Wait, so I don't need to apply to keep being a beta tester right?
No, you have to do something like Xanner did to get removed from the beta list.
Aww man D; i cant donate to get in?
I do not think I am allowed to solicit beta spots. If you donate, I can offer a thank you gift (in the form of beta+testing opportunities), but I cannot directly incentivize you to give me money.
Also guys, suprise surprise! You all helped me write a critical response for AP Composition and Literature!
Kill or be Killed
I found the following moral dilemma on an online forum that discusses just about anything. There are two people in a place completely secluded from anyone else. One is on the ground, the other is standing over them holding a gun. The person holding the gun points it directly at the other and fires. Which one of those two people would you rather be?
It is a moral dilemma that forces the reader to reach deep into their own values and decide what kind of person they are and want to be. More often than not, these values stem from the way a person is raised. As explained in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, "middle class kids learn a sense of entitlement" while "the poor ... , by contrast, are intimidated by authority" (Gladwell 104). People raised in a wealthy family, taught their whole lives to value themselves and that they are very important, may be more likely to sacrifice the other person to save their own life. Conversely, a person that has lived in a different situation, where honor and respect are taught as social and moral ideals, could not justify killing the other person, so they may choose death.
While neither answer is incorrect, the decision a person makes exposes a deep truth about them. A person that is willing to give his or her own life for another will often support their response almost exclusively through pathos, or emotional rhetoric. It could very well be that many of the people that opt to die do not have a high sense of self worth, especially growing up in a society that idolizes heroes that would choose the same fate. According to forum user Slimabob, "When you think about it, unless you have no conscience, the knowledge of killing someone would follow you forever eventually driving you to do something like commit Self Delete or turn yourself in .... Even though you would die and never see your loved ones again, it is a greatly better alternative to being riddled with guilt for the rest of your life" (Slimabob 8/29/11). The question is then left over, what makes guilt so overpowering, and why do some people seem to be more controlled by it than others?
Guilt is a mind game, with no real purpose in the physical world. Even though it is not tangible, it is a very real force, as expressed by forum user LeetZero. "I'd rather be the shot one, and before I die I want to look straight in the other guy's eye, leaving him a scar on his heart for the rest of the life" (LeetZero 8/29/11). While the person on the ground cannot fight back with their own gun, they can fight back just as substantially without literal substance.
A person arguing for sacrificing the other person to save their own self will usually use a more logos (logical rhetoric) approach to justifying their choice. It can be reasonably concluded that, given the option between being killed or killing, the latter option could be justified as self defense. However, can a situation that you have complete control over, since you are deciding who dies, be justified as self defense? Justifying this decision is much harder than the alternative, and requires an identifying of values and morals.
While trying to understand the reasoning behind choosing whether or not to kill, a good place to look is Philip K. richard's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? In the novel, a bounty hunter must hunt down and kill androids that attempt to live in human society. While these androids are often innocents, all androids have been banned from earth. These androids are so intricate, they are completely impossible to differentiate from a regular human, with one exception. An android has very little compassion for others, which makes them dangerous in moral situations. The main character has justified killing the androids in his mind because he thinks of them as less than human, but as the story progresses he begins to feel empathy for the androids and their struggles. He realizes he needs to reframe his ideology if he is to accept his actions and continue his life, since empathy is the primary driving force behind the motives of bounty hunters. Ultimately realizing that he is just like the emotionless androids if he feels no remorse for killing, he is able to come to terms with his responsibility.
In a situation where I had the option to die or murder another person, I would choose to sacrifice the other person to save myself. While this will likely cause moral hardships for me in the future, it is a fact that it is better to face challenges and take them on rather than to surrender to them. I see morals the same way. Giving up should never be an option when the alternative is death. I would try to overcome these moral hardships by giving back to the community to leave an overall positive footprint in history.
Poll