Monday, January 19, 2009

Critical Thinking With Morality Argument

Today was a very slow day for me, I mean I went to lecture at 10 am then slowly dragged till 4 pm where I had my Critical Thinking and Reading Tutorial. During the tutorial, my lecturer gave us a piece of paper where there's a situation given and we are suppose to discuss and present. That is the part where my day got interesting. 

The question was like this, " A local plane (the question actually stated which company!!) was flying back to Malaysia and suddenly it had engine failure and crashed into a shark-infested ocean. There is an undamaged raft which can hold 7 people, but there are 11 of them clinging to the raft. You are given the choice to pick 7 of them so that they survive. Who will you pick and why? "
1. A, 20. An extremely brilliant medical student and the only child of a fisherman. Was rushing home to see his dying father.
2. B, 23. A famous and beautiful popstar. Was on her way to give a charity performance in KL. Earns millions of dollars a year and donates most of it to charity. Is suffering from leukemia and expected to live for only another 3 years.
3. C, 49. A successful import-export merchant suspected of being a smuggler. Owns a fleet of boats. Knows the area of the crash very well. An extremely cheerful and friendly person.
4. D, 56. A retired Navy Commander. Sustained serious injuries during the crash. The only person in the group with long experience in navigation. Was on his way to Malaysia for his daughter's wedding.
5. E, 36. A specialist in tropical diseases. Has carried out extensive research on dengue fever and is on the verge of finding a cure for the disease.
6. F, 22. A former Miss Malaysia and tourist ambassador to several countries before becoming an air hostess. Is engaged to be married to a Sabah timber tycoon.
7. G, 29. The youngest cabinet minister in Malaysia. Has great appeal and influence on Malaysian youth. Has done much to awaken political and national consciousness among them. Is presently being secretly investigated by his government for alleged corruption.
8. H, 41. An oil-drilling expert who has just attended an international oil conference. Is carrying important oil-mining documents that indicate that there is a possibility Malaysian waters have a huge oil deposit. Has a contract to train Malaysians in oil drilling.
9. J, 49. Was returning home from a successful heart operation made possible by the money raised for him by his only daughter, a primary school teacher. A compulsive gambler.
10. K, 32. A political exile. Has written many articles in international magazines, criticising his government's politics. Speaks and writes 8 languages fluently.
11. L, 16. A schoolgirl. Was returning home from Hawaii where she was Malaysia's representative at a Girl Guides Jamboree. Very active in social work, church and youth activities.

So the above are the 11 people whom we are suppose to select 7 to rescue. Basically there is no right or wrong on who you pick but the are some that we are definitely letting them go. For instance no. 9. I mean he has no contribution, the only person who are going to mourn for his death will be his daughter. Moreover, he is a compulsive gambler, only Genting will feel the lost. Which everyone actually agreed that we let him DIE!! (LOL)

Of course different people have different opinion. Personally, I would let 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 and 11 live. * Wait, there are 7 people that we can save, why you pick 6 only?* Simple, because these 6 people, to me, are the most important people that we should safe, the other 1, it can just be anyone. Now let me explain why do I choose these 6 people.

1 - He is a medical student. Malaysia is in need of doctors. Every year we are producing hundreds and thousands of doctors and yet we are still lack of doctors. I wonder why? However since he is a medical student, he is one of those going to be needed.
2 - She's beautiful! I actually said that during the presentation. Of course there's another reason for me to pick her. She does charity. She is donating the money by hundreds of thousand dollar. You might argue that she may not be that generous if she can live longer, or you might argue that after all she's dying why safe her? Easy, nobody has ever confirmed that LEUKEMIA is incurable. She might just POP! Yay I'm cured! Right and being a popstar, her managing company will definitely arrange for charity show for her as publicity. So no harm saving her. If she really dies, at least we already raked in few million dollars.
3 - He OWNS and KNOW where his boats are. WE definitely need him. However he is a smuggler. Who cares? He can't run far, we can catch him later. Let's safe ourselves first.
4 - I'll let him die cause sharks are after the blood not us. So if he is thrown into the sea the sharks goes to him, that buys us some time to get onto the raft. 
5 - He lives thanks to his research. A lot of people had been dying of these tropical disease. Since he is going to find a cure then why not we safe him so that he can safe other people?
6 - Personally I felt that she has done nothing good to us. That's all.
7 - Again, this guys is a politician. If he is clear from corruption I will definitely safe him. However, being suspected of corruption, I bet that is a set up so no point saving him. He'll be dead meat anyway.
8 - This is the lucky guy. I had to pick 7 people and I picked 6. So after eliminating the other 4, he is the only one standing. So there he is, SAVE! Well I had some of them arguing that he knows these oil drilling thing and can bring economical opportunity to our country. Seriously, what we need is not drilling more oil to gain more profit! What we actually need is to filter and process our own oil! We are selling cheap crude oil to other country so that they can process it and sell it back to us at higher price! Where's the gain?? DUH!
9 - This guy should go and feed the shark and let us have more sharks' fin.
10 - He speaks 8 languages, so in case we got on to land before that no.3 finds hi boat, he might be in good use. 
11 - She's in her sweet 16!! She still got hope. She had to live. 

Alright, I bet most of you have different ideas. You can have your own argument with your friends. You can fight till he or she says you win or you can do anything you like. Just let me tell you 1 thing. I don't think they are going to survive. Theoretically, the plane crashed into the shark infested ocean, so the plane will sink! So people had to get out before the plane sink or else there wouldn't be a chance to survive at all. So with all those injured people especially our no. 4, there would be blood everywhere. Sharks!!! Sharks are attracted to blood. So before they can get into the raft. All of them would had been eaten by shark. 

Conclusion! No survivors. No need to crack your head. LOL!!!

-off-

ps. really KHIAM TIOK PHAK post...

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