawled on the floor, I could just attempt to swerve over the guy hoping to not smush his skull with the tires or drag him along the bottom of the car whereas picking the other two would mean obvious death. I almost picked the kid since you'd assume children are small and cannot balance themselves... XD
I'm soooo messed up.
hahahaha... "And you are going to have to kill one of them."
Nothing is gonna save em!
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