Tuesday, May 19, 2009

What would you do?

You're swimming in a lake, and there is a kitten and a child drowning, and you can only rescue one of them. Somehow, you get a flash that the child will grow up to be a serial killer, or another Adolph Hitler. The kitten will be an ordinary kitten, who, if you rescue it, will live to be a great old age of 18 and will be a good companion for a single owner.

So....do you rescue the child, knowing its future, simply because rescuing a child is more important than rescuing an animal;

Do you rescue the child hoping that an intervention will prevent somehow the terrible future you saw;

Do you rescue the child because it's simply the right thing to do;

Do you rescue the child for some other reason;

Do you rescue the cat because you don't want that future to come true for the child;

Do you rescue the cat because it will be a better presence on the earth for its years;

Do you rescue the cat because you like animals better than children;

Do you rescue the cat simply because you feel there is no escaping destiny and the child must be stopped before all those terrible things happen;

Or do you make some other choice?
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I put the panicked, wet, angry cat on the child's head.

4 comments:

  1. Rescue the child. Since when do I get visions of the future?

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  2. Save the KITTEH!!!

    "rescuing a child is more important than rescuing an animal" <-- There's the flaw in your argument.

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  3. Brian: Since you went swimming in the lake that serves as the cooling pond for the Springfield Nuclear Reactor.

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  4. That's probably what turned him into Hitler.

    And you know - you shouldn't trust flashes.

    ReplyDelete